ARTICLE: How Chilcot will whitewash the Iraq War

Hat tip: http://www.thecanary.co/2016/07/05/heres-chilcot-will-whitewash-iraq-war/

The long awaited report from the UK government’s inquiry into the decision to go to war in Iraq is going to be released on Wednesday.

But make no mistake: the process was designed from the start to let decision-makers off the hook for their roles in an illegal invasion that has destroyed a country and paved the way for the rise of the Islamic State.

A hint at the report’s findings were revealed by Lord Butler, who led a previous 2004 Iraq inquiry, which concluded that while Tony Blair had been “wrong” about Saddam Hussein’s WMD capacity, he did not deliberately deceive anyone:

“You can see the mistakes that deceived the intelligence community into thinking Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. I have talked to the agencies and I hope that they have learnt the lessons from that,” said Butler.

Conflict of interest

Sir John Chilcot, who chairs the current inquiry, was a member of Butler’s team for that previous inquiry. The secretary of the current inquiry is Margaret Aldred, who was previously deputy head of Defence and Overseas Secretariat (subsequently Foreign and Defence Policy Secretariat).

According to the Cabinet Office Annual Report and Resource Accounts for 2004/5, when Aldred began her role:

The Defence and Overseas Secretariat (DOS) has been at the forefront in coordinating the Government’s policy in Iraq following the end of the conflict with regular meetings of ministers, senior officials and video conferencing with officials in Iraq. Over the past year, DOS has coordinated policy development on Iraq.

Yet Aldred herself, despite being someone involved in the government’s Iraq policy, has not been called as a witness to the inquiry – although her successor in the same post was.

Chilcot and his aides refused to disclose information on Aldred’s own role in government policy on Iraq. As noted by Chris Ames, editor of the Iraq Inquiry Digest which has tracked the inquiry since it began:

The Inquiry’s willingness and ability to reveal the extent of her role is clearly compromised by the fact that she is its secretary. In concealing the conflict of interest, the Inquiry is concealing the truth of what happened.

Ames noted that the inquiry would have “little credibility” if it refused to come clean about its own connections to the government’s Iraq policy.

The first casualty

This should not be a surprise given that the first inquiry by Lord Butler was already a bankrupt whitewash of the highest order.

Butler’s report (6.4 para, p. 499), for instance, claimed it was “well-founded” that Saddam Hussein was trying to illegally obtain uranium for his so-called advanced nuclear weapons programme, from Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The allegation was based on forged documents, which Butler claimed the British had no idea were forged.

Butler’s pathetic, fantastical version of events is so astonishingly absurd that it is not taken seriously by any journalist or historian who actually understands the Niger uranium intelligence scandal. Yet somehow in legitimate public discourse, it is still considered credible – and Butler receives ample air time with a straight face, without a single question about his role in obscuring the facts.

Don’t worry, you’re not going mad. This is the exceptional state of British journalism today.

In 2012, I and a team at the Institute for Policy Research & Development conducted our own peer-reviewed independent investigation into the public record data concerning Saddam’s alleged efforts to get uranium from Niger.

In our report, Executive Decisions: How British Intelligence was Hijacked for the Iraq War – which was submitted to Chilcot’s inquiry – we pointed out that Britain’s White Paper on Iraqi WMD made the uranium claims, despite the British having being warned by George Tenet, head of the CIA, not to include them.

The claim traces back to ‘intelligence’ that was examined and discredited way back in 1999. Falsified documents were discovered in the form of written correspondence between officials in Niger and Iraqi agents. The documents had been submitted to the CIA by British officials.

But the documents were quickly dismissed at the time and found to be crude forgeries containing laughable errors: names and titles not matching individuals in office at the time; the Niger government’s letterhead being obviously cut and pasted, and the signature of a government official who had retired long ago having been forged.

Senior officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) described the documents as “so bad” that he could “not imagine they came from a serious intelligence agency.” The IAEA confirmed the forgery within hours.

But years later, this rank bullshit still made it into Britain’s official ‘intelligence’ assessment of the state of Iraq’s WMDs. It was then conveniently quoted by President Bush in his State of the Union address to Congress in 2003, helping to rile up public support for war.

Sadly, you won’t find the self-righteous pundit class lambasting the venal culture of self-serving power that allowed the systematic concoction of such “conspiracy theories” against official enemies to flourish in the heart of Whitehall.

Lies? What lies?

And here lays bare the methodology of vindication to be deployed by Chilcot and his friends: admit real failures, loudly condemn officials for failing, but contextualise the decisions leading up to the failures as entirely unintentional, then ultimately blame the failure on faulty systems across government.

The most that Blair and his warmongering friends can be accused of, then, is bad management.

But here’s the reality: the regurgitation of discredited forged nonsense as ‘British intelligence’ – which had already been rejected by the CIA and IAEA – speaks not to ‘faulty intelligence’ but to the deliberate ‘politicisation of intelligence.’

But false intelligence did not make its way inexplicably into the intelligence system because our intelligence agencies are underfunded and badly organised, and really, really believed what they were saying, poor darlings.

It made its way in, because political leaders made pre-conceived, ideological decisions about going to war.

Those decisions were untenable if the intelligence wasn’t there to back their decisions. So they exerted massive pressure on the intelligence community to find or make that intelligence.

Cherry picking

In leaked UK government memoranda between March and July 2002, references are repeatedly made to “poor” intelligence about WMD, and the “thin” case for war that it presented.

Indeed, then head of MI6, Richard Dearlove, confirms that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” of regime change, “justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.”

Senior intelligence officers in MI6 and the CIA also confirmed that intelligence was being deliberately manufactured to support “the opposite conclusion from the one they have drawn.”

One MI6 officer said:

You cannot just cherry-pick evidence that suits your case and ignore the rest. It is a cardinal rule of intelligence. Yet that is what the PM is doing.

And a CIA official concurred:

We’ve gone from a zero position, where presidents refused to cite detailed intel as a source, to the point now where partisan material is being officially attributed to these agencies.

Chilcot’s abject failure to get to the bottom of this reveals the extent to which our democratic checks and balances in foreign policy decision-making are fundamentally broken – and confirms the institutional lack of accountability that allows this broken system to continue unabated.

The Chilcot report will be used to let the people who lied their way into war off the hook. It will also reinforce the idea that they did so with unquestioned benevolence, despite terrible and regrettable failures of management and judgement.

Don’t be surprised to find much of the pundit class – who, by the way, overwhelmingly and shamelessly clamoured for the invasion – chorusing in agreement.

They have blood on their hands too.

VIDEO: We’re at War!

(VIDEO) Prime Sinister David Cameron Offensively Lashes out against Americans

The rank hypocrisy of Tony Blair: He threw open Britain to millions of immigrants, but now sneers at Ukip

One of the foremost enemies of the people is Tony Blair

There is a particular tone of voice that BBC presenters use when announcing that the airwaves are to be cleared for an interview with Tony Blair.

A solemn preamble conveys the sense that after that morning’s tawdry squabbling of contemporary pygmy politicians such as Nigel Farage, this is the main act.

In truth, very few of us outside BBC headquarters want to hear anything more from Mr Blair, apart, that is, from him uttering one single word. Which is why I stay tuned, in the forlorn hope that I might one day hear Blair say: ‘Sorry.’

That is, sorry for leading us into ill-judged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with thousands of casualties on all sides; sorry for permanently damaging our country’s diplomatic standing by fatuously endorsing President George W. Bush’s cack-handed statecraft; sorry for changing, through a purposeful policy of mass immigration, the cultural fabric of our country without first asking if there was a consensus to do so.
Gabble

Mr Blair is a man who will gabble silkily for lucrative corporate bonding sessions or cosy media interviews.

But he will never utter what we actually want to hear from him – the faintest hint of contrition to those of us living in the country that he seems effectively to have abandoned.

Presenter Jim Naughtie was full of credulous deference towards Mr Blair on yesterday’s Radio 4 Today programme.

Inevitably, Mr Blair was not actually in the BBC studio. On this occasion he was ‘joining us from Berlin’ – a change from Ramallah or Dubai or the other places between which he flits on private jets, and from which he tends to broadcast when taking a break from his crowded schedule of lectures delivered for a vast fee.

The most striking aspect of Blair’s performance yesterday was his assumption that the spectacular progress made by Ukip in last week’s local and European elections came out of the blue sky and had nothing – absolutely nothing – to do with him or the policies of the government he led.

‘I’ve always said you have to have proper controls in place on immigration,’ Mr Blair intoned, unchallenged.

This peculiar assertion is punctured by the research of Migration Watch, which estimates that immigration during the New Labour years added three million to our population.

It also ignores the account of a former Blairite speechwriter, Andrew Neather, that from late 2000 onwards the deliberate policy ‘was to open up the UK to mass immigration’.

More than that, New Labour’s open-door immigration policy was designed, Mr Neather said, to ‘rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date’.

Well, the consequences of that shamefully irresponsible politicking are now to be seen, both in the eastern European migrants crammed six to a room in East London, and in Ukip’s electoral progress.

Nigel Farage would not be grinning at us from the pages of our newspapers with an empty pint glass on his head were it not for Mr Blair’s policies.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2641199/Tony-Blairs-rank-hypocrisy-He-threw-open-Britain-millions-immigrations-sneers-Ukip.html#ixzz33i7mporI

ARTICLE: Iraq Inquiry: why Sir Jeremy Heywood should be stripped of his role immediately

As the Telegraph reports today, Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary, is blocking the publication of correspondence between George W Bush and Tony Blair ahead of the Iraq War, together with later correspondence between Gordon Brown and Mr Bush – thus effectively stalling the already heavily delayed Iraq Inquiry.

No security issues are at stake. The blocking of the correspondence between Downing Street and the White House is an affront to democracy and prevents us from forming a judgment about the most disastrous war in recent British history. Sir Jeremy Heywood should now be removed from all decisions relating to the Iraq Inquiry, because he was himself deeply involved in the flawed government process in the run-up to and after the invasion of Iraq.

Sir Jeremy was appointed Tony Blair’s principal private secretary in 1999. Within a short space of time (as his senior colleagues have told me in detail) he became an intrinsic part of the collapse of the process of government which took place after 1997.

As Sir Robin Butler graphically described, the principles of sound, accountable administration were abandoned and replaced by “sofa government”. Decisions were made informally by a small coterie including Blair, Alastair Campbell, Jonathan Powell and Anji Hunter. Sir Jeremy was the only civil servant who was granted full access to the sofa.

The sloppiness of this new Downing Street machinery became manifest in the summer of 2003 when the Hutton Inquiry into the death of David Kelly tried to reconstruct the process which led to the release of the name of the MOD scientist in national newspapers. Lord Hutton learnt that four meetings, all involving senior officials and cabinet ministers, each chaired by the prime minister, took place in Downing Street to discuss Dr Kelly in the 48 hours before his name was released. In an amazing breach of normal Whitehall procedures, not one of these meetings was minuted at the time.

In the normal course of events it should have been the job of the principal private secretary to the prime minister – ie Jeremy Heywood – to draw up these minutes. Yet he did not do so.

This episode shows that Sir Jeremy Heywood is much too implicated in these matters to be permitted to make decisions of deep sensitivity concerning the White House/Downing Street correspondence.

David Cameron must now urgently intervene to strip Sir Jeremy of his role, and take control of the decision himself. If he fails to do this, the Prime Minister himself risks becoming complicit in what now looks more and more like a giant cover-up involving elements of the British establishment and political class to prevent the truth becoming known about how we became involved in the Iraq War.

Hat tip: Peter Oborne http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peteroborne/100244895/iraq-inquiry-why-sir-jeremy-heywood-should-be-stripped-of-his-role-immediately/

VIDEO: How the Lib-Lab-Con is Destroying Britain

A five-minute synopsis of the threat you and your family face from the criminal, corrupt and decadent regime that the fools keep voting for. (See first 6 minutes.):

 

VIDEOS: ‘Beheadings-R-Us’ by Cameron and Hague-backed Syrian “Rebels” (WARNING: Graphic Images)

http://www.barenakedislam.com/2013/07/18/syria-beheadings-r-us-by-obama-backed-and-armed-fsa-jihadist-rebels-warning-graphic-images/

ARTICLE: How £120 Million of Workers’ Subs Supports New Labour’s War-crimes, Treason, and Champagne Socialism

THE full scale of the unions’ financial grip on Labour is revealed today by a Sun investigation.

(2013) David Cameron, Nick Clegg, William Hague -ORDER DESTRUCTION OF HARD DRIVE TO HIDE DIRT SECRETS FROM PUBLIC

 

• PM asked Sir Jeremy Heywood to warn paper against publishing material
• GCHQ later went to Guardian’s office and helped staff smash hard drives
• White House say it is ‘difficult to imagine’ U.S. government taking that action
  
• It also emerged Mr Cameron knew in advance David Miranda would be held
  
• Home Secretary Theresa May said police acting in national security interests
• Rifkind says Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger on ‘weak ground’
• ‘He did not dispute that he had no legal right to possess the files,’ he said
• David Miranda, who was carrying secret CIA files, was held for nine hours 
• Brazilian has said he is launching legal action against the Home Office
• Lord Falconer, who helped bring in Terrorism Act 2000, slams decision
• ‘I’m very clear that this does not apply to Mr Miranda,’ Labour peer said

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2398521/Malcolm-Rifkind-NO-DOUBT-reports-using-Snowden-information-played-

ARTICLE: Tony Blair: Libya, Lockerbie, Arms and Betrayals

 

“The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men.” (Samuel Adams, 1722-1803, letter 1775.)

This will surely have you falling down with surprise. According to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act and obtained by the (UK) Sunday Telegraph, the August 2009 release from Scotland’s Barlinnie jail of Libyan Abdelbaset al- Megrahi, accused of the bombing of  Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988, hinged on an oil and arms deal, allegedly brokered by roving war monger (sorry, roving “Peace Ambassador”) Tony Blair.

At this point it should be said that anyone who has read John Ashton and Ian Ferguson’s meticulous “Cover up of Convenience” (i) on the Lockerbie tragedy could only regard Mr al-Meghrahi’s conviction as between very unsafe and very questionable.

The British Labour Party, which Blair headed for ten years, until 27th June 2007, have always insisted that the release had no connection with commercial deals. After leaving Downing Street, Blair visited Libya some six times.

On 8th June 2008, the then British Ambassador to Libya, Sir Vincent Fean, sent Tony Blair’s private office a thirteen hundred word briefing on the UK’s eagerness to do business with Libya, according to the Telegraph. (ii) Blair flew to Tripoli to meet Colonel Quaddafi, just two days later, June 10th. Quaddafi paid: Blair, always lavish with other’s money had requested, and was granted, the Colonel’s private jet for the journey.

Sir Vincent’s “key objective” was for: “Libya to invest its £80 billion sovereign wealth through the City of London”, according to the Telegraph, which also cites the Ambassador writing of the UK being : “privately critical of then President George Bush for ‘shooting the US in the foot’ by continuing to put a block on Libyan assets in America, in the process scuppering business deals.” Britain however, was voraciously scrambling to fill the fiscal gap.

Unlike the US and UK who abandon or drone to death their own citizens who are in trouble, or even accused of it, Libya’s Administration had stood by their man and seemed to be prepared to do even unpalatable deals to free him and had long been pressuring the UK to release al-Megrahi.

In May 2007, a month before he left Downing Street, Blair had made his second visit to Libya, meeting Colonel Quaddafi and his Prime Minister Al Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi in then beautiful and now near ruined city of Sirte.

Surely coincidentally, on this trip, a deal was seemingly thrashed out, including prisoner transfer, just before British Petrolium (BP) announced their approximate £454 million investment to prospect for £13billion worth of oil in Libya.

Also, states the Telegraph report: “At that meeting, according to Sir Vincent’s email, Mr Blair and Mr Al Baghdadi agreed that Libya would buy a missile defence system from MBDA – a weapons manufacturer part-owned by Britains’s  BAE Systems.” This seemed to (also) hinge on a Memorandum of Understanding for a Prisoner Transfer Agreement: “which the Libyans believed would pave the way for al-Megrahi’s release.” Various sources state that the arms deal was worth £400 million, and up to two thousand jobs in the UK. Sir Vincent referred to the arms deal as a “legacy issue.” Blair’s “legacy”, as ever, synonymous with destruction.

Ironically, it was Blair who credited himself with persuading Colonel Quaddafi to abandon and destroy his weapons programmes  after his visit to the country in March 2004 (placing that Judas kiss  the Colonel’s cheek) as a step to Libya returning to the fold of the duplicitous “international community.” With friends like Blair, enemies are a redundancy.

When Blair returned to Libya in June 2008, the Telegraph contends that the British Government, then under Gordon Brown, Blair’s former Chancellor of the Exchequer (who left the national coffers near empty) used the opportunity: “ to press the case for the arms deal to be sealed. At the time, Britain was on the brink of an economic and banking crisis – and Libya, though the Libyan Investment Authority – had billions of pounds in reserves.”

Saif al-Islam, Quaddafi’s son, expressed the concern over the arms deal being voiced from within the Libyan military, given their close ties to the “Russian defence equipment camp.”

An earlier discovery by the Sunday Telegraph shows, in letters and emails, that Blair held hitherto undisclosed talks with the Colonel in April 2009, four months before al-Megrahi’s release. (iii)

Again he was flown at the expense of the Colonel, in his private jet: “In both 2008 and 2009, documents show Mr Blair negotiated to fly to the Libyan capitol … in a jet provided by Quaddafi.” Blair’s Office denies the claims, saying they were transported in a Libyan government ‘plane.

By the time of the 2009 visit: “Libya was threatening to cut all business links if al-Megrahi stayed in a British jail.” Blair seemingly attempted to pour oil on troubled waters by bringing American billionaire, Tim Collins to that meeting to advise Quaddafi on building the beach resorts he was planning, on the Libyan coast.

Further adding to the murk, a spokesperson for Collins stated:“Tim was asked to go by Tony Blair in his position as a trustee of Mr Blair’s US faith foundation. Tim had no intention of doing any business with Quaddafi.”

However: “Sources in Libya said Quaddafi had discussed with Mr Collins opening beach resorts along the Libyan coast, but that Mr Collins had dismissed the idea because the Libyans would not sanction the sale of alcohol or gambling at the resorts.

Blair’s spokesperson said of the visit: “ … Tony Blair has never had any role, either formal or informal, paid or unpaid, with the Libyan Investment Authority or the Government of Libya and he has no commercial relationship with any Libyan company or entity.” A Blair first, seemingly, given the impression that he never touches down anywhere without emerging with a lucrative contract or a large cheque.

However, Oliver Miles, a former British ambassador to Libya, is quoted as saying : “Mr Blair is clearly using his Downing Street contacts to further his business interests.”

In a further coincidence, the Prisoner Transfer agreement for Mr al-Megrahi was signed the day before Blair’s 2009 visit.

When al-Megrahi, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, was released in August 2009, the British media and politicians were outraged. Scotland had done a deal and was benefiting financially from Libya. The latest revelations prove Scotland did no financial deals. When Mr al-Megrahi failed to die, politicians and media were even more outraged. They were a shaming spectacle.

Mental mind set can be a huge force in prolonging life in even the most serious cancer patients. No doubt in al-Megrahi’s case, being back in a home and with a family he loved contributed to his extra time. He survived long enough to see his country destroyed by the devious forces the West embodies – and at which Blair excels.  Megrahi died in September 2012.

Incidentally, Ambassador Fean reportedly “expressed relief” at al-Megrahi’s release: “He noted that a refusal of Megrahi’s request could have had disastrous implications for British interests in Libya. ‘They could have cut us off at the knees.”

Quaddafi, however, never signed the arms deal.

Footnote: The 2004 visit by Blair was arranged by Saif al Islam, who Blair seemingly knew well and had allegedly even offered suggestions on his PhD thesis when Saif was studying at the London School of Economics.

In September last year Saif al-Islam’s lady friend of six years, appealed, passionately, to Blair to intervene to save the life of his now captured, maimed and death penalty-facing friend: “The two are old friends – it is time that Mr Blair returned some loyalty. Mr Blair is a man of God – as a Christian he has a moral duty to help a friend in need”, she has commented. (v)

Seemingly there has been no response from Blair’s office. Further, an extensive search for a comment on the appalling death of Colonel Quaddafi – his former host and private ‘plane provider – and the demise of  much of his family from this “Peace Envoy” and “man of God”, has come up with absolutely nothing.

To mangle a quote: Beware of British offering deals.

Read on:  http://www.globalresearch.ca/tony-blair-libya-lockerbie-arms-and-betrayals/5344774

ATICLE: Former head of MI6 threatens to expose Tony Blair’s ‘dodgy dossier’

The truth will always out -eventually. Seems the regime (“government”) doesn’t have the control it would like on the secret services. Perhaps MI5 might like to start to question to whom its loyalties really lie (the innocent people or their aggressor, corrupt, plutocratic “government”).

A former head of MI6 has threatened to expose the secrets of the ‘dodgy dossier’ if he disagrees with the long-awaited findings of the Chilcot Inquiry into the UK’s role in the Iraq War.

Sir Richard Dearlove, 68, has spent the last year writing a detailed account of events leading up to the war, and had intended to only make his work available to historians after his death.

But now Sir Richard, who provided intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) that was apparently ‘sexed up’ by Tony Blair’s government, has revealed that he could go public after the Chilcot Inquiry publishes its findings.

Sir Richard is expected to be criticised by the inquiry’s chairman, Sir John Chilcot, over the accuracy of intelligence provided by MI6 agents inside Iraq, which was used in the so-called ‘dodgy dossier’.

Now the ex-MI6 boss, who is Master at Pembroke College, Cambridge University, has said: “What I have written (am writing) is a record of events surrounding the invasion of Iraq from my then professional perspective.

“My intention is that this should be a resource available to scholars, but after my decease (may be sooner depending on what Chilcot publishes)

“I have no intention, however, of violating my vows of official secrecy by publishing any memoir.”

Sources close to Sir Richard said that he insists Chilcot should recognise the role played by Tony Blair and the Prime Minister’s chief spokesman Alastair Campbell in informing media reports which suggested Saddam could use chemical weapons to target British troops based in Cyprus, a claim which led to Britain entering the war in Iraq.

Sir Richard is said to remain extremely unhappy that this piece of intelligence, which his agents stressed only referred to battlefield munitions which had a much shorter range, led to media reports that UK bases were under threat.

However, he accepts that some of MI6’s information on the WMDs was inaccurate, the Mail on Sunday reported.

Mr Blair and Mr Campbell have repeatedly denied making misleading statements about WMD.

Last week it was revealed that Sir John had written to Prime Minister David Cameron informing him of his intention to write personally to those individuals he intends to criticise, with Tony Blair reported to be among those on Sir John’s list.

Sir Richard has taken a sabbatical from his duties at Cambridge University to research and write his record of events, and is expected to resume his Master’s role at the start of the new academic year.

A security source told The Mail on Sunday: “This is Sir Richard’s time-bomb. He wants to set the record straight and defend the integrity of MI6. And Sir Richard has taken a lot of personal criticism over MI6’s performance and his supposedly too-cosy relationship with Mr Blair.

“No Chief of MI6 has done anything like this before, but the events in question were unprecedented.

“If Chilcot doesn’t put the record straight, Sir Richard will strike back.”

Last night the committee’s chairman, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who was appointed in 2010, offered Sir Richard his support, saying: “I have never heard of a former MI6 chief putting something out there in these terms but I would be interested in what Sir Richard has to say in response to the Chilcot Inquiry which is clearly going to have some meat in it.

“I know Sir Richard and worked with him in the Foreign Office many years ago. He is a very able man of the highest character and a man of his own opinions. We shall have to wait to see what he says.”

Last night, Alastair Campbell and the office for Tony Blair declined to comment on Sir Richard’s account.

ARTICLE: MoD accused of risking soldiers’ lives by silencing generals

Historian expresses fears after chapters by serving generals excised from book criticising operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A leading military historian has accused the Ministry of Defence of putting the lives of British soldiers at risk by stifling debate and preventing serving generals from publicly expressing their views on the conduct of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sir Hew Strachan, Chichele professor of the history of war at Oxford University, blames the decision to suppress their views on “official paranoia”. His outspoken comments appear in a series of essays, British Generals in Blair’s Wars, which contains devastating criticism from senior officers who have recently retired, but none from those still serving.

Debate and potential reform are therefore stifled at source “for fear of reputational damage and political controversy”, writes Strachan.

The book has fallen victim to “official paranoia”, he says referring to six chapters written by serving officers that were withdrawn on the orders of the MoD.

Strachan, an adviser to the chief of the defence staff, General Sir Nick Houghton, adds: “These fears put at risk lives in theatre. Like many armies in the past, the British army struggles to foster effective debate within a hierarchical command chain.”

The editors, including Strachan, make clear in their book – published by Ashgate more than a year late because of the need to find replacement authors – that the final decision to ban serving officers from contributing to it was taken by the defence secretary, Philip Hammond.

Generals prevented from publishing their views include Houghton, who took over as chief of the defence staff from Sir David Richards on Thursday, and Lt Gen Sir Richard Shirreff, Nato’s deputy supreme commander. Shirreff, a former commander of British troops in Basra, told the Chilcot inquiry that more than three years after the invasion of Iraq, the MoD was still incapable of delivering equipment badly needed by UK troops there.

The failure to provide troops with the resources they needed “beggars belief”, he said.

The opening salvo in British Generals in Blair’s Wars castigates the former Labour prime minister for not providing sufficient resources to those he sent to war. Jonathan Bailey, formerly responsible in the MoD for developing military doctrine, says Blair “does not appear to have thought through the consequences of his policies, committing the UK to prolonged conflicts intended to reorder other countries’ underlying cultures”.

The book exposes sharp disagreement between British commanders on the root causes of attacks on British troops in Basra. Jonathan Shaw, commander of British forces in south-east Iraq in 2007, came under fierce criticism for doing a deal with the Jaysh al-Mahdi, the militia led by the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, and for taking the view that violence was more criminal than ideologically or politically inspired. “I judged Basra to be more like Palermo than Beirut,” he writes.

Richard Iron, an adviser to Iraqi army commanders in Basra, writes: “Nothing could be further from the truth: Jaysh al-Mahdi was an extremist movement that controlled Basra by force.” British intelligence analysts failed to appreciate the depths of “malign Iranian influence”, says Iron.

An underlying theme in the essays by former generals and senior British staff officers is the almost complete lack of preparedness and failure to provide enough resources, in terms of both money and men, in Iraq. The failures, the authors write, were not learned and were repeated in Afghanistan.

Iron says that five years after the invasion of Iraq, “there was still arrogance and hubris among the British. A sense of ‘we’re here to teach you so you’d better listen'”.

Britain’s failures led to bitter disputes behind the scene with US commanders, whose marines took over from the British in Basra, and, later, in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. Alexander Alderson, former special adviser to the head of the Afghan armed forces, says that in Iraq the different tactics and attitudes of the two countries came to the point “where the UK’s military credibility was in question”.

The book describes the growing frustration among military commanders about inter-departmental rows within Whitehall and inadequate co-operation with the Foreign Office and Department for International Development. The much-mooted “comprehensive” approach – co-operation on conflict prevention, peacemaking, and peacekeeping – has not materialised. Tim Cross, the senior British officer in the US-led post-invasion reconstruction office in Iraq, writes: “We do need to have a fairly radical shakeup, both in the [defence] ministry but also pan-government.”

Strachan told the Guardian: “The MoD has got to get real … Differences and debates need to be properly gone over. Otherwise we are none the wiser”.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk-news/2013/jul/19/mod-risking-soldiers-iraq-afghanistan-generals

Russia Accuses West Of Arming Mali “Al-Qaeda” Rebels

Western imperialism knows no bounds. The “British” government is a direct threat to your safety. The people that have, are, and will suffer because of the “British” government’s gun running and regime change will naturally seek revenge on the aggressor nation. The guilty politicians will not, of course, suffer the consequences. They never do. Only the British people will suffer as they did on 7/7.  Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Revenge will one day be upon us.

Define irony? Here is one, or rather two, tries.

Back in the 1970s, it was none other than the US that armed the Taliban “freedom fighters” fighting against the USSR in the Soviet-Afghanistan war, only to see these same freedom fighters eventually and furiously turn against the same US that provided them with arms and money, with what ended up being very catastrophic consequences, culminating with September 11.

Fast forward some 30 or more years and it is again the US which, under the guise of dreams and hopes of democracy and the end of a “dictatorial reign of terror”, armed local insurgents in the Libyan war of “liberation” to overthrow the existing regime (and in the process liberate just a bit of Libya’s oil) – the same Libya where shortly thereafter these same insurgents rose against their former sponsor, and killed the US ambassador in what has now become an epic foreign policy Snafu.

But it doesn’t end there as according to Russia, it is the same US weapons that were provided to these Libyan “freedom fighters” that are now being used in what is rapidly becoming a war in Mali, involving not only assorted French regiments, but extensive US flip flops and boots on the ground.

Via Al Jazeera,

Russia said on Wednesday the rebels fighting French and African troops in Mali are the same fighters the West armed in the revolt that ousted Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.

“Those whom the French and Africans are fighting now in Mali are the [same] people who overthrew the Gaddafi regime, those that our Western partners armed so that they would overthrow the Gaddafi regime,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a news conference.

“It’s important to lift one’s head a bit and look over the horizon, look at all those processes more widely, they are interconnected and carry very many threats,” Lavrov said, speaking of unrest across the Middle East that could play into the hands of militants.

“This will be a time bomb for decades ahead,” he said.

That is our definition of irony.

Hat tip:  http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-01-23/russia-accuses-west-arming-mali-al-qaeda-rebels

Article: The Tony Blair Scandal

Tony Blair was born in Edinburgh Scotland on 6 May 1953, to Leo Blair and Hazel Corscadden. His paternal ancestors were the English actors Charles Parsons and Mary Augusta Ridgway Bridson, the latter of whom had some degree of aristocratic descent.

Blair’s father was illegitimate however and he was adopted as a baby by Glasgow shipyard worker James Blair and his wife. His mother Hazel Corscadden was of the daughter of George Corscadden, an Ulster-Scots butcher and Orangeman who moved to Glasgow in 1916 but returned to (and later died in) Ballyshannon in 1923.

Sarah Margaret Lipsett according to Edward MacLysaght, the origin of the name Lipsett in County Donegal derived from Ashkenazi Jewish settlers in the 18th century as an Anglicization of Lipsitz. This would make Tony Blair himself a Jew accord to the Halacha.

Tony was fined £50 for trying to solicit men in public toilets, something he had done since his cross dressing days at college, and he was later to steal Cherie from Derry Irving with whom he shared a flat.

Tony’s rise on the British political ladder was masterminded by Lord Levy, while Rothschild’s British representative Peter Mandelson was directly over him and masterminded the creation of the Zionist front org, “New labour” which really had just one purpose, to Bring the British army into war with Iraq for Israel’s benefit.

Tony Blair, voted the worst Prime Minister in living memory, worse than Thatcher who destroyed British Industry, worse that pedophile Edward Heath who took us into the EU after we fought W W II to stay out, worse than gay Gordon Brown who sold our gold reserves to Rothschild on the day the gold price was at its lowest ever, and even worse than Winston Churchill of whom his pal Aleister Crowley said was one criminal lunatic.

In 1999 an international investigation into child porn by Britain’s National Criminal Intelligence Service codenamed Operation Ore, resulted in 7,250 suspects being identified in the United Kingdom alone. Some 1850 people were criminally charged in the case and there were 1451 convictions. Almost 500 people were interviewed “under caution” by police, meaning they were suspects. Some 900 individuals remain under investigation.

In early 2003, British police began to close in on some top suspects in the Operation Ore investigation, including senior members of Blair’s government, allegedly Chris Smith, Peter Mandelson and Gay Gordon.

Carol Caplin was said to be the Mossad watcher inside number 10 and Rupert Murdoch and David Murphy-Fawks competed with GCHQ to tape his phone calls and his late night rows with Cherie.

Israel and New labour sabotaged efforts to pursue the Goldstone report on Israeli war crimes in Gaza, through the UN.

Blair also brokered another major deal with Israel for British Gas to secure contracts to exploit natural gas fields worth up to 6 billion dollars in the territorial waters of the Gaza Strip, in effect stolen from the Palestinians, Blair negotiated the deal directly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu In 2007, the United Nations Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People spent over $400,000 on three armoured cars for Blair against their will.

Blair has contrived to constantly undermine the British people by making almost one law change a day in the almost 10 years he was in office, making large sums for his wife’s Matrix Chambers law practise, he also sold out the poverty stricken besieged starving Palestinians and his paymasters in Tel Aviv rewarded him by making him Middle East envoy, Tony has been raking it in with his 30 pieces of silver like the true Judas he is.

Figures show that under the embargo to Iraq half a million children died, and now he wants to do the same to Iran, we won’t be fighting this war for you Tony, get your paymasters in Tel Aviv to fight their own wars, is it too much to ask that if you are British prime minister you put the British people first ?

Tony recently voted asshole of the year by the student’s mag ‘Rsouls’ and is currently being chased to appear at the international war crimes court in the Hague, Saddham Hussein was hung for things he had not done, fingers crossed Tony Blair hangs as well.

T Stokes London

Hat tip: http://thetruthnews.info/Tony_Blair_Scandal.html

ARTICLE: Kazakhstan Dictator Admires “British” Dictator Chairman Cameron

For a closer analysis of Chairman Cameron in relation to this issue see the video below (18 minutes in):

President Nazarbayev said he had been watching Cameron and praised him for ‘the way he protects the interests of the British people all over the world’

he final day of David Cameron’s visit to central Asia was overshadowed by political embarrassment today after Kazakhstan’s hardline ruler said he would vote for the Prime Minister if he had the chance.

President Nursultan Nazarbayev said he had been watching Mr Cameron and publicly praised him for “the way he protects the interests of the British people all over the world”.

The controversial Kazakh leader, who recorded 95.5 per cent of the popular vote at his last election, added: “Personally, I would vote for him.” A visibly squirming Mr Cameron, who had spent much of the previous 24 hours with the President, replied: “That’s one [vote]; I just need another 20 million and I’m in business.”

The Prime Minister, who had proclaimed that the relationship between the two countries was moving “to the next level”, was also forced to apologise after it emerged that a Kazakh artist with no hands had been denied a UK visa because he had not provided fingerprints.

The unwelcome interventions dominated a press conference held in the presidential palace in Astana, to rubber-stamp a series of agreements on trade and a “strategic partnership” between the two countries. Mr Cameron, who had travelled to the oil-rich state with a delegation of British firms including BP, Shell and Rolls-Royce, said Kazakhstan was “a dynamic country that is poised to become a high income country by the end of this decade”.

The Prime Minister spent much of the previous 24 hours with the President, travelling in his private jet and drinking with him in an “Irish Bar” where Guinness sells for £11 a pint. He confirmed that he had raised the issue of human rights in Kazakhstan, including “credible allegations” that the Nazarbayev regime was guilty of torture and curbs on religious and press freedoms.

Read on:  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/kazakhstan-dictator-heaps-praise-on-david-cameron-and-says-he-would-vote-for-him-8681102.html

(2013) New Labour Ministers esp. Jack Straw -FACILITATED TORTURE

Abdel Hakim Belhadj was put on a CIA “rendition” flight to Tripoli, where he says he was repeatedly tortured, after British intelligence officers provided information on his movements.

Mr Belhadj, who is now a leader of the rebel forces that have ousted Gaddafi, has demanded an apology from Britain for its part in the “illegal” 2004 operation and has suggested he might sue the Government.

Jack Straw, the foreign secretary at the time, denied any knowledge of the incident, and tried to shift the blame on to MI6 saying: “No foreign secretary can know all the details of what its intelligence agencies are doing.”

But Whitehall sources responded by saying the involvement of MI6 in tipping off the Libyans had “ministerial approval”.

David Cameron said the “significant accusations” would be investigated as part of the inquiry into the alleged torture of detainees, which is being carried out by Sir Peter Gibson, a retired judge. The Prime Minister also acknowledged concerns that the British and Libyan security services had become “too close” and suggested Tony Blair was too “credulous” with regards to the Gaddafi regime.

Read on: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8743340/Libya-ministers-agreed-to-rendition.html

ARTICLE: Was Guy Fawkes the Last Honest Man to Pass through Westminster?

Hat tip: http://www.westernspring.co.uk/was-guy-fawkes-the-last-good-man-to-pass-through-westminster/

Imagine a government that would deliberately take millions away from the budget meant to educate its own nation’s children, while at the time use billions to send foreign aid to other nations who don’t need it?

That would be nothing less than treason. You cannot imagine any sane government doing such a thing. Think of, for example, China, or Japan, deliberately depriving its own people of an education while giving money to Korea? It just wouldn’t happen, because the Chinese and the Japanese would—rightly—regard that as nothing less than treason.

Of course, you guessed it: Britain’s House of Treason down by the banks of the old river, has done precisely that—and no-one seems to know or care.

The Tory-Lib-Dem-Labour party—because they are just all the same party—is busy with much-vaunted “budget cuts” to “save the economy” (after they and their big business bank cronies screwed it over in the first place) and one of the first cuts to be announced was in the education arena.

Any parent with university-age going children is well aware that uni fees have now rocketed from a manageable amount just two or three years ago, to an impossible £9,000 per year—and that is just for the tutoring fees, never mind books, resources, living allowances, residence and so on.

Even those students “lucky” enough to get loans, start off their working lives with tens of thousands of pounds of debt—an impossible burden which—even more importantly—makes starting a family next to impossible.

The nuts and bolts of the process are as follows: England’s university budgets were cut by £449 million in 2010, with similar cuts being added each following year. This means that over £1.3 billion has been cut in the last three years, and there is no end yet in sight. By the end of 2014, the total uni education budget cut will be cut by nearly £4 billion.

In practical terms, this means that the universities have had at least 6,000 fewer places each academic year.

In addition, research funding has been frozen and the uni buildings budget cut by 15 percent.

At the same time, the Government has announced that taxpayers will hand over £50.8 billion in foreign aid to the Third World by 2014. This translates to 61 percent of the total “spending review” cuts announced by the Government.

According to a press release issued by the Department for International Development (DFID), the total foreign aid budget will reach the targeted 0.7 percent of Gross National Income (GNI) by 2013.

This would mean a yearly spend of £12.6 billion, the DFID said.

This increased spending, the DFID said, is “in line with the UK’s international commitments to help those living in extreme poverty in our world. Over the course of the Spending Review period, the Department for International Development will increase resource spending by 35 percent in real terms, and increase capital spending by 20 percent in real terms.”

This means that the foreign aid budget was £8.4 billion in 2010, £8.7 billion in 2011, £9.1 billion in 2012, and will be £12.0 billion in 2013, and £12.6 billion in 2014—totalling £50.8 billion by the end of 2014.

So there you have it: cut the education budget by £4 billion, but boost the foreign aid budget by £50 billion.

Who would dare call it treason?  I for one, and I am increasingly becoming convinced that the last honest man to pass through the halls of Westminster was indeed Guy Fawkes.

(2012) VIDEO: New Labour M.P. Jack Straw -FACING LEGAL ACTION OVER TORTURE

The lengthy rap sheet of Jack Straw and his family: http://eotp.org/?s=jack+straw&x=0&y=0

A Libyan military commander is taking legal action against Jack Straw, to find out if the ex-foreign secretary signed papers allowing his rendition.

Abdel Hakim Belhadj claims CIA agents took him from Thailand to Gaddafi-led Libya, via UK-controlled Diego Garcia.

His lawyers have served papers on Mr Straw after the Sunday Times reported claims that he allowed this to happen.

UK ministers have denied any complicity in rendition or torture and Mr Straw did not comment further.

He said he could not do so because of the ongoing police investigation into the UK’s alleged role in illegal rendition.

Earlier this month, the BBC revealed that the UK government had approved the rendition of Mr Belhadj and his wife – Fatima Bouchar – to Col Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, though it was unclear at what level.

On 15 April, the Sunday Times published an article, which quoted sources as alleging Mr Straw had personally authorised Mr Belhadj’s rendition to Libya.

On Tuesday, Mr Belhadj’s lawyers – Leigh Day & Co – served papers on Mr Straw, referencing the article and seeking his response to allegations that he was complicit in torture and misfeasance in public office.

The civil action is against Mr Straw personally – Mr Belhadj’s lawyers believe it is the first time legal action of this kind has been taken against a former foreign secretary.

Mr Belhadj and his wife allege Mr Straw was complicit in the “torture, inhuman and degrading treatment, batteries and assaults” which they say were perpetrated on them by Thai and US agents, as well as the Libyan authorities.

They are seeking damages from Mr Straw for the trauma involved.

Read on:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17746561

‘Politicians keep British soldiers in Afghanistan as human shields for their reputations’ -SAYS PAUL FLYNN M.P.

 

Question of the day: Why don’t we see essential ground-breaking news like this from Western mainstream media? Why do we have to look to Russia to lift the lid on the crooks in office? 

This interview MUST be viewed.

British MP Paul Flynn, who was suspended from the House of Commons for voicing his opposition to the war in Afghanistan, told RT there is absolutely no reason to keep UK soldiers in the warzone any longer, other than to save ministers’ reputations.

A British Labour Party politician, Flynn was recently suspended from the House of Commons after he accused ministers of lying over military policy in Afghanistan. Below is an extract from his speech:

“The role of our brave soldiers at the moment is to act as human shields for ministers’ reputations. The danger to our soldiers is being prolonged by those on that bench who have the power to stop it. Other countries have removed their soldiers from this dangerous area where they’re not doing what we are doing, which is arming and training our future enemy. Isn’t this very similar to the end of the First World War, when it was said the politicians lied and soldiers died and the reality was as it is now – that our brave soldier lions are being led by ministerial donkeys!”

Speaking with RT, Paul Flynn has said that politicians have been making the wrong decisions concerning the Afghan war for many years. What’s more, the current war has not changed things in Afghanistan. It even made them worse, while Britain has wasted lives and huge sums of money – and continues to do so.

RT: Paul Flynn, after that you were disciplined by the speaker and barred from parliament for five days. Presumably, you knew that would happen, but you thought it was worth it.

Paul Flynn: Oh, it’s very well worthwhile. It’s a very rare event and the result is being that my words have been seen almost all over the world. There’s been an extraordinary effect. And I believe this may well be a turning point in public opinion. I believe 80 per cent of public opinion would like to see [the] boys home by Christmas, and the government have their heads in the sands, and they are ignoring it.

RT: You’ve been a long-standing critic of the war in Afghanistan. So what brought on this specific outburst?

PF: This one was about the futility of the deaths in the last few days and the utter imbecile lying ministers who come before us and made idiotic excuses for continuing the war. There is only one reason why the war is continuing and that is to protect the reputations of politicians. Our soldiers are there as human shields for ministers’ reputations. What they are trying to do is to keep the war going on to the best moment that would reflect on the reputations of politicians.

Absolutely no reasons why we shouldn’t bring our troops home now. The only reason is that we are tied in with the politics of the United States. We are an independent state. We have to remind us of that. We can take our own decisions and what we are going to see in the future is deepening the trouble. There will be more slaughter. Because of this whole of these fictitious aims of the war we seem to collapse. And what’s happening now there is no possibility that we can train the Afghan people and army and their police that will fight their own people that will kill brother-Afghans, for what? For a corrupt election-rigging depraved president or to defend the interest of a foreign country? It can’t happen.

RT: You say that ministers are keeping soldiers in Afghanistan to protect their own reputation. But how does the death of more soldiers protect anyone’s reputation?

PF: The official attitude is we must protect our reputations against our previous mistakes and in the war so that history will judge the politicians made the right decisions. In fact, we’ve been making the wrong decisions for many years.

RT:You maintain that what Britain is doing is arming and training its future enemies. And I suppose there is a historical precedent for that.       

PF: There is a very powerful precedent that the Americans trained and armed the Mujahideen. And the Mujahideen are the worst government that Afghanistan has had in a hundred years. And the Taliban were a great reforming improvement in a Mujahideen. But we’ve done this in the past and we are going to do it again. There is no way that a Taliban army or police are going to risk their lives, kill their brother-Afghans in the service of a foreign country when we’ve gone over the service of a corrupt president. They are going back to their tribal loyalties, the Uzbeks and the Pashtuns will be divided as they always have been divided. And the likelihood is that there will be disorder when we leave.  We went there, civil war was going on, and the country was bitterly divided. After we’ve left, a few years, the situation will be very similar. There’ll be more civil war and the likely future rulers will be the Taliban.

RT:What lessons, then, should have been learnt from both Britain’s own colonial past and the Soviet Union’s experience in Afghanistan?  

PF: In 2001 in Strasbourg a very ebullient member of the Duma tapped me on the back and said: “You British have gone into Afghanistan and you captured it in a few days. I’m saying that we Russians did that. And we were there for 10 years. We killed a million Afghans, we spent billions of rubles. And we lost 16,000 of our own soldiers. And when we came out, we left a puppet government there, but there were 300,000 Mujahideen in the hills who eventually took over.” And he said to me: “It will happen to you.” And he was absolutely precisely right.

We deluded ourselves. We told ourselves fairy stories about what was going to happen. But we could change things and we couldn’t. There was a benign cause that the Russians would have been taken up in Afghanistan of taking people at a bottom life, giving them a chance to improve materially. I mean, nothing really happened in the end. And we went in, we were going to get rid of the drugs trade, we were ending corruption, we were going to give women a better deal. And nothing has changed.

The corruption is exactly the same, possibly worse. Drugs’ trade is… 90 per cent of the drugs in Britain come from Afghanistan, Tony Blair told the House. 90 per cent! Twelve years later 90 per cent of the drugs still come from Afghanistan. There is a difference. There is more of them now and they are cheaper on the streets. And more people corrupted.

In 2001 Afghanistan was the second-worst place in the world for a woman to live. Now it’s the second-worst place in the world of a woman to live. But the objectives of the war were hopeless, were utopian. And we’ve wasted lives and huge sums of money and we’ll end up in two or three years’ time with a situation just as bad as the one that was there before we invaded.

RT: Let’s talk a bit about the logistics and message that pulling out now would send. What about the soldiers who are serving in Afghanistan at the moment, those, who’ve already served and the families of the soldiers who’ve died. Wouldn’t pulling out now send the message that everything they’ve done has been essentially for nothing?

PF: It’s certainly a tragedy that those families must go through this trauma, have realized that this was a war in which nothing has been achieved. But certainly they have to face that eventually. What would be immoral and cruel is to tell other people the same lies and that more lives should be lost. In order to comfort the bereaved or to comfort politicians that they made the right decisions, at the moment now there’s no conceivable reason why we shouldn’t start telling the truth to people and say that there isn’t this mythical threat of terrorism in Britain that we somehow are ending by being in Afghanistan. If we say to the Taliban “Why are you killing our soldiers?” would they say “When we’ve killed all your soldiers, we are coming over to Newport and to Cardiff and London and we’re going to blow up your streets?” They’ve got no interest in that.

The reason the Taliban are killing British soldiers is because we are the foreigners, we are the infidels. And we occupy, by force of arms, their country. It’s their sacred religious duty to kill us. If we are not there, they don’t kill us. It’s a fairly simple argument to understand.

RT:So what you are saying is that pulling out of Afghanistan right now wouldn’t affect the security situation in the rest of the world?

PF: No, not in the slightest. There are security threats. They come from Pakistan. They come from Yemen. They come from Somalia. They come from Bradford. We had an attack by Al-Qaeda that was from English people brought up in England.

RT: Is it not the better to have the US as friends rather than enemies? What kind of message would leaving now send to America which at the moment is supposedly a trusted friend and ally?

PF: We have a claim that we are an independent country and we spend billions on an independent nuclear weapon. We should be independent as far as Afghanistan is concerned. We’ve already seen countries that we greatly respect and admire assembling themselves pulling out of the conflict. Quite rightly, honorably they’ve given huge contributions in blood and treasure. We should take our own decision. We know that at least 80 per cent of the population is saying: “For Goodness sake, bring our boys home by Christmas!”

RT:Paul Flynn, thank you.

PF: My pleasure.

 

Hat tip:  http://rt.com/news/war-afghanistan-flynn-opposition-740/

Expenses Scandal Mark 2? New Labour Parasites Margaret Hodge and John Cruddas Suck Even More from the Taxpayer

   

 

 

The MP for Barking defended her expenses claims today after figures showed they exceeded the average in the House of Commons.

Margaret Hodge spent £151,279, up from £128,646 last year, compared to around £137,000 on average in Westminster.

The Labour MP chairs the Commons public accounts committee, which scrutinises government expenditure.

She said: “We do need resources to support our work – my office receives more than 100 letters and emails a week from people who need my help.

“The vast majority of my money goes on employing the staff I need to provide a good service.

“MPs are funded by the taxpayer and we have a duty to use that money responsibly – particularly at a time when our constituents are having to be careful with every penny they spend.

“People should feel they get value for money out of us. I work as hard as possible to make sure that people in the borough feel they get value from the work I do.”

Figures published by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority yesterday showed the 650 MPs in Westminster had collectively claimed £89.4million or £137,538 per parliamentarian in 2011/12.

Meanwhile Jon Cruddas, the Labour MP Dagenham & Rainham, claimed £125,134 compared to about £104,370 last year.

Mr Cruddas said his claims had increased after moving from an office in Church Elm Lane, Dagenham, to a more prominent location in New Road.

He said: “People want to know where money goes. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority has a good system.

“The expenses relate to running a large office in Dagenham, dealing with local residents’ concerns.

“We are based on New Road and rent is about £12,000 a year and the rest of the expenses cover postage, phones, stationary etc.”

Read on:  http://www.bdpost.co.uk/news/mp_for_barking_claimed_more_than_commons_average_1_1509308

ARTICLE: Desmond Tutu quits summit with Tony Blair over invasion of Iraq

 

Nobel peace winner says he won’t share platform with ‘morally indefensible’ former PM

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has pulled out of an international summit because he doesn’t want to share a platform with the “morally indefensible” Tony Blair, it emerged yesterday.

The retired archbishop, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his campaigning against apartheid, said that he had withdrawn from the event because he believed the former Prime Minister had supported the invasion of Iraq “on the basis of unproven allegations of the existence of weapons of mass destruction.”

In a statement, Archbishop Tutu’s office added: “The Discovery Invest Summit has leadership as its theme. Morality and leadership are indivisible. In this context, it would be inappropriate for the Archbishop to share a platform with Mr Blair.”

A spokesman added that it was not a snap decision, saying that the Archbishop “thinks and prays and then acts”. He added: “That’s how he’s always done things, including during the struggles.”

Mr Blair and Archbishop Tutu, alongside the chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, were due to appear at the leadership summit in Johannesburg later this week. The Muslim political party Al Jama-ah has already said that it will attempt to arrest Mr Blair when he arrives in Johannesburg for “crimes against humanity”.

Mr Blair’s office said he regretted the decision. In a statement, it said: “Tony Blair is sorry that the Archbishop has decided to pull out now from an event that has been fixed for months and where he and the Archbishop were never actually sharing a platform.

“As far as Iraq is concerned they have always disagreed about removing Saddam by force – such disagreement is part of a healthy democracy.

“As for the morality of that decision, we have recently had both the memorial of the Halabja massacre where thousands of people were murdered in one day by Saddam’s use of chemical weapons, and that of the Iran-Iraq war where casualties numbered up to a million, including many killed by chemical weapons. So these decisions are never easy morally or politically”.

Archbishop Tutu has long been a critic of Mr Blair’s stance on Iraq – even before the invasion.

In 2003 the archbishop said Mr Blair’s support for the Bush administration was “mind-boggling”. “I have a great deal of time for your Prime Minister, but I’m shocked to see a powerful country use its power frequently, unilaterally,” he said.

After the invasion he called on Mr Blair to apologise for an error of judgement on Iraq. “How wonderful if politicians could bring themselves to admit they are only fallible human creatures and not God and thus by definition can make mistakes,” he said. “Unfortunately, they seem to think that such an admission is a sign of weakness. Weak and insecure people hardly ever say sorry.

“President Bush and Prime Minister Blair would recover considerable credibility and respect if they were able to say: ‘Yes, we made a mistake’.”

Read on:  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/desmond-tutu-quits-summit-with-tony-blair-over-invasion-of-iraq-8084805.html

ARTICLE: Assassinating a Prime Minister’s Reputation: Ten Ways to Blackmail Tony Blair

Like John F. Kennedy thirty-seven years earlier, Tony Blair came to power with a clean-cut, charismatic image that promised ‘safe’ change, more social justice, and a strong head on his shoulders. But also like JFK, the youthful leader of ‘New’ Labour had more than a few skeletons trailing behind him. True or not, they remain the subject of intense gossip – and a number of incontrovertible facts – to this day.

They cover not only his early years as a barrister and MP, but also key moments when he was at the height of his power and reputation as an international statesman and warlord.

The wayward lawyer

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair married Cherie Booth on 29th March 1980. Just four years out of University, Blair was trying to establish himself as a barrister – but not with much success.

“He wasn’t very good” says a retired commercial lawyer who hired him at the time through Derry Irvine’s Chambers. “Frankly he didn’t listen to the brief, and he caved in to the Judge…to the fury of my clients. So I fired him. I told Derry, ‘Don’t ever send that twat to me again'”.

The solicitor was appalled at the ease with which Blair betrayed his clients “for a quiet life”. Betrayal (as we shall see) is an amoral spine running through Teflon Tony’s life-story.

We interviewed the lawyer at some length. “When I watched him give in to the EU about the eight billion quid” he said, “I thought of that day in Court”.

Close friends of the Blairs agree that Tony was a washout as a barrister….and that Cherie was without doubt the superstar. But in turn, while specialising in wealthy and commercial clients, for a young man supposedly interested in left-wing ideas Blair defended some odd people.

Read on:  http://www.notbornyesterday.org/brownblairsucc2.htm

The many posts on this site regading this war-criminal, Tony Blair:  http://eotp.org/?s=tony+blair&x=0&y=0

The “Government”‘s War on the British Army: the “British” State Forces War Hero to Live in Tent because He’s Not British Enough

Again, we must ask: how much longer is the British Army going to put up with this direct attack on it and its personnel by those with an ulterior motive who are so happy to send other people’s children [the British Army] to die for their political adventures but will not send their own?

We sane, objective, and sensible people must ask ourselves, and also the British Army, “when is duty and loyalty to the country” also “misguided paid mercenary work for an ‘elite’ who play them like pawns in the game of geo-politics and self-aggrandisement”?

It is clear that the British Army’s loyalty is not to the the criminal, corrupt, degenerate, warmongering ‘government’ -rather it is to the British nation who are –as evidenced by the charities they have set up on behalf of the British Army– the real friends and supporters of the British Army and who have consistently rejected the political adventures in Afghanistan and the to-date 409 British lives needless wasted for no gain whatsoever.

Any right-minded person would curse the Lib-Lab-Conmen and withhold their vote. 

A FORMER soldier is living in a tent in a friend’s garden — after being told he is not entitled to benefits.

John Heaps, 50, served in the Falklands, the first Gulf War, and Northern Ireland during his 16 years in the Army.

But when he returned to the UK in February after spending two years cycling around the world, he was told he had failed the Department for Work and Pensions’ Habitual Residence Test.

And without help, he has been forced to sleep in a friend’s garden in Leeds, West Yorks.

Divorced dad-of-two John said: “I have always been of the opinion that everybody is supposed to be treated as an individual but they do not listen to each individual story.

“I think it stinks, it’s beggars belief. I have travelled the world but this is my place of birth and my home.

“Essentially all that’s happened is I’ve been on holiday.

Read on:  http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4260343/War-hero-John-Heaps-living-in-tent-after-failing-benefits-test-to-prove-UK-ties.html

(2012) New Labour Peer Lord Ahmed -suspended after ‘offering £10m bounty on Barack Obama and George Bush’

 

A controversial peer has been suspended from the Labour Party amid reports that he offered a £10 million bounty for the capture of President Barack Obama and his predecessor President George W Bush.

 

Lord Ahmed, 53, who in 1998 became the first Muslim life peer, was reported to have made the comments at a conference in Haripur in Pakistan.

A Labour Party spokesman said: “We have suspended Lord Ahmed pending investigation. If these comments are accurate we utterly condemn these remarks which are totally unacceptable.”

According to Pakistan’s Express Tribune newspaper Lord Ahmed offered the bounty in response to a US action a week ago.

The US issued a $10 million reward for the capture of Pakistani militant leader Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba group, who it suspects of orchestrating the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which 166 people died as terrorists stormed hotels and a train station.

The British peer reportedly said: “‘If the US can announce a reward of $10 million for the (capture) of Hafiz Saeed, I can announce a bounty of £10 million (for the capture of) President Obama and his predecessor, George Bush.”

 

Read on:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/9206082/British-Peer-Lord-Ahmed-suspended-after-offering-10m-bounty-on-Barack-Obama-and-George-Bush.html

VIDEO: The True Face of what David Cameron and his Fellow Warmongers Supported

Read on:

War Crimes:  http://eotp.org/tag/war-crimes/

State Crime:  http://eotp.org/tag/state-crime/

The “British” Government’s War on the British Army:  http://eotp.org/tag/the-governments-war-on-the-british-army/

How much longer can/will the British Army take orders from this Zionist warmongering commercial “elite” that masquerades as “government”? 

State Crime: 6 British Army Soldiers Killed in Bomb Blast as Death Toll Rises to 404

How much longer can/will our glorious, brave and well-respected (especially by the British people) continue to be manipulated and slain for the purpose of “liberal” “democratic” imperialism which has, as its  end goal, the securitisation of pipelines, opium production and geo-political Western influence (all done under the guise of fighting “terrorism” and instilling “democracy”) in an area which does not concern us and where we should not be? The alarming paradox is that the slavish-to-U.S.-and-Israel warmongering politicians –so eager to send other people’s children to die for their political adventures– nevertheless do not send their own children and family. The British Army, in light of these realities, is duty-bound (to the British people who do not want this “war”) and honour-bound (to the Higher Truth of Justice) to defy this alien government and return its men to guard Britannia and her people. The real war is here in Britain and the real terrorists are in SW1.

Read on: The “Government”‘s War against the British Army: http://eotp.org/category/the-governments-war-on-the-british-army/

• Group had only started their tour a week earlier and were on a mounted patrol in the Helmand Province when Warrior armoured vehicle was struck
• Five soldiers from 3rd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment and one from 1st Battalion The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment were killed
• It was either hit by an improvised explosive device or possibly an anti-tank mine left by Russian soldiers decades ago
• Army’s fleet of Warriors was due for a £1 billion upgrade following safety concerns but it had not yet taken place
• Flowers pile up outside their barracks at Warminster, Wiltshire

A simple posy clasped in his powerful hands, one soldier sums up a nation’s grief.

The burly squaddie fought back tears as he delivered his tribute to six comrades blown up by a Taliban bomb.

It is less than a month since members of the 3rd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment left for Afghanistan.

Yesterday the flowers were piling up outside their barracks at Warminster, Wiltshire, after one of the deadliest incidents in a decade of conflict.

It brought the British death toll in Afghanistan to 404.

With UK troops due to withdraw in 2014, the country remains a lawless shambles run by a corrupt regime, and its future looks bleak.

Many families are asking if it will be worth the sacrifice of their loved ones’ lives.

The six latest victims were killed in a catastrophic double blast when the huge bomb triggered a second explosion of ammunition inside their Warrior armoured vehicle.

This reduced the 40-ton Warrior to a ‘riddled shell’, meaning it was impossible for any of its occupants to survive.

It was the worst single episode for UK troops in Afghanistan since a Nimrod crash killed 14 in 2006, and the biggest-ever loss to insurgent action.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2111405/Afghanistan-explosion-Taliban-blast-takes-Britains-Afghan-death-toll-past-400.html#ixzz1oTo7Pzj0

Police to question Jack Straw over torture in Libya

Ministers must face ‘serious allegations’ over human rights abuses

Former ministers in Tony Blair’s government are expected to be questioned by police over their alleged role in human rights abuses, in a new Scotland Yard investigation into how dissidents were sent to Libya to be imprisoned and tortured by Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. The focus of the inquiry will be the involvement of MI6 in the arrest and rendition of two men. Jack Straw, Tony Blair’s Foreign Secretary between 2001 and 2006, will be interviewed, police and Whitehall officials pointed out, as he would have had to “sign off” operations by MI6 at the time in question. One senior official stressed: “These [operations] were in line with ministerially authorised government policy.” The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, and the Metropolitan Police Service declared yesterday in a joint statement: “The allegations raised in the two specific cases concerning the alleged rendition of named individuals to Libya and the alleged ill-treatment of them in Libya are so serious that it is in the public interest for them to be investigated now rather than at the conclusion of the Detainee Inquiry.”

Read on:  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-to-question-jack-straw-over-torture-in-libya-6289041.html

(Video) Bush, Blair found guilty of war crimes in Malaysia tribunal

Former US president George Bush and his former counterpart Tony Blair were found guilty of war crimes by the The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal which held a four day hearing in the Malaysia.

The five panel tribunal unanimously decided that Bush and Blair committed genocide and crimes against peace and humanity when they invaded Iraq in 2003 in blatant violation of international law.

The judges ruled that war against Iraq by both the former heads of states was a flagrant abuse of law, act of aggression which amounted to a mass murder of the Iraqi people.

In their verdict, the judges said that the United States, under the leadership of Bush, forged documents to claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

They further said the findings of the tribunal be made available to members of the Rome Statute and the names of Bush and Blair be entered into a war crimes register.

Both Bush and Blair repeatedly said the so-called war against terror was targeted at terrorists.

Lawyers and human rights activists present here say the verdict by the tribunal is a landmark decision. And the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Foundation said it would lobby the International Criminal Court to charge former US president George Bush and Former British prime minister Tony Blair for war crimes.

Blair must be arrested -John Pilger

Having helped destroy other nations far away, our former prime minister — “peace envoy” to the Middle East — is now free to profit from the useful contacts he made while working as a “servant of the people”.

Tony Blair must be prosecuted, not indulged like Peter Mandelson. Both have produced self-serving memoirs for which they have been paid fortunes; Blair’s, which has earned him a £4.6m advance, will appear next month.

Now consider the Proceeds of Crime Act. Blair conspired in and executed an unprovoked war of aggression against a defenceless country, of a kind the Nuremberg judges in 1946 described as the “paramount war crime”. This has caused, according to scholarly studies, the deaths of more than a million people, a figure that exceeds the Fordham University estimate of deaths in the Rwandan genocide.

In addition, four million Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes and a majority of children have descended into malnutrition and trauma. Cancer rates near the cities of Fallujah, Najaf and Basra (the latter “liberated” by the British) are now higher than those at Hiroshima. “UK forces used about 1.9 metric tonnes of depleted uranium ammunition in the Iraq war in 2003,” the Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, told parliament on 22 July. A range of toxic “anti-personnel” weapons, such as cluster bombs, was employed by British and US forces.

Such carnage was justified with lies that have been exposed repeatedly. On 29 January 2003, Blair told parliament: “We do know of links between al-Qaeda and Iraq . . .” Last month, the former head of MI5 Eliza Manningham-Buller told the Chilcot inquiry: “There is no credible intelligence to suggest that connection . . . [it was the invasion] that gave Osama Bin Laden his Iraqi jihad.” Asked to what extent the invasion exacerbated the threat to Britain from terrorism, she replied: “Substantially.”

The bombings in London on 7 July 2005 were a direct consequence of Blair’s actions.

Voracious greed

Documents released by the high court show that British citizens were allowed to be abducted and tortured under Blair. In January 2002, Jack Straw, then foreign secretary, decided that Guantanamo was the “best way” to ensure that UK nationals were “securely held”.

Instead of remorse, Blair has demonstrated a voracious and secretive greed. Since stepping down as prime minister in 2007, he has accumulated an estimated £20m, much of it as a result of the ties he developed with the Bush administration. The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, which vets jobs taken by former ministers, was pressured not to make public Blair’s “consultancy” deals with the Kuwaiti royal family and the South Korean oil giant UI Energy Corporation. He gets an estimated £2m a year for “advising” the investment bank JPMorgan and undisclosed sums from other financial services companies. He makes millions from speeches, including reportedly £200,000 for one speech in China.

In his unpaid but expenses-rich role as “peace envoy” in the Middle East, Blair is, in effect, a voice of Israel, which has awarded him a $1m “peace prize”. In other words, his wealth has grown rapidly since he launched, with George W Bush, the bloodbath in Iraq.

His collaborators are numerous. The cabinet in March 2003 knew a great deal about the conspiracy to attack Iraq. Straw, later appointed “justice secretary”, suppressed the relevant cabinet minutes in defiance of an order by the Information Commissioner to release them. Most of those now running for the Labour Party leadership supported Blair’s epic crime, rising as one to salute his final appearance in the Commons. As foreign secretary, David Miliband sought to cover up Britain’s complicity in torture. He promoted Iran as the next “threat”.

Journalists who once fawned on Blair as “mystical” and amplified his vainglorious bids now pretend they were his critics all along. As for the media’s gulling of the public, only the Observer’s David Rose has apologised. The WikiLeaks exposés, released with a moral objective of truth with justice, have been bracing for a public force-fed on complicit, lobby journalism. Verbose celebrity historians such as Niall Ferguson, who rejoiced in Blair’s rejuvenation of “enlightened” imperialism, remain silent about the “moral truancy”, as Pankaj Mishra wrote, “of [those] paid to intelligently interpret the contemporary world”.

The fugitive

Is it wishful thinking that Blair will be collared? Just as the Cameron government understands the “threat” of a law that makes Britain a risky stopover for Israeli war criminals, Blair faces a similar risk in a number of countries and jurisdictions, at least of being apprehended and questioned. He is now Britain’s Kissinger, who plans his travel outside the US with the care of a fugitive.

Two recent events add weight to this. On 15 June, the International Criminal Court made the landmark decision to add aggression to its list of war crimes that can be prosecuted. It defines this as a “crime committed by a political or military leader which by its character, gravity and scale constituted a manifest violation of the [United Nations] Charter”. International lawyers described this as a “giant leap”. Britain is a signatory to the Rome statute that created the court and is bound by its decisions.

On 21 July, Nick Clegg, standing at the Commons despatch box, declared the invasion of Iraq illegal. For all the later “clarification” that he was speaking personally, the Deputy Prime Minister had made “a statement that the international court would be interested in”, said Philippe Sands, professor of international law at University College London.

Blair came from Britain’s upper middle classes which, having rejoiced in his unctuous ascendancy, might now reflect on the principles of right and wrong they require of their own children. The suffering of the children of Iraq will remain a spectre haunting Britain while Blair remains free to profit.

Taken from: http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2010/08/pilger-blair-iraq-britain