Update on Crimes of Empire Book

Last year I started work on a book about current western imperialism. How the US has interfered across the world to bring down democratically elected left-wing governments when they threatened American corporate power and put in place vicious, murderous right-wing dictatorships. All done in the name of protecting the world from the Communist threat, of course. The latest phase of this imperialism is George W. Bush’s and Tony Blair’s ‘War on Terror’, under which they invaded a country that was absolutely no threat to us – Iraq – just to loot its oilfields and state industries, all for the benefit of American multinationals, western big business and the Saudi oil industry. And the list goes on, through the continued occupation of Afghanistan, the funding of Islamist forces against Assad in Syria, and Obama’s and Killary’s staged, fake democratic revolution in Ukraine, which launched a government with real Nazis goose-stepping through the streets of Kiev, killing real leftists and chanting their very real hatred of Jews.

The book was suggested by ‘Florence’, one of the many great commenters on this blog, who was afraid of the lack of the understanding of the anti-imperial dimension to Socialist/ Labour party activism. She remembered the 1970s when many people became active in left-wing politics through campaigns against General Pinochet in Chile, for example. He was another real Fascist thug, who seized power in a CIA sponsored coup that overthrew the democratically elected Marxist president, Salvador Allende. The result was decades of Fascist terror, including horrific torture and rape, the internment and murder of radicals, and mass executions. Oh yes, and they stole left-wing activists’ children, to be brought up instead by good Fascist families. Pinochet was strongly influenced by the Chicago school of Milton Friedman and von Miles. The latter had explicitly turned away from democracy, because the masses would never accept his destruction of the welfare state, and state schooling, healthcare et. Pinochet was in power until the late 80s. And he ended up fleeing from justice to Britain, where he had a good friend in Maggie Thatcher. Pinochet is exactly the type of monster left-wingers in the ’70s and ’80s fought very had against, the memory of which might be lost unless more is done to show that monsters like Pinochet are still being installed and supported.

I’ve a few more things to do on the book before I send it off to Lulu. But I’ve worked out the chapters and their contents. Here’s the list:

Introduction and Florence’s request

General US/Western Interference

Abby Martin on the Jimmy Dore Show Talks about US Crimes of Empire: Part 1:
Abby Martin on the Jimmy Dore Show Talks about US Crimes of Empire: Part 2
Abby Martin on the Jimmy Dore Show Talks about the US Crimes of Empire: Part 3
Secular Talk on Seven Fascist Regimes supported by America
The Young Turks: CIA Overthrows Democracies, But Can’t Get Rid of Dictators
William Blum’s List of American Foreign Interventions: Part 1
William Blum’s List of American Foreign Inrterventions: Part 2
Blum’s List of Countries In which US Has Interfered with their Elections
Lee Camp: New Docs Show America Knew about Indonesia Genocide
American State Censored TV Programme on American Nerve Gas Atrocity in Laos.
William Blum on the naïve Trust of Countries invaded by US
William Blum on Right-Wing Coups in Greece
Democracy Now on Hillary Clinton and the Right-Wing Coup in Honduras
Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton and Henry Kissinger
Democratic Socialist on the Von Mises’ Institutes Lies About the Pinochet Coup
RT’s Lee Camp on What the US Military Is Doing in Niger
TeleSur English: CIA Planned False Flag Attacks in Miami
Telsur English: US Planned to Use Biological Warfare Against Cuba
Telesur English: Venezuela Drops Petrodollars, Threatens US Global Power
Jimmy Dore: Taliban Have Surrendered Several Times, Each Time Refused by America
Jimmy Dore Show: Obama Rejected North Korea Nuclear Peace Deal in 2015
Jimmy Dore Show: US Begins Bombing in Somalia Again, Because Oil Found
William Blum on the Abortive Prosecution of NATO Leaders for War Crimes in Yugoslavia
Jimmy Dore on the Church Committee Hearings of 1975 into CIA Corruption
Jimmy Dore: Hillary Wanted to Rig Palestinian Elections
Alan Moore on CIA Atrocities in Central America: Brought to Light
Financial Times Review of Book on Origins of American Financial Imperialism
Michael Moore’s New Film against US Miltitarism and Imperialism
Bernie Sanders’ Speech Attacking US Coups of Foreign Governments

Iran

The Pro-Israel Billionaires Pushing Trump towards Confrontation with Iran
Telesur English on the Similarities between Trump’s Action on Venezuela and the 1953 Coup in Iran
Redacted Tonight on How Trump Is Lying to Us About Iran and North Korea
American Comedian Lee Camp on the Real Reason Iran’s Been Put ‘On Notice’
William Blum on the Demonisation of Iran,
The Israel Lobby, Liam Fox and the Planned Bombing of Iran
Jimmy Dore: NBC Attacks Obama, Clinton, Silent about Reagan’s Treachery with Iran
Secular Talk: Candidate for Trump’s Secretary of State Wants War with Iran

Real Reasons for Iraq War

Comedian Bill Hicks on Gulf War I and George Bush Senior
The Case for Prosecuting Blair as War Criminal for Iraq Invasion
Spokesman Pamphlets on Blair, the ‘Dodgy Dossier’ and the Iraq Invasion
George Galloway and Peter Hitchens on Blair and the Iraq War
Vox Political: Youssef El-Gingihy on Western Imperialism in Iraq
An Iraqi Woman Describes the State of her Country before Bush and Blair’s Invasion
Counterpunch Article on the History of British Imperial Domination in Iraq.
Owen Jones on the Chilcot Report, the Iraq War and Tony Blair
Vox Political on Those, Who Believed Blair’s Lies about Iraq
1920s Iraqi Poem on the New Constitution and Order Imposed by and for Britain, Not Iraqis
Private Eye on the Western Firms Seeking to Grasp the Iraqi Oil Fields
The Young Turks on Report Showing Iraq Invasion Based on Lies
Brainwash Update on Lawlessness, Murder and Assassination by American Mercenaries Blackwater in Iraq
Young Turks’ Item on Pentagon Censoring Internal Reports Showing War Not Working in Iraq and Syria

Gaddafi and Libya

Telesur English on the Chaos Caused by the Death of Gaddafy
Colonel Gaddafy Predicted He Would Be Killed for his Opposition to Capitalism
The Death Toll from Italian Colonialism: Why Johnson’s Comments about Libyan Corpses Is Not Funny

Russia and Ukraine

HIGNFY Spreads More Lies about Russian Interference in American Election
BBC 2 Programme Next Week on British Forces in Ukraine and Estonia
Despite the Jokes, HIGNFY Is Fake News
Putin and Trump, and Bill Clinton’s Interference in Russian Elections for Yeltsin
Counterpunch Article Claiming US Spy Agencies Trying to Engineer War with Russia
Have I Got News For You and the Bias in BBC News Satire
William Blum on American Preparations for Nuclear War with Russia
More Military Tension between NATO and Russia; Pat Mills Right in ABC Warriors
Seamas Milne on the Dangers of Conservative Propaganda in the History of Communism
Counterpunch on Putin’s Non-Existent Threat to the Baltic States
Counterpunch on NATO’s Preparations for War with Russia

Syria

Syrian Uprising Directed by Saudi Prince and Other Foreign Governments
RT on House of Lord’s Opposition to £200 million Going to Syrian Opposition
Counterpunch on Saudi Arabia’s Influence on British Foreign Affairs
Jimmy Dore: Pentagon-Backed Rebels Fight CIA-Backed Rebels in Syria
Jimmy Dore Show: Putin Refutes Western Media Lies about Syrian Gas Attack
Secular Talk on Lack of Media Outrage for Syrian Rebels Massacring 126 Civilians
Jimmy Dore on Media Censorship of the War in Syria
Canadian Journalist Exposes BBC Lies over Syria
Boris Johnson Slapped Down By May for Telling Truth about Saudi Militarism
Deep State Lies about Terrorist Threat Produced Syria and Russia
Why Are the Tories Demanding Assad’s Overthrow?
More on the Real Reason behind Western Intervention in Syria
Jimmy Dore on the Real Reason for the Civil War and Western Military Attacks on Syria
Counterpunch on American Foreign Policy and Regime Change in Syria
More on US Military Funding of al-Qaeda and Islamist Militants
Syria Chemical Weapons Attacks Were ‘False Flag’ Operations Intended to Draw America into Civil War
Counterpunch on British Spies’ Recruitment of Islamist Fighters against Syria
What’s the Real Reason We’re Bombing Syria?
ISIS Is the Saudis’ Private Army for Control of the Oil Fields
Peter Hitchens Spearing BBC Anti-Russian Propaganda over Syria
Redacted Tonight: Mainstream Media Pushing War in Syria Hiding Connections to Arms Companies

Ukraine

BBC 2 Programme Next Week on British Forces in Ukraine and Estonia
America and the Manufactured Revolution in Ukraine
Global Research on US and EU Sponsored Fascist Regime in Ukraine
Counterpunch on the Washington Post’s Journalist Blacklist and the CIA, Eugenicist Nazis and Ukrainian Fascists
US State Department Supporting Fascism and Puppet Government in Ukraine
Private Eye on Britain’s Arms Sales to both Russia and Ukraine
Lobster on the Ukraine as Monsanto Trojan Horse
NATO and the Economic Exploitation of Eastern Europe

As you can see, it’s really a collection of articles from this blog, but I hope it will give people an idea of what’s really going on in the world in the name of democracy and freedom, and help get a few more people on to the streets, writing to their MPs or otherwise involved in combatting western corporate militarism and imperialism.

Jimmy Dore and Abby Martin Discuss Whether Rachel Maddow Is A Danger to Journalism: Part 1

It’s isn’t just Rachel Maddow. They go on to talk about how the whole of the American mainstream media, including MSNBC, has been corrupted by corporate power, and now reflects nothing but establishment propaganda. Just like the corporatist, Clintonite wing of the Democrats. They also talk about the terror Black and Latino neighbourhoods are living in, thanks to Trump, ICE and the anti-immigrant rhetoric. They conclude by discussing how whole neighbourhoods in Houston and elsewhere in Texas have been gutted by Hurricane Harvey, but aren’t receiving any help, because they’re working class areas and only the business and affluent centres are prioritised. And the immense environmental damage that has been caused by Big Oil, but which goes unchallenged and undocumented, because Big Oil owns everything in those areas, right down to schools and hospitals.

Abby Martin is the courageous and fiercely intelligent host of The Empire Files on TeleSur English and previously, RT. This series unflinchingly exposes what the American military-industrial complex is doing across the world through coups, ‘regime change’ and foreign wars and military interventions. Including the real situation in Israel, where the Israelis have subjected the indigenous Palestinians to nearly 70 years of massacres, brutality and ethnic cleansing.

She also shows how ordinary Americans are being exploited at home, as big business seeks to strip them of welfare, workers’ rights and shift the tax burden on to them, while further destroying any affordable healthcare provision and privatising the public schools. She was so much a threat to the American establishment, that half the report concocted to show that RT was just a propaganda operation being used by Putin to destabilise America was about Martin personally.

I’ve already put up a three-part blog post about a previous 30-minute long segment from the Jimmy Dore Show, in which he and Martin discuss her work and the crimes of American imperialism. I think this segment may have been part of the same interview, but the two have been edited and split into separate parts.

The two begin by discussing how MSNBC, the formerly liberal network, is now just the mirror image of the right-wing Fox Network. Martin is particularly unimpressed by the way MSNBC tried to discredit Bill Binney by calling him a ‘conspiracy theorist’. Bill Binney was the NSA official, who constructed the ‘Thin Spread’ mass surveillance software keeping tabs on people’s electronic information and communications. He’s been praised by Edward Snowden, one of the other whistleblowers on the use of mass surveillance software by the intelligence agencies. They then talk about the lies and propaganda about RT, and how the government is trying to shut it down by having it register as a foreign agent. Martin states that MSNBC is now just the other arm of Fox News, but just parrots Democrat propaganda.

As for Rachel Maddow, one of the lead presenters on MSNBC, and a staunch supporter of Killary and the corporatist Democrats, Martin states that she’s a careerist hack. However, she and the other hacks with her realised that they have to double down and try to explain away why Killary lost to Trump. But they’re so trapped in the elitist bubble, that they have absolutely no idea. One of the reasons Clinton lost was because she didn’t bother going to certain states, like Wisconsin. Martin and Dore joke about whether it was Putin, who stopped her going there. Did he steal her map, hack into her computer and wipe the entry for it?

They then move on to the question of the future of journalism. Martin states that journalism has always been antithetical to business, this is why it’s been corrupted by government and folded into big business conglomerates through mergers. It’s why Martin herself joined RT. She talks about how it was a long time before she realised how compromised journalism actually was, however. She talks about how she went on tour with John Kerry. But journalism hasn’t just been corrupted by the Democrats, nor the Republicans. She states that the future of journalism lies with us, referring to alternative media and the power of the internet. She states that now we don’t need to get a press handout from Monsanto to talk about what they’re doing, or get a statement from the government: they can just talk to the government’s victims.

She then goes on to talk about ‘fake news’, and how this is being hijacked by the establishment to close down alternative media. Bill Kristol, one of the founders of the Neocons and the head of the Project for the New American Century, has said that he’s going to set up a thinktank to combat ‘fake news’. She and Dore also talk about how the alternative media are being forced to brand themselves to survive, so they have to set up Patreon accounts so people can fund them. But she has a lot of hope for citizen journalism. There is just a need to invest in it, and to follow those journalists we admire. We have to create our own networks. The Intercept, which has done some good work, was forced to rely on a billionaire, and now they have to go begging for money.

Martin then turns to Project Censored, which she praises as a very good, worthwhile alternative to mainstream journalist training. She advises aspiring journos not to go to journalism school, as they will just get into debt up to their behinds, and will be hit over the head with how to be journalists. Only to get a job as an unpaid intern at the end of it. Project Censored, on the other hand, takes in anyone, and you can go in at different levels – as a researcher, or writer, for example. Every year they published the five most censored stories. One of these is that there are 3,000 towns in America, whose water has a higher lead content than that of Flint in Michigan. She and Dore then discuss the alternative, drinking bottled water. Martin refuses to drink most of these brands, because they’re all owned by Nestle. Nestle owns the majority of water bottling plants. They just suck out the aquifers of local towns, which get nothing in return, except for a councillor, who’s on their payroll. And this is apart from the slave labour involved in their chocolate. She states that there is now only one party, and that she has always advised against voting for the lesser of two evils.

Continued in Part 2.

The Case for Prosecuting Blair as War Criminal for Iraq Invasion

War Crime or Just War? The Iraq War 2003-2005: The Case against Blair, by Nicholas Wood, edited by Anabella Pellens (London: South Hill Press 2005).

This is another book I’ve picked up in one of the secondhand bookshops in Cheltenham. It’s an angry and impassioned book, whose author is deeply outraged by Blair’s unprovoked and illegal invasion, the consequent carnage and looting and the massive human rights abuses committed by us and the Americans. William Blum in one of his books states that following the Iraq War there was an attempt by Greek, British and Canadian human rights lawyers to have Bush, Blair and other senior politicians and official brought to the international war crimes court in the Hague for prosecution for their crimes against humanity. This books presents a convincing case for such a prosecution, citing the relevant human rights and war crimes legislation, and presenting a history of Iraq and its despoliation by us, the British, from Henry Layard seizing the archaeological remains at Nineveh in 1845 to the Iraq War and the brutalisation of its citizens.

The blurb on the back cover reads:

After conversations with Rob Murthwaite, human rights law lecturer, the author presents a claim for investigation by The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Maanweg 174, 2516 AB The Hague, The Netherlands, that there have been breaches of the ICC Statute by members of the UK Government and Military in the run up to and conduct of the war with Iraq. That there is also prima facie evidence that the Hague and Geneva conventions, the Nuremberg and the United Nations Charters have been breached, and that this evidence may allow members of the UK and US Governments, without state immunity or statute of limitations, to be extradited to account for themselves. The use of hoods, cable ties, torture, mercenaries, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, aggressive patrols and dogs, is examined. Questions are raised over the religious nature of the war, the seizure of the oil fields, Britain’s continuous use of the RAF to bomb Iraq in 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1990s archaeologists acting as spies, the destruction of Fallujah, the burning and looting of libraries, museums and historic monuments; and the contempt shown towards Iraqis living, dead and injured.

In his preface Wood states that the conversation he had with Rob Murthwaite out of which the book grew, was when they were composing a letter for the Stop the War Coalition, which they were going to send to the International Criminal Court at the Hague. Wood himself is an archaeologist, and states that he is particularly shocked at the imposition of American culture in Saudi Arabia. The book’s editor, Anabella Pellens, is Argentinian and so ‘knows what imprisonment and disappearance mean’.

In his introduction Wood argues that there were four reasons for the invasion of Iraq. The first was to introduce democracy to the country. Here he points out that to Americans, democracy also means free markets and privatisation for American commercial interests. The second was to seized its oil supplies and break OPEC’s power. The third was Israel. The United States and Israel for several years before the War had been considering various projects for a water pipeline from the Euphrates to Israel. The Israelis also favoured setting up a Kurdish state, which would be friendly to them. They were also concerned about Hussein supplying money to the Palestinians and the Scuds launched against Israel during the 1992 Gulf War. And then there are the plans of the extreme Zionists, which I’ve blogged about elsewhere, to expand Israel eastwards into Iraq itself. The fourth motive is the establishment of American military power. Here Wood argues that in the aftermath of 9/11 it was not enough simply to invade Afghanistan: another country had to be invaded and destroyed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the American military machine.

Chapter 1 is a brief history of Iraq and its oil, with a commentary on the tragedy of the country, discussing the Gulf War and the Iraq invasion in the context of British imperialism, with another section on British imperialism and Kuwait.

Chapter 2 is a summary of the laws and customs of war, which also includes the relevant clauses from the regulations it cites. This includes

Habeas Corpus in the Magna Carta of 1215

The establishment of the Geneva Convention and the Red Cross

The Hague Convention of 1907: Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land
This includes a summary of the main clauses, and states the contents of the regulations.

The United Nations Charter of 1945

The Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal, 1945
This sections shows how the judgements are relevant to the British invasion and occupation of Iraq. It also gives a summary of the judgments passed at the Nuremberg trials, beginning with the indictment, and the individual verdicts against Goering, Hess, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Frick, Streicher, Rosenberg, Frank, Funk, Schacht, Doenitz, Raeder, Von Schirack, Sauckel, Jodl, Von Papen, Seyss-Inquart, Speer, Von Neurath, Fritzsche, and Borman.

The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Protocols, containing extracts from
Convention 1 – For the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in the Armed Forces in the Field; Convention III – Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War; IV – Relative to the Protection of Civilian persons in Times of War.

There are also extracts from

The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, 1954;

Protocol 1 Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, 1977.

Protocols to the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious Or to Have Indiscriminate Effects, Geneva 1980.

The 1997 Ottawa Convention and the treaty banning mines.

A summary of the rules of engagement for the 1991 Gulf War, which was issued as a pocket card to be carried by US soldiers.

The 1993 Hague Convention.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 2002.

The International Criminal Court Act of 2001 and the incorporation of the Rome Statute into British law. This gives both the aims of the act and a summary of the act itself.

Lastly there are a few paragraphs on the Pinochet case of 1998, and extradition as a method of bringing justice.

Chapter 3 is on allies in war as partners in war crimes committed.

Chapter 4 is on the deception and conspiracy by Bush and Blair, which resulted in their invasion. This begins by discussing the American plans in the 1970s for an invasion of the Middle East to seize their oil supplies during the oil crisis provoked by the Six Day War. In this chapter Wood reproduces some of the relevant correspondence cited in the debates in this period, including a letter by Clare short.

Chapter 5 describes how Clare Short’s own experience of the Prime Minister’s recklessness, where it was shown he hadn’t a clue what to do once the country was conquered, led her to resign from the cabinet. Wood states very clearly in his title to this chapter how it violates one of the fundamental lessons of the great Prussian militarist, Clausewitz, that you must always know what to do with a conquered nation or territory.

Chapter 6: A Ruthless Government describes the vicious persecution of the government’s critics and their removal from office. Among Blair’s victims were the weapons scientist Dr David Kelly, who killed himself after questioning by the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee and MOD and an intense attempt by Blair and his cabinet to discredit him; the Director General of the BBC, Greg Dyke, Gavin Davies, the Beeb’s chairman, and the reporter, Andrew Gilligan. Others target for attack and vilification included Katherine Gun, a translator at GCHQ, the head of the nuclear, chemical and biological branch of the Defence Intelligence Staff, Dr Brian Jones, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, a Deputy Legal Advisor to Foreign Office, George Galloway, Paul Bigley, the brother of the kidnap victim Ken Bigley, and Clare Short. Bigley’s apartment in Belgium was ransacked by MI6 and the RFBI and his computer removed because he blamed Blair for his brother’s kidnap and beheading by an Iraqi military faction. There is a subsection in this chapter on the case of Craig Murray. Murray is the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, who got the boot because he told the government that the president was an evil dictator, who had boiled someone alive. This was most definitely not something Blair wanted to hear.

Chapter 7 is a series of cases studies. Each case has its own section, which includes the relevant Human Rights and war crimes legislation.

7A is on the breakdown of the country’s civil administration and political persecution. The two are linked, as Blair and Bush had all members of the Baath party dismissed from their posts. However, membership of the party was a requirement for employment in public posts across a wide range of fields. Wood points out that you could not even be a junior university lecturer without being a member of the party. As a result, the country was immediately plunged into chaos as the people who ran it were removed from their positions without anyone to take over. In this chapter Wood also discusses the unemployment caused by the war, and the disastrous effect the invasion had on the position of women.

7B is on the destruction of services infrastructure.

7C is on damage to hospitals and attacks on medical facilities.

7D is on the destruction and looting of museums, libraries and archaeological sites. Remember the outrage when ISIS levelled Nineveh and destroyed priceless antiquities in Mosul? The US and Britain are hardly innocent of similar crimes against this most ancient of nation’s heritage. The Americans caused considerable damage to Babylon when they decided to make it their base. This included breaking up the city’s very bricks, stamped with the names of ancient kings, for use as sand for their barricades around it. Remind me who the barbarians are again, please?

7E – Seizing the Assets is on the American and British corporate looting of the country through the privatisation and seizure of state-owned industries, particularly oil. This is very much in contravention of international law.

7F – Stealing their plants. This was covered in Private Eye at the time, though I’m not sure if it was mentioned anywhere else. Iraq has some of the oldest varieties of food crops in the world, among other biological treasures. These are varieties of plants that haven’t change since humans first settled down to farm 7-8 thousand years ago. Monsanto and the other GM firms desperately wanted to get their mitts on them. So they patented them, thus making the traditional crops Iraqi farmers had grown since time immemorial theirs, for which the farmers had to pay.

7G describes how the Christian religious element in the war gave it the nature of a Crusade, and religious persecution. The aggressive patrols and tactics used to humiliate and break suspects involve the violation of their religious beliefs. For example, dogs are unclean animals to Muslims, and would never be allowed inside a house. So dogs are used to inspect suspect’s houses, even the bedrooms, by the aggressive patrols. Muslims have their religious items confiscated, in contravention of their rules of war. One man was also forced to eat pork and drink alcohol, which is was against his religion as a Muslim. The message by some of the army ministers and preachers that Islam is an evil religion means that Iraqis, as Muslims, are demonised and that instead of being viewed as people to be liberated they are cast as enemies.

There are several sections on the restraint of suspects. These include the use of cable ties, hoods, which have resulted in the death of at least two people, setting dogs on people, standing for hours and other tortures, which includes a list of the types of torture permitted by Donald Rumsfeld, aggressive patrolling, killing and wounding treacherously – which means, amongst other things, pretending to surrender and then shooting the victims after they have let their guard down, marking the bodies of victims in order to humiliate them, the deliberate targeting of the house owned by the Hamoodi family of Chemical Ali, the mass shooting from aircraft of a wedding party in the Iraqi desert by the Americans, but supported by the British; another incident in which people gathered in a street in Haifa around a burning US vehicle were shot and massacred; cluster bombs, including evidence that these were used at Hilla; the use of depleted uranium. Thanks to the use of this material to increase the penetrating power of shells, the incidence of leukaemia and other cancers and birth defects has rocketed in parts of Iraq. Children have been born without heads or limbs. One doctor has said that women are afraid to get pregnant because of the widespread incidence of such deformities; the use of mercenaries. Private military contractors have been used extensively by the occupying armies. Counterpunch has attacked their use along with other magazines, like Private Eye, because of their lawlessness. As they’re not actually part of the army, their casualties also don’t feature among the figures for allied casualties, thus making it seem that there are fewer of them than there actually is. They also have the advantage in that such mercenaries are not covered by the Geneva and other conventions. Revenge killings by British forces in the attacks on Fallujah. 7W discusses the way the Blair regime refused to provide figures for the real number of people killed by the war, and criticised the respected British medical journal, the Lancet, when it said it could have been as many as 100,000.

In the conclusion Wood discusses the occupation of Iraq and the political motivations for it and its connection to other historical abuses by the British and Americans, such as the genocide of the Indians in North America. He describes the horrific experiences of some Iraqi civilians, including a little girl, who saw her sisters and thirteen year old brother killed by British soldiers. He states that he hopes the book will stimulate debate, and provides a scenario in which Blair goes to Jordan on holiday, only to be arrested and extradited to be tried as a war criminal for a prosecution brought by the farmers of Hilla province. The book has a stop press, listing further developments up to 2005, and a timeline of the war from 2003-5.

The book appears to me, admittedly a layman, to build a very strong case for the prosecution of Tony Blair for his part in the invasion of Iraq. Wood shows that the war and the policies adopted by the occupying powers were illegal and unjust, and documents the horrific brutality and atrocities committed by British and US troops.

Unfortunately, as Bloom has discussed on his website and in his books, Bush, Blair and the other monsters were not prosecuted, as there was political pressure put on the ICC prosecutor and chief justice. Nevertheless, the breaches of international law were so clear, that in 2004 Donald Rumsfeld was forced to cancel a proposed holiday in Germany. German law provided that he could indeed be arrested for his part in these war crimes, and extradited to face trial. To which I can only salute the new Germany and its people for their commitment to democracy and peace!

While there’s little chance that Blair will face judgement for his crimes, the book is still useful, along with other books on the Iraq invasion like Greg Palast’s Armed Madhouse, and the works of William Bloom, in showing why this mass murderer should not be given any support whatsoever, and his attempt to return to politics, supposedly to lead a revival of the political centre ground, is grotesque and disgusting.

The book notes that millions of ordinary Brits opposed the war and marched against it. Between 100 and 150 MPs also voted against it. One of those who didn’t, was Iain Duncan Smith, who shouted ‘Saddam must go!’ Somehow, given Smith’s subsequent term in the DWP overseeing the deaths of tens or hundreds of thousands of benefit claims after their benefits were stopped, this didn’t surprise. He is clearly a militarist, despite his own manifest unfitness for any form of leadership, military or civil.

Monbiot’s List of the Corporate Politicos in Blair’s Government: Part One

Chapter six of George Monbiot’s book, Captive State, is entitled ‘The Fat Cats Directory’. The book is about the way big business has wormed its way into government, so that official decisions and policy reflects their interests, not those of Mr and Mrs British Public. In the ‘Fat Cats Directory’ he lists the businessmen and senior managers, who were rewarded with government posts by Tony Blair in May 1997. The list gives the name of the businessman, their ‘previous gluttony’ – a summary of their corporate careers, and ‘Subsequent Creamery’ – their posts in the British government. Those lists are:

Lord Marshall of Knightsbridge.–
Chairman of British Airways
– President of the Confederation of British Industry

– Put in charge of Gordon Brown’s energy tax review, and helped promote the government’s campaign against the Millennium Bug, even though his 1999 holiday brochures told customers that they wouldn’t be responsible for any problems caused by computers malfunctioning due to it.

Ewen Cameron

President of the County Landowners’ Association
Owner of 3,000 Acres in Somerset
Opponent of rambling.

Chairman of the Countryside Agency, concerned with tackling the right to roam, social exclusion in rural areas, and someone, who has very definitely contravened the Countryside Agency’s rules on the maintenance of footpaths.

Lord Rogers of Riverside

Architect of Heathrow’s Terminal 5 on greenbelt land
Architect of Montevetro Tower, London’s most expensive building.

Chairman of the government’s Urban Task Force.

Lord Sainsbury of Turville

Chairman of J. Sainsbury Plc
Chairman of the Food Chain Group
Principal backer of biotech company Diatech
Funded construction of the Sainsbury Laboratory for research into genetic engineering
Replaced skilled jobs with unskilled shelf-stacking.

Minister in Government’s department of trade and industry
Minister with responsibility for science and technology
As science minister, led Bioindustry Trade Delegation to US
Ultimate control over Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
Chairman of the government’s University for Industry.

Lord Simon of Highbury

Chairman of BP
Vice-Chairman of European Round Table of Industrialists
Under his direction, BP assisted the Colombian government in forcing peasants off their lands, and imprisoning, killing and torturing trade unionists. Gave money to the 16th Brigade, notorious for murder, kidnapping torture and rape.

Minister for Trade and Competitiveness in Europe
One of the ministers responsible for implementing the ethical foreign policy.

Jack Cunningham MP

Adviser to agrochemical company Albright and Wilson (UK)
Member of Chemical Industries Association lobbying for deregulation of pesticides.

Secretary of State for Agriculture
Chair of Cabinet Committee on Biotechnology.

Sir Peter Davis

Chairman of Reed International, which made 900 workers unemployed.
Chief Executive of Prudential Corporation Plc, company most responsible for miss-selling pensions.

Appointed by Treasury head of New Deal Task Force.

John Bowman

Director of Commercial Union, which possibly miss-sold 7,900 pensions.

On the board of the Occupational Pensions Regulatory Authority.

Lord De Ramsey

President of Country Landowners’ Association, sold part of his enormous Cambridgeshire estate for house building, and in doing so destroyed a pond of Great Crested Newts. Lobbies against regulatory burdens on agriculture. Grew genetically modified sugar beet on his land for Monsanto.

Chairman of Environmental Protection Agency.

Paul Leinster

Director of SmithKline Beecham (SB) Plc, which polluted streams in Sussex and Gloucestershire. Previously employed by BP and Schering Agrochemicals, part-owner of bio-tech company AgrEvo, which was publicly shamed for breach of environmental regulations for growth of GM crops.

Head of the Environment Agency’s Environmental Protection Directorate.

Justin McCracken

Managing director of ICI Katalco, responsible for a long list of plants polluting the environment with carcinogens. In 1999 it was listed as the worst polluting company in Europe, responsible for pouring 20 tonnes of hormone disrupting chemicals into the Tees. Also allowed 150 tonnes of chloroform to escape into groundwater at Runcorn. From 1996 to 1997 Friends of the Earth recorded 244 unauthorised pollution incidents from its Runcorn plant.

Regional General Manager, Environment Agency, North-West Region.

Dinah Nicols

Non-executive director, Anglia Water. In 1999 it was prosecuted six times for pollution.

Director-General of Environmental Protection at the Department of the Environment.

Ian McAllister

Chairman and managing director of Ford UK. The company was a member until December 1999, of the Global Climate Coalition, lobbying against attempts to reduce carbon monoxide emissions.

President, Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, which has lobbied against the Department of the Environment’s standards on ozone, lead and sulphur dioxide pollution from cars. Also lobbied against European directives against exhaust gases, removal of lead from petrol, and forcing motor manufacturers to install catalytic converters.

Chairman of the Government’s Cleaner Vehicles Task Force.

Chris Fay

Chairman and Chief Executive of Shell UK, the British company with the most controversial environmental record due to pollution incidents in Britain and in the Niger Delta.

Executive director of BAA Plc, attempting to double size of Heathrow Airport.
President of the UK Offshore Operators Association, oil industry group responsible for lobbying against environmental regulations.

Chairman of the government’s Advisory Committee on Business and the Environment.

Brian Riddleston

Chief executive of Celtic Energy, an open-cast mining corporation which destroyed the Selar Grasslands Site of Special Scientific Interest in Wales, wildflower habitat and home of extremely rare march fritillary butterfly.

Member of the Government’s Countryside Council for Wales.

Graham Hawker

Chief executive of Welsh utilities company Hyder, which sp0ent £42.2m on making people redundant, and only £700,000 on research and development. Opposed windfall tax on privatised utilities.

Chair of the New Deal Taskforce in Wales

Martin Taylor

Chief executive of Barclays Plc. Multimillionaire manager of company which made 21,000 redundant in ten years to 1997.

Lord Haskins

Chairman, Northern Foods Plc. Member of Hampel Committee on Corporate Governance. This was criticised by Margaret Beckett for failing to recommend ways for companies to regulate themselves.

Chair of the government’s Better Regulation Task Force.

Peter Sainsbury

Managing director for Corporate and External Affairs, Marks and Spencer.

Head of Better Regulation Taskforce’s Consumer Affairs Group, whose duties include consumer protection. This decided that voluntary measures and ‘consumer education’ were better than regulation.

Geoffrey Robinson

Director of Central and Sheerwood plc, property owned and chaired by fraudster and pension raider Robert Maxwell. C&S merged with Robinson’s TransTec, to form Transfer Technology Plc. Company later collapsed.

Paymaster General.

Lobster on the Ukraine as Monsanto Trojan Horse

Robin Ramsay, writing in the ‘View from the Bridge’ column in Lobster 68, has some very interesting things to say about the current civil war in Ukraine. Ramsay considers that the American-EU attempt to detach the country from Russia made about as much sense as the Russians trying to form a trade and military alliance with Canada or Mexico. It doesn’t make much sense, considering these nations’ historic and geographic connections to the US, and would only serve to frighten and annoy their larger neighbour to the south.

His analysis of the real purpose of the IMF loan to Ukraine is interesting. It was made with the usual demands for restructuring. In other words, in return for the loan, the Ukraine would have to substantially wreck large parts of its economy by selling off its agricultural and industrial infrastructure to foreign investors. He also notes that the loan was so large it could never really be repaid. He suggests that this was deliberate, with the intention of handing over large parts of Ukraine’s immensely fertile chernozem agricultural land to Monsanto. They would then seed it with their GM crops as part of an attempt to do an end-run on the EU legislation banning them. Once Ukraine became part of the EU, Monsanto could claim that the ban was a dead letter, because they were already growing them there.

Unfortunately for the Americans the plan was scuppered as the Russians made the Ukrainians a better off. Hence the coup. The ‘View from the Bridge’ section of Lobster 68 is available on the web as a free download at http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/free/lobster68/lob68-view-from-the-bridge.pdf. This section is entitled ‘Ukraine and the Major Media’, and it’s on pages 3-4.

And Greece?

This weekend Mike over at Vox Political published a piece by Tsipras, the new Greek president. Tsipras is the head of the anti-austerity Syriza party, now frightening the Neo-libs all over Europe. It was part of a speech Tsipras gave in Germany trying to explain to the German financiers why his country was abandoning the austerity foisted on them by the troika. He also mentioned that he objected to the IMF loan to his country, not because it was too little, but because it was too much. The Greek couldn’t pay it off, and the further loan given to the Greeks to service the debt simply made it worse and prolonged it even further.

Which sounds very similar to what Robin Ramsay proposes was done to the Ukraine.

It makes me wonder whether the purpose of these loans is really to bail out these countries’ economies, or wreck them, and make them poor, dependent economic colonies of America and the more prosperous EU nations to their north and west.