Syria - Israel Contempt for International Law & Murdoch Media Interest in Israel's Genie Energy

ꕤ Article SOURCE https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/12/no-brake-and-no-disclosure-on-media-owners-interests/ No Brake and No Disclosure on Media Owners’ Interests by craig on December 5, 2015 3:22 pm in Uncategorized     The Times today carries an article on ISIS’ oil interests, Syria and Turkey. Nowhere does it inform its readers that the owner of the newspaper, Rupert Murdoch, has a vested interest in this subject through his role and shares in Genie Energy, an Israeli company granted oil rights in Syria by the Israeli government. Dick Cheney and Lord Rothschild are also shareholders. No, they really are. This is not a conspiracy theory. It is a conspiracy. That Israel should grant oil rights within Syria is of course a striking example of contempt for international law, but then that is the basis on which Israel normally operates. Of course Genie’s share value will be substantially boosted by the installation of a neo-con puppet regime in Damascus which can be bought to underwrite the oil concession granted by Israel. Contempt for international law has been the single most important defining characteristic of neo-conservatism, and the need to uphold international law the recurring theme of this blog. I never thought the UK government would make the withdrawal of its support for the concept of international law explicit, as Cameron has done by removing the obligation to comply with international law from the Ministerial Code. That is truly, truly disgraceful. But to return to Murdoch’s oil interests in Syria, it seems to me a fundamental flaw that when Fox News, Sky News, the Times, the Sun and Murdoch’s numerous other media outlets bang the drum for Western military action in Syria, there is no requirement for the consumer of this propaganda to be told that the outlet is pushing a policy in line with the financial interests of its owner. Even for those actively seeking information, there is no register of the interests of media proprietors. EXTRACT ONLY -- ARTICLE CONTINUES https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/12/no-brake-and-no-disclosure-on-media-owners-interests/ ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- COMMENT What's the point of international law if there's nobody to enforce it? ꕤ

Laws of War | Geneva Convention (IV) - Civilian Persons

ꕤ Laws of War Geneva Convention Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949 Entry into force: 21 October 1950 https://www.icrc.org/ihl/INTRO/380 [ click to enlarge image  ] Link |  Google Books | here A History of the Laws of War: 3 Volume Author:  Alexander Gillespie "This unique reference traces the origins of the modern laws of warfare, from the earliest times to the present day. Relying on written records from as far back as 2,400 BC, and utilizing sources ranging from the Bible to Security Council Resolutions, the book pieces together the history of a subject which is almost as old as civilization itself. A History of the Laws of War shows that as long as humanity has been waging wars, it has also been trying to find ways of: a) legitimizing different forms of combatants and ascribing rules to them; b) protecting civilians who are either inadvertently or intentionally caught up between them; and c) controlling the use of particular classes of weapons that may be used in times of conflict. Thus, the book is divided into three substantial parts: Volume 1  on the laws affecting combatants and captives; Volume 2 on civilians in times of armed conflict; and Volume 3 on the law of arms control. As a work of reference, A History of the Laws of War is unrivalled and will be of immense benefit to scholars and practitioners researching and advising on the laws of warfare. It throws fascinating new light on the history of international law and on the history of warfare itself. The volumes can be purchased individually, or as a complete three-volume boxed set" source https://www.bookrenter.com/a-history-of-the-laws-of-war-3-volume-boxed-set-gillespie-1849462038-9781849462037 ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- Book looks really interesting. ꕤ

America & UK - Response to 'Refugee Crisis'

ꕤ Article SOURCE http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/where-americas-response-middle-east-refugee-crisis-89876193#sthash.TTVXD7DE.dpuf Where is America's response to the Middle East refugee crisis? Peter Van Buren Friday 18 September 2015 16:55 UTC The answer lies in empty rhetoric from those who began America's wars in the region under the guise of humanitarian intervention. A searing image of a refugee child lying dead on a beach finally alerted the world to a crisis now entering its fifth year. Awareness is never bad, but here it too easily bypasses the question of where all the refugees come from, in favour of a simpler meme. One is reminded of Malala, one story that pushes aside millions. Such narratives bait a familiar trap: the need to “do something”. That “something” in the Middle East is often the clumsy hand of military intervention under the thin cover of humanitarian rhetoric. Cries answered that way have a terrible history of exacerbating a problem they ostensibly set out to solve. The scope of the problem is staggering. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, there are more than three million Syrian refugees in the Middle East. Inside Syria itself, over 17 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, including those internally displaced. Only 350,000 Syrians are estimated to have travelled to Europe. They are the ones you see on television. In Iraq, some 1.8 million people were displaced between January and September 2014, a declared United Nations emergency, and Iraqis are currently the second-largest refugee group in the world. Yet even now the New York Times speaks of a "new wave" of Iraqi refugees, driven in part by "years of violence and unmet promises for democracy by a corrupt political elite". The situation in Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia and elsewhere is much the same. There is a common denominator behind all of these refugee flows: they are, in whole or in part, the product of American "humanitarian interventions". In 2003, President George W. Bush declared the goals of the United States in invading Iraq included freeing its people. In case that was not clear enough, in 2007 Bush proclaimed the American military the "greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known". Yet by 2007 the number of displaced persons in Iraq had grown by some 50 percent. President Barack Obama used similar rhetoric in 2014, when he revived the United States' war in Iraq in response to a "humanitarian crisis that could turn into a genocide" for the Yazidi people. “One Iraqi cried that there is no one coming to help,” President Obama said at the time. “Well, today America is coming to help.” A senior administration official went on to explicitly describe the action as a humanitarian effort. Some 5,000 airstrikes later, that humanitarian effort is now a bloody war with Islamic State, metastasized across multiple nations, exacerbating the refugee flow. For the Yazidis, long-forgotten by Americans as the no longer needed casus belli, the war enveloped them in Islamic State's slave trade. The conflict in Syria remains connected to the 2003 American invasion of Iraq, in the form of militarised Sunni militias which took up arms, the growth of al-Qaeda and its off-shoots in Iraq, and of course the birth of Islamic State. Add to that the elimination of any effective border between Iraq and Syria to allow those forces to flow freely back and forth. American intervention in Syria ratcheted up seemingly on a schedule, all around the theme of saving the Syrian people from their dictator, Bashar al-Assad (similarities to George W Bush's 2003 wording in reference to Saddam Hussein are noted). After it appeared Assad used chemical weapons in 2013, it was American Secretary of State John Kerry who insisted that it was “not the time to be silent spectators to slaughter”. Airstrikes were forestalled for a time, then popped up in 2014 aimed not at Assad, but at Islamic State. Chaos has gone on to drawn numerous foreign powers into the conflict. With Libya in 2011, there was again a "humanitarian effort," led by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton sold intervention as a necessity: “Imagine we were sitting here and Benghazi had been overrun, a city of 700,000 people, and tens of thousands of people had been slaughtered, hundreds of thousands had fled. The cries would be, ‘Why did the United States not do anything?’” That “doing something” helped push Libya into failed state status, feeding the refugee flow and bleeding conflict into neighbouring countries. It is foolish to claim the United States alone "caused" all of these refugee flows; multiple factors, including the aggressiveness of Islamic State, are in play. But it would be equally foolish to ignore American culpability, directly in Iraq and in Libya, and via arms flows and the fanning of flames, in Syria and Yemen. The common element is a stated intent to make things better.  The common result is the opposite. To many, particularly outside the United States, political rhetoric is just the aural garbage of imperialism. But inside the United States, military “humanitarian” intervention generally enjoys robust support. It may look like a shoddy product to some, but people continue to buy it, and thus it continues to happen. Politicians seem to know how to feed the public's demands to “do something” triggered by an emotional photograph for their own purposes. There exists an inverse relationship between those that create refugees and those who help them. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees referred 15,000 Syrians to Washington for resettlement over the last four years; the United States accepted only 1,500, citing, among other issues, concerns over terrorists hiding among the groups. But that was then, pre-photo. Post-photo, with no apparent irony, United States Senator Patrick Leahy stated the refugee crisis “warrants a response commensurate with our nation’s role as a humanitarian leader”. Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States is “looking hard at the number” of additional Syrian refugees it might accommodate, given America's “leadership role with respect to humanitarian issues and particularly refugees”. Right on schedule following Kerry's remarks, President Obama promised, per the New York Times headline, to "Increase Number of Syrian Refugees for US Resettlement to 10,000." With the problem seemingly solved, albeit only 10,000 out of millions, the plight of the refugees disappeared from America's front pages. Left unsaid was the emptiness of even such non-military humanitarian rhetoric. President Obama did not mention, nor was he asked about, the reality that refugees to the US are processed, not accepted. That processing can take years (the average out of Syria is two years at present), indefinite if enough information on a person's security background cannot be amassed. If a positive "up" decision cannot be made that a person is "safe," then the default is indefinite pending status. Such a conundrum has, for example, stymied the applications of many Iraqis and Afghanis who served as translators for the American military and fear for their lives, only to have been left behind. There also remain voices calling for another escalation of war in the Middle East to deal with the “root causes” of the refugee crisis, loosely defined for now as Islamic State's continued existence. There is an immediate need to do more to help the refugees moving into Europe, and those still in the Middle East. That, and that alone, should comprise the “do something” part of a solution. Long term, if the primary response is simply more military intervention in the name of humanitarianism, or more empty promises, the answer is best left as “doing less”. - Peter Van Buren is a retired 24-year veteran of the US Department of State, including service in Iraq. He is the author of We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People. His latest book is Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the 99 Percent. He lives and writes from New York City. http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/where-americas-response-middle-east-refugee-crisis-89876193#sthash.TTVXD7DE.dpuf ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- COMMENT Military 'interventions' abroad are nothing to do with 'humanitarian' concerns.  Even if the media and those in power pretend they are. The bottom line is strategic aims & profit making.  Nothing more. I don't think politicians in the US actually feed a demand to 'do something,' following political and media exploitation of emotive imagery. In my opinion, it is more a case of providing themselves with a pretext for the acts that they intend to perform, rather than some general public overwhelming care-factor demanding US action. USA takes 15,000 refugees in 4 YEARS and then accepts only 1,500. Meanwhile look at what Europe, particularly Germany and Sweden, are taking in -- despite opposition.  Sweden and Germany are the biggest American puppets in Europe, and they're selling out their domestic populations for the Yankee Dollar. Australia has pledged as follows: "It will also pay to support 240,000 people who have fled Iraq and Syria and are now living in neighboring countries, a cost expected to run $44 million Australian dollars, or $31 million."  Australia currently resettles about 13,750 people annually under humanitarian visas, a number scheduled to increase to 18,750 by 2018-19. The 12,000 places will be in addition to that quota, Mr. Abbott’s office said. [here] Therefore, Australia is taking 138,750 persons between 2015-2019 (inclusive), by my estimation. So the Liberal government  that's punishing the Australian unemployed, pensioners, homeless, and Australian families queued up for public housing, finds millions per annum towards mopping up the consequences of US and allied 'intervention' abroad. Meanwhile, Australian opposition politicians are calling on the Liberal government to do 'more' in the way of mop-up operations.  Obama, the current American stage manager of this entire Middle Eastern disaster, is only taking 10,000 (of which he'll be tossing 8,500 back).  What a rort. Kerry's come up with the 'looking hard' to 'see how many more' they can accommodate.  Brilliant move.  I can just see him sucking in some air while he's saying that. Obama says 10,000 ... but of that, expect them to actually take only 1,500, going by past record. This is insane. It's insane to create all this chaos in the first place.  And it's just as insane to expect various domestic populations to absorb the resulting mayhem, particularly given the disruption to native populations in Europe. The cowardice of the European politicians is astounding. This has been an ongoing problem for years now -- see Lampedusa -- locals were fed up with the non-stop arrivals from Africa, years ago. The European politicians would have known exactly what is going on, but they did nothing. We're talking about people that run countries and people who have advisers and a wealth of information and experience, not ordinary people who have no idea and no say. Yet they did nothing. Instead of setting up refugee facilities in situ in the Middle East and in Africa and instead of securing European borders, they've sat on this for years doing nothing but standing by letting this chaos home in on their domestic fronts.  Now, they've not only let Europe get swamped by a massive surge of uncontrolled immigration from all over, Germany's Angela Merkel went that step further and invited the chaos by announcement a month ago, probably to give Dave Cameron and the rest of the sell-out European politicians a face-saver excuse for taking on-board yet more alien arrivals. Check out Dave Cameron's slick apportioning of blame to Bashar al-Assad, whose government he and his corporate friends have been trying to depose for years now. Dave Cameron and his partners in crime have created the chaos in Syria by supporting terrorists, in order to take down the Syrian government.  And the chaos of their making isn't confined to Syria:  there's several countries that have been targets of Western 'intervention'. Dave Cameron's government (as America's second banana in the Middle East), acting on behalf of interests that have nothing to do with the average Briton, is responsible for creation of this mess.  But why should the chaos that these corrupt politicians create abroad become the financial and social burden placed upon the average Briton or European, whose present and future living conditions are detrimentally impacted? British and European vulnerable and working classes are punished by the aggressive foreign policies of these well-heeled corporate-serving politicians, who don't have to live with the immediate or future chaos they create at home (or abroad), as theirs is the buffer of wealth and privilege. You'll hear them and their media representatives exhort that there's a 'moral obligation' to bend over and take more of what they're serving up as a side dish to corporate servitude. As if these corporate puppet politicians give a damn about 'moral obligation'.   They're all the same.  They all serve the same interests. People need to resist and tell these middle-class lawyer-politicians to shove off.  Tell these representatives of corporate greed to make alternative arrangements for the consequences of their wars and proxy wars overseas -- arrangements that don't involve sucking up public funds, straining public amenities, or causing social problems for which there is no remedy. If governments acting for corporate interests want to pillage resources the world over to enrich Western corporate beneficiaries of capitalism and the parasites that attach, there's probably not much that can be done to prevent that without imposing an alternate economic and power structure (on a state and power structure that will not relinquish power willingly), which is unlikely to happen. However, I think domestic populations ought to at least come to consider such ventures as an external cost to be strictly borne by corporate beneficiaries, rather than funded by the state, underwritten by taxpayers, or subsequently imposed as a 'crisis' on the then domestically displaced and punished vulnerable and working class populations. That sounds really mercenary, but I don't see what the alternative might be.   Apart from maybe also campaigning against war and applying as much pressure to that, as applying pressure to maintenance of cultural and economic standards.  Demanding cultural integrity and economic security should be straightforward.  But it's not.   But people should at least consider demanding their due, making military interventions an unattractive business plan, the consequences of which are not going to be willingly mopped up by obliging domestic populations. To my way of thinking, it makes far more sense to forget the promised nirvana of universalism evangelised by missionaries, and to demand what is essential to survival, in this world. UK to take up to 20,000 Syrian refugees over five years, David Cameron confirms Britain is to respond to the refugee crisis facing Europe by taking 20,000 refugees from the camps on the borders of Syria over the next five years, David Cameron has announced. Cameron told the House of Commons the UK would “live up to its moral responsibility” towards people forced from their homes by the forces of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and the Islamic State terror group. The prime minister said the refugees would not immediately be granted full asylum status, giving them a right to settle, but instead a humanitarian status that will allow them to apply for asylum at the end of five years. [...] The European commission is understood to be preparing to ask EU member states to take part in a mandatory scheme to resettle 160,000 migrants who have already arrived on the continent. The French president, François Hollande, has said France is ready to take in 24,000 people. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/07/uk-will-accept-up-to-20000-syrian-refugees-david-cameron-confirms    Britain current refugees:  30,000 DAVID Cameron’s promise to take in 20,000 Syrian immigrants will spark a deep North/South divide across Britain with a single working class northern town taking more refugees than the entire affluent South East region. EXTRACTS Staggeringly just four towns within a few miles of each other - Bolton, Liverpool, Rochdale and Manchester - would become home to 2,903 refugees alone. "Little or no regard is given to the impact from the moment new arrivals move in – in terms of ongoing costs to vital local support services, like schools and GPs – or the impact on the neighbourhood. "The prime concern of the bean counters is to get this done as cheaply as possible and housing costs represent a significant part of the bill from accepting asylum seekers. "We know that when unmanaged and not properly understood, community change of any kind can lead to tensions which affect both the area hosting the new arrivals and those seeking safe refuge themselves.  "If government fails, they fail us all." "Since 2012, when the contract for managing the distribution of asylum seekers was handed to Serco, the number of asylum seekers in the North West has risen by 50% but fallen by 20% in London. Home Office currently uses private contractor Serco to home people seeking asylum in Britain, but not those who have already been granted refugee status. It is not yet clear whether or not the company will be used to allocate the 20,000 Syrians Mr Cameron has promised sanctuary to. http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/604769/Migrant-crisis-north-England-David-Cameron-Syrian-refugees Other Serco Group plc British outsourcing company HQ Hook, Hampshire Operates public and private transport and traffic control, aviation, military weapons, detention centres, prisons and schools on behalf of its customers. "There has been a history of problems, failures, fatal errors and overcharging." Defence Serco held defence contracts in 2004, including the UK Government's contract for the maintenance of the UK Ballistic Missile Early Warning System at RAF Fylingdales; contracts are also held for the operation and maintenance of RAF Brize Norton, RAF Halton and RAF Northolt in the UK and RAF Ascension Island in the mid-Atlantic.  Serco also provides support services to garrisons in Australia.  Serco also manages many aspects of operations at the Defence College of Management and Technology in Shrivenham.  Serco is one of three partners in the consortium which manages the Atomic Weapons Establishment.  Serco also has a 15-year contract worth £400 million to provide facilities management services to the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl). Serco Marine Services is responsible for fleet support at the three main UK naval bases, HMNB Portsmouth, HMNB Devonport and HMNB Clyde. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serco Serco is failing, but is kept afloat thanks to Australia's refugee policy Antony Loewenstein EXRACTS Serco shares dive after scandal According to Rupert Soames’s script, Serco will emerge in 2017 as a smaller and sharper operator. On the way, though, operating profits will fall as low as £100m. Tuesday 11 November 2014 12.41 AEDT   It’s a sign of the times that a company like Serco, with murky financial statements masking its true economic shape, is continually rewarded for failure by new and larger contracts Revealingly, the corporation admitted that without its Australian detention network, its profit would have been even worse. In other words, imprisoning asylum seekers in poor conditions for extended periods of time in remote locations is good for business. Serco won the contract to manage all of Australia’s mainland facilities and Christmas Island in 2009 – I was part of a team that first published the contract between Serco and Canberra in 2011 – and the profits have soared ever since. From a $370m contract in 2009 to well over $1bn today, surging refugee boats have been invaluable to Serco’s bottom line. Serco has benefitted from an opaque reporting process and desperate federal politicians and bureaucrats who needed corporate help with an immigration system that ran out of control when asylum seekers started arriving in large numbers from Sri Lanka, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and beyond. Neither the government nor Serco could handle the influx, and both detainees and guards suffered. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/11/serco-is-failing-but-is-maintained-afloat-thanks-to-australias-refugee-policy  Comment The amount of taxpayer money the Australian government spends on keeping unauthorised immigration at bay is staggering. Why is it that all those lawyer-politicians swanning around Canberra cannot come up with a simple proposal that says something like:  Nah. Take Israel as an example (and precedent) for bailing from international treaty: Although Israel has signed the 1998 Rome Statute on 28 August 2002, the Secretary-General received from the Government of Israel, the following communication: "...in connection with the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court adopted on 17 July 1998, [...] Israel does not intend to become a party to the treaty. Accordingly, Israel has no legal obligations arising from its signature on 31 December 2000. Israel requests that its intention not to become a party, as expressed in this letter, be reflected in the depositary's status lists relating to this treaty."  [here]  [those dates are conflicting ie signed:  28 Aug 2002 & 31 Dec 2000 ... which is it?] Once again, Israel is sane where other nations -- Australia, in this case -- appear positively insane for going through the expensive motions of what should be a very simple. Withdrawal is a sound solution to an obligation that does not serve one's national interests. Anyone who thinks it's in Australia's national interests to show any weakness whatsoever in respect of unauthorised immigration is insane. The desires of gullible well-meaning Christian grannies, saviours, martyrs, missionaries, intellectuals, and champaign socialists don't translate at all well in terms of the demands of concrete reality. ꕤ

MUST READ: Neoliberal Capitalism - Planned Machinations of Empire & Militarism - Syria, Ukraine, Libya & Beyond

MUST READ SOURCE http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-collateral-damage-of-us-nato-wars-europes-refugee-crisis-depraved-morality-of-uk-prime-minister-david-cameron/5473997?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter The “Collateral Damage” of US-NATO Wars: Europe’s Refugee Crisis, Depraved Morality of UK Prime Minister David Cameron By Colin Todhunter Global Research, September 06, 2015 Region: Europe, Middle East & North Africa Theme: Police State & Civil Rights, United Nations UK Prime Minister David Cameron this week said “as a father I felt deeply moved” by the image of a Syrian boy dead on a Turkish beach. As pressure mounts on the UK to take in more of those fleeing to Europe from Syria and elsewhere. Cameron added that the UK would fulfil its “moral responsibilities.” On hearing Cameron’s words on the role of ‘morality’, something he talks a lot about, anyone who has been following the crisis in Syria would not have failed to detect the hypocrisy. According to former French foreign minister Roland Dumas, Britain had planned covert action in Syria as early as 2009. He told French TV: I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business… I met with top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria. This was in Britain not in America. Britain was preparing gunmen to invade Syria. Writing in The Guardian in 2013, Nafeez Ahmed discusses leaked emails from the private intelligence firm Stratfor, including notes from a meeting with Pentagon officials, that confirmed US-UK training of Syrian opposition forces since 2011 aimed at eliciting “collapse” of Assad’s regime “from within.” He goes on to write that, according to retired NATO Secretary General Wesley Clark, a memo from the Office of the US Secretary of Defense just a few weeks after 9/11 revealed plans to “attack and destroy the governments in seven countries in five years,” starting with Iraq and moving on to “Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.” Clark argues that this strategy is fundamentally about control of the region’s vast oil and gas resources. In 2009, Syrian President Assad refused to sign a proposed agreement with Qatar that would run a pipeline from the latter’s North field through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and on to Turkey, with a view to supply European markets in direct competition with Russia. Being a Russian ally, Assad refused to sign and instead pursued negotiations for an alternative $10 billion pipeline plan with Iran crossing Iraq and into Syria that would also potentially allow Iran to supply gas to Europe. Thus Assad had to go. And this is where Cameron’s concerns really lie: not with ordinary people compelled to flee war zones that his government had a hand in making but with removing Assad in order for instance to run a pipeline through Syrian territory and to prevent Iran and Russia gaining strategic momentum in the region. Ordinary folk are merely ‘collateral damage’ in the geopolitical machinations of bankers, oilmen and arms manufacturers, only to be shown any sympathy when the media flashes images of a dead Syrian boy washed up on a Turkish beach or people drowned at sea trying to escape turmoil at home. It is then that people like Cameron are obliged to demonstrate mock sincerity in the face of public concern. ***** It is not only Syrians who are heading for Europe and the UK but also people from Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. Countries that Britain has helped to devastate as part of the US-led long war based on the Project for a New American Century and the US right to intervene unilaterally as and when it deems fit under the notion of the US ‘exceptionalism’ (better known as the project for a new imperialism – the ‘Wolfowitz Doctrine’). Cameron said that Britain is a moral nation and would fulfil its moral responsibilities. Large sections of the population – ordinary men and women – are certainly ‘moral’ but that is unfortunately where any notion of morality seems to stop. Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray has called the UK a rogue state and a danger to the world. Last year, he told a meeting at St Andrews University in Scotland that the British Government is deeply immoral and doesn’t care how many people its kills abroad if it advances it aims. Moreover, he said the UK was a state that is prepared to go to war to make a few people wealthy. He added that Libya is now a disaster and 15,000 people were killed when NATO (British and French jets) bombed Sirte, something the BBC never told the public. Murray told his audience what many already know or suspect but what many more remain ignorant of: I’ve seen things from the inside and the UK’s foreign interventions are almost always about resources. It is every bit as corrupt as others have indicated. It is not an academic construct, the system stinks. Murray was a British diplomat for 20 years. But after only six months, he said that in the country where he was Ambassador, the British and the US were shipping people in order for them to be tortured and some of them were tortured to death. As far as Iraq is concerned, Murray said that he knew for certain that key British officials were fully aware that there weren’t any weapons of mass destruction. He said that invading Iraq wasn’t a mistake, it was a lie. Back in 2011, 200 prominent African figures accused Western nations and the International Criminal Court of “subverting international law” in Libya. The UN has been misused to militarise policy, legalise military action and effect regime change, according to University of Johannesburg professor Chris Landsberg. He said it is unprecedented for the UN to have outsourced military action to NATO in this way and challenges the International Criminal Court to investigate NATO for “violating international law.” In 2015, the outcome has been to turn Africa’s most developed nation to ruins and run by armed militias fighting one another. Is this the stability and morality Cameron preaches? Yet for public consumption, Cameron flags up his ‘morality’ by stating that the UK would continue to take in “thousands” of refugees. But he cautions that this is not the only answer to the crisis, saying a “comprehensive solution” is required. Awash with self-righteous platitudes he hoped would drown out any hint of hypocrisy or irony, Cameron added: “We have to try and stabilise the countries from which these people are coming.” One year ago, Cameron told the United Nations that Britain was ready to play its part in confronting “an evil against which the whole world must unite.” He also said that that “we” must not be so “frozen with fear” of repeating the mistakes of the 2003 Iraq invasion. He was attempting to drum up support for wider Anglo-US direct military action against Syria under the pretext of attacking ISIS. At the same time, Cameron spoke of the virtues of the West’s economic freedom and democratic values as well as the horrors of extremism and terror. Cameron’s was a monologue of hypocrisy. Over a million people have been killed via the US-led or US-backed attacks on Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, so we were told. It did not. That was a lie and hundreds of thousands have paid with their lives. We were told that Gaddafi was a tyrant. He used the nation’s oil wealth well by presiding over a country that possessed some of the best indices of social and economic well-being in Africa. Now, thanks to Western backed terror and military conflict, Libya lies in ruins and torn apart. Russia is a threat to world peace because of its actions in Ukraine, we are told. It is not. The US helped instigate the overthrow of a democratically elected government in Ukraine and has instigated provocations, sanctions and a proxy war against an emerging, confident Russia. But how far in history should we go back to stress that the West and Cameron and his ilk have no right to take the moral high ground when it comes to peace, respect for international law, self-determination, truth or democracy? The much quoted work by historian William Blum documents the crimes, bombings, assassinations, destabilisations and wars committed by the US in country after country since 1945. And since 1945 the UK has consistently stood shoulder to shoulder with Washington. Cameron stood at the UN and talked of the West’s values of freedom and democracy and the wonders of economic neoliberalism in an attempt to promote Western values and disguise imperialist intent. But it’s a thin disguise. The Anglo-US establishment has imposed its economic structural violence on much of the world by bankrupting economies, throwing millions into poverty and imposing ‘austerity’ and by rigging and manipulating global commodity markets and prices. Add to that the mass illegal surveillance at home and abroad, torture, drone murders, destabilisations, bombings and invasions and it becomes clear that Cameron’s ongoing eulogies to morality, freedom, humanitarianism, democracy and the ‘free’ market is hollow rhetoric. Apart from attempting to legitimise neoliberal capitalism, this rhetoric has one purpose: it is part of the ongoing ‘psych-ops’ being waged on the public to encourage people to regard what is happening in the world – from Syria, Iraq and Ukraine to Afghanistan and Libya, etc – as a confusing, disconnected array of events (perpetuated by unhinged madmen or terror groups) that are in need of Western intervention. These events are not for one minute to be regarded by the public as the planned machinations of empire and militarism, which entail a global energy and trade war against Russia and China, the associated preservation of the petro-dollar system and the encircling and intimidation of these two states with military hardware. Any mainstream narrative about the current migrant-refugee ‘crisis’ must steer well clear of such an analysis. Instead, we must listen to Cameron talking about the West ‘helping’ to stabilise the countries it helped to destabilise or destroy in the first place. It’s the same old story based on the same misrepresentation of imperialism: the US-led West acting as a force for good in the world and reluctantly taking up the role of ‘world policeman’. Whether it’s the now amply financially rewarded Blair or whether it is Cameron at the political helm, the perpetual wars and perpetual deceptions continue. Cameron plays his role well. Like Tony Blair, Cameron’s media-friendly bonhomie is slicker (and cheaper) than the most experienced used car salesman. And like Blair before him, Cameron is the media-friendly PR man who beats the drums of war (or mock sincerity, as the situation dictates), courtesy of a global power elite, who through their think tanks, institutions and financial clout ultimately determine economic policies and decide which wars are to be fought and for what purpose: “… the Davos-attending, Gulfstream/private jet-flying, money-incrusted, megacorporation-interlocked, policy-building elites of the world, people at the absolute peak of the global power pyramid. They are 94 percent male, predominantly white, and mostly from North America and Europe. These are the people setting the agendas at the Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group, G-8, G-20, NATO, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization. They are from the highest levels of finance capital, transnational corporations, the government, the military, the academy, nongovernmental organizations, spiritual leaders and other shadow elites. Shadow elites include, for instance, the deep politics of national security organizations in connection with international drug cartels, who extract 8,000 tons of opium from US war zones annually, then launder $500 billion through transnational banks, half of which are US-based.” – David Rothkopf (Project Censored ‘Exposing the transnational ruling class’) SOURCE http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-collateral-damage-of-us-nato-wars-europes-refugee-crisis-depraved-morality-of-uk-prime-minister-david-cameron/5473997?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- COMMENT An excellent article, packed with everything that these slimy used-car salesmen politicians (and their corporate media enabler handmaidens), responsible for devastating their own countries and destroying those abroad, don't want you to know. These same hypocrite politicians that are responsible for the wilful destruction abroad and ensuing mayhem at home, wring their hands about 'radicalisation' ... like they haven't a clue how such a thing could possibly happen ... while entire populations in their countries are placed under totalitarian control, and their vulnerable and working classes are reduced to homelessness and relying on food banks.  lol It's a lot to take in.  Might have to do some notes. Assange Transnational Security Elite, Carving Up the World Using Your Tax Money London  OCT8 Antiwar Mass Assembly (2011) Link  |  here ꕤ

Machiavellian USA Spying on Japan - Consistent With US Bid for Total Control on Economic & World Stage

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-08/02/c_134472389.htm Commentary: U.S. spying on Japan proves it has never treated allies as equals English.news.cn 2015-08-02 16:37:13 [More] BEIJING, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- The recently exposed U.S. spying on Japan, one of its most loyal "allies," has once again proved to the world that U.S. foreign polices are still based on realpolitik and it only sees other countries as objects to control, no matter whether they are "friends" or foes. The Wikileaks website on Friday posted National Security Agency (NSA) reports and a list of 35 Japanese targets for telephone intercepts of senior Japanese government officials including the Japanese Cabinet Office, the Bank of Japan, the country's finance and trade ministries and major Japanese trading companies. However, the world is not completely caught off guard when the Wikileaks websites posted NSA reports revealing the United States is also spying on Japan. The United States is often criticized for applying double standards on various issues, but the world's "freedom leader" has been very realistic and consistent when it comes to eavesdropping: from the potential rivals such as Iran and Russia to close allies such as France and Germany. So there is no reason to believe it should treat Japan differently. The United States has been trying to maintain its dominance in global politics, economy and military power. And one of the most important reasons for the United States to spy on other countries is that it wants total control -- to be in total control. Namely, it needs to be "omniscient." Spying on the telephone conversations and emails of other countries' leaders is not only immoral but is also in violation of international law. But the United States did it anyway, because it knew perfectly well that even if it got caught, no one would be there to punish the only super power in the world. The United States' licentious spying on other countries once again proves how hypocritical its course of defending freedom and democracy is. The truth is that the United States has never treated its "allies" on an equal footing, but sees itself as their superior, having the right to do whatever it wants on them. It is also noteworthy that stepping up of espionage activities against other countries actually coincides with the rise of emerging markets and the unification of Europe, which, in the eyes of the United States, is gradually encroaching upon its dominance over economy as well as other fields. The United States is afraid of losing its status as the single pole in the present unipolar world, and the almost reckless spying means, however futile it would be, that it attempts to turn the tide around. But no matter how much the United States has benefited from knowing other countries' secrets, it will always lose more for the distrusts and mutual suspicions it has stirred up among countries. Seeing how the United States treats its "allies," the world can have a better measurement of the values it actually "upholds."  [Ouch] http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-08/02/c_134472389.htm Realpolitik = "politics or diplomacy based primarily on power and on practical and material factors and considerations, rather than explicit ideological notions or moral or ethical premises." "Realpolitik is sometimes used pejoratively to imply politics that are coercive, amoral, or Machiavellian." [wikipedia]  --------------------- COMMENT I love articles from alternate sources. So all that insane spying is to keep the US in control economically and otherwise. But having been caught out, although the US is in violation of international law, there's nobody to sanction the US because the US (Wall Street, Federal Reserve, IMF, World Bank etc) is in financial control, I guess. 'Machiavellian' is a description that definitely fits the US.  Think fake WMDs, Gulf of Tonkin, coups, supporting terrorists etc.

SNOWDEN, ASSANGE & WIKILEAKS: USA - NSA Police-State Dictatorship & Corporate Media State-Aligned Propaganda

John Oliver’s interview with Edward Snowden: Pseudo-satire in defense of NSA surveillance  By Thomas Gaist 9 April 2015 Comedy host John Oliver conducted an interview with National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden in Moscow recently that was broadcast Sunday on his HBO show “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.” In the process, Oliver exposed his solidarity with the American state and its vast, illegal spying operations. He took the opportunity of the conversation to come out harshly against Snowden’s decision to leak large quantities of NSA documents. Pushing for a confession that his actions were potentially “harmful,” the British-born Oliver demanded to know whether Snowden had personally read every single document contained in the files that the former NSA employee transferred to journalists beginning in the summer of 2013. “I have evaluated all of the documents that are in the archive. I do understand what I turned over,” Snowden replied. “There’s a difference between understanding what’s in the documents and reading what’s in the documents. Because when you’re handing over thousands of NSA documents, the last thing you’d want to do is read them,” Oliver retorted sarcastically. He went on, “You have to own that. You’re giving documents with information that could be harmful.” Oliver repeated the favored arguments of the Obama administration and intelligence establishment to the effect that the preservation of “national security” required the elimination of civil liberties, such as Fourth Amendment protections against arbitrary searches and seizures. “We all want perfect privacy and perfect safety, but those two things cannot coexist,” Oliver said, comparing the NSA spy programs to a “Badass pet falcon,” which he asserted could not live together with “an adorable pet vole named Herbert.” Oliver’s attack on Snowden reached extraordinary and insulting heights. At one point, he interrupted the internationally respected whistleblower for sounding too much like “the IT guy from work… Please don’t teach me anything. I don’t want to learn. You smell like canned soup,” Oliver said to the courageous defender of democratic rights, who has now endured nearly two years of persecution and exile. Oliver’s hostility towards Snowden and Julian Assange of WikiLeaks is an expression of his staunch support, almost universally shared among well-to-do strata in American society, for the continuation of the US government’s surveillance programs. In a couple of brief asides, Oliver half-heartedly suggested that minor reforms to the system of authoritarian shadow courts and antidemocratic laws erected to legitimize the spying might be necessary. But the development and permanent maintenance of mass surveillance programs by the US government went unquestioned. If nothing else, the Snowden interview should help clear matters up for those who still had illusions about Oliver, Jon Stewart and their ilk. Behind their sophomoric antics, designed to dupe more naïve elements looking for something genuinely antiestablishment, lies a run-of-the-mill, conformist outlook, in keeping with the lavish material rewards they receive. (Oliver made an estimated $2,000,000 in 2013.) In one of a few moments when he adopted a serious tone, Oliver cited the failure of the New York Times to fully redact one of the NSA slides, an oversight he claimed was a “f***-up” that exposed a US intelligence operation against al Qaeda in Mosul, Iraq. In another, he warned viewers that WikiLeaks’ Assange was “even less careful than Snowden” about the material he was leaking. He mocked Assange, who remains trapped inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London as a result of his efforts to expose US war crimes, comparing him to “a sandwich bag full of biscuit dough wearing a Stevie Nicks wig.” Pointing to video clips of street interviewees who showed increased concern over surveillance after Oliver referred to reports that NSA agents view nude pictures sent by targets via email and text message, the comedy host contended that Americans’ interest in the matter does not extend beyond such matters. From here, Oliver arrived at the notion that the failure of even minimal reform of the surveillance operations to gain traction results from the fact that ordinary Americans can only be convinced to think about politics through appeals of the most backward kind. “Domestic surveillance, Americans give some of a sh** about. Foreign surveillance, American don’t give any sh** about,” Oliver said. When Snowden noted that such abuses are “seen as no big deal in the culture of the NSA,” and that agency employees “see naked pictures all the time,” Oliver issued another absurd slander against the US population. “This is the most visible line in the sand for people. ‘Can they see my dick?’” Oliver said. If wide sections of the population lack accurate knowledge about recent developments in government spying, it is the outcome of the systematic and deliberate efforts to conceal the truth by the corporate media to which Oliver belongs. Snowden made patient efforts to work around Oliver’s willful ignorance and class arrogance, seeking to explain that along with the “dick pictures” obsessed over by Oliver, the NSA is collecting every other form of data on the planet, from US and non-US individuals alike, in open violation of the US Bill of Rights and international law. “If you have your email somewhere like Gmail, hosted on a server overseas or transferred overseas or [if it] at anytime crosses outside the borders of the United States, your junk ends up in the database,” Snowden commented. “Google moves data internationally and NSA catches copies during this process, through PRISM, with Google’s involvement. All the major companies, Yahoo, Facebook, the US government deputizes them to be its surveillance sheriffs,” he added. Oliver is not engaging in political satire, of which there is a long and proud tradition, in any meaningful sense of the word. Genuine satire attacks the powerful, exposing their lies and hypocrisy. Oliver, on the other hand, instinctively aligns himself with the US ruling elite and its historically unprecedented surveillance apparatus, one of the foundations of a police-state dictatorship. Sunday’s installment of Last Week was an exercise in pro-NSA propaganda and cultural degradation. http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/04/09/oliv-a09.html COMMENT Great article.  Wish I could think like this guy.  All I thought was:  what an asshole Oliver is, but I'd never have been able to articulate why as well as the article author. Article also ties in nicely with the one I looked at earlier:       Beyond Manufacturing Consent       By: Paul Street Manufacturing Consent:  United States corporate media’s role as propaganda organ for that nation’s imperial establishment US corporate media’s biggest contribution to the engineering of mass “consent.”      US corporate media function of transmitting      ideology and propaganda      in service to .. interrelated hierarchies of empire. http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Beyond-Manufacturing-Consent-20150327-0024.html ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ OTHER Vilifying WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, and Chelsea Manning by Hearsay http://wiseupaction.info/2015/04/11/vilifying-wikileaks-julian-assange-and-chelsea-manning-by-hearsay/ 'Vilification by hearsay' article in relation to the recent Sean Penn criticisms of WikiLeaks and Assange.