Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is apparently incensed about Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian’s posting of an image of an Australian soldier slitting the throat of a young Afghan boy.
Why such a report about murders and abuse should be a surprise to anyone, is a mystery. Western countries have prided themselves on their superiority to the ‘less than pink’ skinned races of the world in their centuries’ old thrust to control the world’s resources for their exclusive benefit. Such superiority extends to a war culture that dehumanises the ‘enemy’ as ‘gooks’, ‘rag-heads’ and the ‘yellow peril’, among many other perjorative names..
Australia and the Western media at large depict their country as an innocent victim of ‘Chinese bullying’, ‘coercion’ and ‘aggression’, through China’s use of tarriffs, border controls and monitoring of import goods’ quality, to press its argument that Australia needs to learn which side its bread is buttered on.
China is particularly annoyed with Australia foolishly following the Trump propaganda line that COVID19 is a Chinese communist government threat to the world. Startling, when it is China who has done most to show the world how to limit infection spread…
Australia’s former finance minister, Joe Hockey, labeled China’s President Xi’s actions “economic coercion.” As Hockey told Bloomberg in a Nov. 3 interview: “That’s not the China that I knew when I was treasurer” for two years until September 2015. This “immature action,” Hockey says, is “not the behavior of a great power.”.
One might be forgiven for laughing at Joe Hockey’s ‘belief’ that Western ‘great powers’ never use extortion, threat and violence to get their economic way. The creation of economic sanctions and wars of aggression on countries the West does not like, is a time honoured tradition- not the sole prerogative of Donald Trump!
One should therefore not be surprised by a Chinese (and North Korean, Vietnamese, Syrian, Iraqi, Libyan etc etc ) call in the future to demand reparations for all those countries Australia and the other Five Eyes and Fourteen Eyes countries ( In addition to the Anglo-Saxon countries, the group includes Italy, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, France, Sweden and Norway), that have ‘bullied’ with war and sanctions over the past 60 years- the genocidal wars in Korea and Vietnam come to mind; let alone Iraq, Libya or Syria…..and recently American sponsored atrocities have come to light….
That Australia and New Zealand continue to defend their positions as ex-colonial powers allied to racist and war-mongering Western European states and the U.S., is no surprise; but it does give an indication of the intelligence and humanity of their political and ‘intelligence’ communities, and their capacity to grasp where the future lies.
As the tragi- comedy trial of Julian Assange in London wends its way to its inevitable conclusion: (extradition to the United States); the day to day accounts of those few people (noted below in the links) permitted by the Court to view ‘proceedings’, shows a client British state determined to kowtow to the United States, regardless of the cost to its intended credibility as an upholder of international human rights.
We are reminded of Gilbert & Sullivan’s comic-opera, ‘Trial by Jury’ of Victorian times in its absurdities: from the bombastic prosecutor, to the Judge who chooses to pretend the terrors inflicted by her government simply do not exist,
The contrast between Assange’s courage and morals in the face of the “Exceptional Empire”, and the duplicity of the mainstream media in either not reporting about the trial or continuing to excuse the depravity of the U.K and U.S. court systems, could not be more complete.
And once Assange is extradited and sent to the Eastern District of Virginia, where thousands of CIA staff are based at Langley, where traditionally “whistleblowers’ are tried and prosecuted and sent to jail , we will once again be reminded of those great freedoms we posses in the West- (provided we toe the line).
The longer Assange languishes (and perhaps dies) in some American prison for ‘terrorists” ( perhaps he can be sent to Guantanamo Bay so any actions against can be ‘extra-judicial’?) the more the United States “Shining City of the Hill will be exposed as the house of horrors it truly is.
And one last thought. How is it that the great ‘democratic’ institutions of the U.S. and U.K. government have spent millions on hunting down and imprisoning Assange for reporting the truth about their crimes, and not one dollar or pound has been spent in tracking down, trying and imprisoning those ‘patriots’ who have engaged in these war crimes by either those governments or their mainstream media?
The current actions of the U.K. and U.S. governments, in trying to suppress and punish Assange and Wikileaks, have demonstrated very clearly that those governments and state apparatus continue to fully support the very genocide, mass murder and torture that Wikileaks has exposed to the world.
It should be noted that while Navalny is certainly a thorn in the side of Vladimir Putin and his United Russia party from an anti-corruption point of view, and attains mythical status in Western mainstream media as Putin’s potential nemesis leading his ‘Russia of the Future’ political party , Nalvany’s has 3 to 5% support amongst Russian voters nationally and by whom he is often perceived as an extremist, means that he is currently little of a political threat to Putin. However Nalvany’s supporters in Russia and West allege, “state-run” media ignore him and the ballot boxes are always stuffed in Putin’s candiates’ favour. He may however have many enemies in both government and private corporate Russian circles.
Craig Murray, ex U.K. ambassador, whistleblower on U.K complicity in torture, supporter of Assange and other unpopular human rights issues, and now conveniently likely soon to be imprisoned by the U.K. government on some highly questionable charges , outlines below just some of the ‘peculiarities’ of the poisoning.
Let us first take the weapon of attack. One thing we know about a “Novichok” for sure is that it appears not to be very good at assassination. Poor Dawn Sturgess is the only person ever to have allegedly died from “Novichok”, accidentally according to the official narrative. “Novichok” did not kill the Skripals, the actual target. If Putin wanted Navalny dead, he would try something that works. Like a bullet to the head, or an actually deadly poison.
“Novichok” is not a specific chemical. It is a class of chemical weapon designed to be improvised in the field from common domestic or industrial precursors. It makes some sense to use on foreign soil as you are not carrying around the actual nerve agent, and may be able to buy the ingredients locally. But it makes no sense at all in your own country, where the FSB or GRU can swan around with any deadly weapon they wish, to be making homemade nerve agents in the sink. Why would you do that?
Further we are expected to believe that, the Russian state having poisoned Navalny, the Russian state then allowed the airplane he was traveling in, on a domestic flight, to divert to another airport, and make an emergency landing, so he could be rushed to hospital. If the Russian secret services had poisoned Navalny at the airport before takeoff as alleged, why would they not insist the plane stick to its original flight plan and let him die on the plane? They would have foreseen what would happen to the plane he was on.
Next, we are supposed to believe that the Russian state, having poisoned Navalny, was not able to contrive his death in the intensive care unit of a Russian state hospital. We are supposed to believe that the evil Russian state was able to falsify all his toxicology tests and prevent doctors telling the truth about his poisoning, but the evil Russian state lacked the power to switch off the ventilator for a few minutes or slip something into his drip. In a Russian state hospital.
Next we are supposed to believe that Putin, having poisoned Navalny with novichok, allowed him to be flown to Germany to be saved, making it certain the novichok would be discovered. And that Putin did this because he was worried Merkel was angry, not realising she might be still more angry when she discovered Putin had poisoned him with novichok- Craig Murray
Curiously again, Navalny’s poisoning just happened to coincide with an intense level of blackmail and lobbying from the United States for Germany to renege on its agreement with Russia to provide Germany with cheap natural gas via Nordstream 2 pipeline ( to ensure Germany buys vastly more expensive U.S. gas) and the current political debacle occurring in Belorussia, where Poland, the Ukraine and the Nordic states are putting intense pressure on the Belorussian state to not sign up to the previously agreed political and military merging of Belorussia with Russia.
As Southfront notes, it would appear that the Navalny case and the colour revolution style demonstrations supported from those states, has prompted the Belorussian President Lukashenko; just recently re-elected on somewhat dubious grounds after obtaining 80% of the vote!- to once again change direction and support the merger with the Russian Federation.
It also appears somewhat strange that Germany has decided that a Russian national , supposedly poisoned on Russian soil, is the political business of the German state. Should Germany wish to pursue that line of political enquiry, then Germany should have rightly long ago sanctioned and demanded explanations from the United States, United Kingdom, France and other Western states for their appalling record of genocidal wars they they have engaged in.
All this alongside the ongoing attempt by Western intelligence agencies and their mainstream media “associates” to ‘fit up’ Russia and China with every possible charge of criminal activity and human rights violations, so that Western populations can accept and applaud the loss of access to Russian and Chinese goods, the need for more weapons and even the justification for war. It is important to recognise too, that the linkages between Western intelligence agencies are very strong, and often can be at odds with the positions of those in government, to the benefit of those who can make money out of death and destruction.
The U.S. and the U.K. are very much aware that their economic influence on the rest of the world is rapidly waning, and their historical methods of violence intimidation and corruption no longer have the power they use to, with the rise of China as an economic counterweight.
Thus we see a long term pattern of accusations of the use of “Weapons of Mass Destruction” or other mass human rights violations against states the U.S. and the U.K wish to first destabilise and then extract the profits from that destruction. The list includes Iraq, Syria, Libya, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, China… Those countries that continue to violate human rights on a massive scale like Israel, Saudi Arabia, Colombia and many others are exempt from that pressure because they are already within the US/UK economic sphere . And of course the genocidal activities of the U.S. and U.K. in their endless colonial wars are simply brushed under the carpet.
Both the U.S. and the U.K. know that once China , in collaboration with its Belt and Road partners, achieves overwhelming economic ( and military) superiority, there will be many many British and American leaders confronting the International Court of Justice in the Hague for their crimes and the need for just compensation for those states they have destroyed over the past 100 years.
Follow the money….
Postscript
Southfront posits some alternative reasons for Navalny being ‘poisoned’ here
On 11th June 2020, the United States reacted with outrage that the International Criminal Court (ICC) intends to investigate the United States and Israel for crimes against humanity. How dare they? Surely the exceptional nation and its closest ally have every right to conduct mass-murder and torture with impunity?
By 2012, U.S. Congress had threatened that it would use military force to rescue any US citizens that were somehow called to account by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and has signed agreements with more than 100 governments pledging them not to hand over US citizens to the ICC. U.S. Secretary of State, Texan, Mike Pompeo ; the epitome of the “exceptional nation” in all its bravado, bullying and sheer brutality , has also recently threatened the families of ICC justices with ‘consequences’ should any indictments proceed.
Impact of sanctions
Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Libya, Yemen, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Eritrea, Palestine, and hundred other little hidden wars were American troops are engaged in “counter-terrorism” and ‘black sites’ of torture.
Only when it becomes the international norm that any war fought by an aggressor shall require full reparations to the victim state, will wars be finally deemed not to be financially advantageous. That day is coming; the United States should be aware that its leaders are likely to be prosecuted and condemned for the litany of war crimes they have committed since the most heinous of all- their merciless slaughter of Koreans in the Korean War, and that the reparations for their endless wars will be in the many trillions of dollars.
The United States and its allies will one day soon, no longer be able to inflict its savagery on the world.
Lieutenant-General Soleimani; leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Qods Force, was, as Soleimani himself expected, assassinated by United States drone or helicopter rockets on the morning of Friday 3rd January 2020, while leaving Baghdad Airport by car after a civilian flight in to Baghdad from Tehran to meet with the Iraqi prime minister.
Soleimani was revered by many Shiite Muslims around the world for his military successes in helping Shiite Hezbollah protect and defeat an Israeli invasion of Lebanon (part of Israel’s ‘grand’ strategy of building a mythic “Greater Israel”), but more importantly, for his work in both Iraq and Syria coordinating the largely successful battle against Al Qaeda in Syria (or HTS) and ISIS (otherwise known as Daesh).
As Iran has consistently and publicly stated, and the evidence confirms, both Al Qaeda and ISIS, were not only funded and supported by the lunatic Wahhabist Saudis, but also by the United States and other Western countries, particularly the U.K. (long a mercenary supporter of the Wahhabist Saudi tribe since Lawrence of Arabia in the First World War. Also note the very apt comment from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson that Soleimani was a ‘threat to our interests”.
The Wahhabist Muslim sect believes that all non Sunni Muslims are ‘heretics’ and should either be forcibly converted or killed . General Soleimani was therefore following the lineage of the great Shiite Imams of medieval times, in protecting all Shiites -this time from the scourge of Wahhabism.
In collaboration with the Russians, a revitalized Syrian Arab Army (Assad’s forces), a re-armed Iraqi Army, and Shi-ite militias under his command, Soleimani had at the time of his death largely succeeded in defeating ISIS in Syria and Iraq. The jaws are rapidly closing in on the remnants of Al Qaeda, HTS, ISIS and other Saudi and Western backed jihadists in Idlib in Northern Syria and Iraq. There is real fear in Washington “intelligence” circles that mainstream media will finally be forced to expose the direct linkage between Washington and the head-chopping jihadists.
The recent death in Ankara of James Le Mesurier, leader of the White Helmets, supposedly humanitarian aid workers in Syria, but in reality well funded propaganda units for the jihadist groups and their backers, is likely to be directly linked to the imminent exposure of the White Helmets as fakes, and the revelation of Western governments’ manipulation and likely bribery of senior staff at the OPCW to create a ‘scientific finding” that the Assad government had gassed civilians. Western governments will consequently be finally forced to acknowledge their appalling collaboration and support of pyschopathic jihadist killers in the Middle East- all in the name of oil and support for the Israeli entity.
American intelligence agencies consequently panicked and reasoned that a decisive provocation against Iran, would ensure that Iran would ‘over-react”, and could thus be seen by the world as the crazed religious pariah state that the United States has always tried to portray Iran as being since the Islamic revolution.
It might be useful at this point to list just some of the legitimate grievances Iran has against the United States.
The arming and support for Saddam Hussein’s attempted invasion of Iran which cost at least a million Iranian lives (and in which ferocious war, Soleimani learnt his battle skills)
The shooting down of a civilian Iranian Airbus A300 by a US warship in the Persian Gulf , with 290 resultant deaths. There was no official apology from the United States although some compensation was paid out belatedly.
Ongoing promotion of Iran as a pariah state at the UN and with other Western governments, which resulted in severe sanctions and the deaths of many innocent Iranians because of Iran’s non existent nuclear weapons programme.
Unconditional support by the United States of the Wahhabist Saudi clan who have funded and managed Sunni jihadist groups, killing many Shi-ite across the world, but particularly in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
United States unconditional support for the Israeli entity, in their desire to create a “Greater Israel” by the theft and extremely brutal occupation of land from (largely Sunni) Palestinians, Shi-ite Lebanese and Syrians.
Perhaps it might therefore be understandable why Iran’s leadership calls the United States, the “Great Satan”.
Iran is, unlike many of the United States’ allies in the Middle East, a democracy of sorts. However the rules for democracy are managed and controlled at a central level by its Shi-ite Islamist leaders, and democratic choice is very limited (not too dissimilar in fact to the U.S. presidential election process).
While there are undoubtedly many in Iran who long for what Western democracy appears to promise, most are also fiercely patriotic; proud of their many thousands of year’s history as Persians. Faced with ‘existential” external threats, as Iranians have been since the Islamist revolution in 1979, few Iranians would support an overthrow of their current government.
Soleimani’s death was mourned by hundreds of thousands of Shiites in Iraq and Iran. Memorials in Tehran had to be postponed because of the size of the crowds mourning him in other cities in Iran, but the most crucial memorial was held for him in the Iranian city of Qom . “Qom is considered holy by ShiʿaIslam, as it is the site of the shrine of Fatimah bint Musa, sister of Imam Ali ibn Musa Rida[6] (Persian Imam Reza, 789–816 CE). The city is the largest center for Shiʿa scholarship in the world, and is a significant destination of pilgrimage, with around twenty million pilgrims visiting the city every year..” -Wikipedia.
The red Shi-ite flag of the blood of the martyrs and revenge, was raised in Qom at his funeral procession. According to local reports it is the first time in the Qom mosque’s history – a holy site since the Middle Ages – that the red flag has been raised over the building.
It should be noted that the raising of the red-flag over Qom is not simply an Iranian government contrivance, but a religious appeal to all Shi-ite believers around the world to avenge Soleimani’s death -one who battled with the forces of evil to save Shi-ites.
Albawaba .com notes that ‘Last night Khamanei and Rouhani consoled Soleimani’s family.
‘Who is going to avenge my father’s blood?’ One of the commander’s daughters asked.
In response, Rouhani promised her that ‘everyone will take revenge’ and assured her as she wept, ‘we will, we will avenge his blood, you don’t worry.’
‘The Americans did not realize what a grave mistake they have made. They will suffer the consequences of such criminal measure not only today, but also throughout the years to come,’ Rouhani said.
‘This crime committed by the US will go down in history as one of their unforgettable crimes against the Iranian nation.’
Is it possible that United States intelligence officials were unaware of the paramount importance of Soleimani to the 112 million people in the Shiite world? Did they not understand that his killing would provoke a desire for revenge against the United States which would be unstoppable?
No matter whether President Trump carries out his threats to bomb 52 targets in Iran including “cultural sites”. (which would of course be a war crime, but nothing new to the United States, which has been guilty of horrendous war crimes and genocide in so many parts of the world since the U.S began: see our blog article; America’s Exceptional Interest in Wars) or whether the United States might lose its residual sanity and nuke Tehran, the revenge would continue .
The United State’s only option now is to seek forgiveness from the Iranians and negotiate a deal which allows their soldiers to leave safely from their many many bases circling Iran.
In just one example, the United State’s main military base in the Persian Gulf is located on the island of Bahrain. Bahrain is ruled by an autocratic and brutal Sunni ‘prince” over a population which is 62% Shi-ite. It would not require any intervention on the part of the Iranians for a rebellion to once again boil over to depose the Bahrain Al Khalifa royal family and for Shi-ites in Bahrain to destroy the U.S. base there and its occupants.
While Western media choose to portray any actions by Shi-ite groups around the world as being by “Iranian proxies”, Shi-ite groups, whether military of otherwise, will seek to avenge the death of Soleimani; they have now been called to do so.
It would be timely for someone in Washington who is sane, and with more than the level of intelligence currently displayed, to seek the mediation skills of someone with credibility to both sides, like Russian Federation Foreign Minister Lavrov- who may be able to help forestall what currently looks like the inevitable tragedy for the 60,000 plus United States soldiers stationed in the Middle East, as a result of General Soleimani’s killing.
As Craig Murray has eruditely noted, even the greatest of scoundrels who die, have wives, children and other people who love and care for them and who mourn their loss.
What however we do get from that obituary is an acknowledgment of the close ties that Le Mesurier and MI6 had and continue to have with Israeli secret police and military in brutally putting down what Churlov describes as the Gaza “insurgency” ( a curious but telling name for an uprising against the disgusting barbaric ( and internationally illegal) Israeli occupation and imprisonment of Gaza’s population). But again; this should not come as a surprise; we know the U.K. intelligence community’s and UK Military’s longstanding and ongoing involvement with corruption, torture and murder across the Middle East , and its mercenary longstanding involvement with the Saudi regime’s jihadist terror and genocidal campaigns against Shiites.
If you believe Martin Churlov, Le Mesurier was able to somehow mysteriously access large amounts of Western government money to establish and maintain and provide Western logistics to a band of humanitarian workers who operated in areas where the officially recognised Syrian Red Cross could not access because the jihadists would have killed them.
In Wikipedia we are told (without any hint of sarcasm) that: The Times reported that Le Mesurier was “the subject of an intense black propaganda campaign for years by pro-Assad activists and Russian diplomats”.[28][29]The New York Times reported that the group and Le Mesurier were the target of “unfounded conspiracy theories”.[3] It was alleged that Le Mesurier’s British Army background meant that he was effectively operating as a British state agent.[30]Janine di Giovanni has written the claim he was a spy lacks any evidence.[31] The accusations, from those who are opposed to any Western involvement in Syria and are backers of the Assad regime, include bloggers connected to the English-language Russian media who claim the White Helmets and Le Mesurier were intending to push for regime change in Syria.[32][33]
One of the White Helmet’s key functions ( unlike any other internationally recognised humanitarian mission), was to publicise itself and the supposed military actions of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) under Assad. The recent expose of reports made by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) after the allegations by the White Helmets of SAA chemical weapons use in Douma, clearly show corruption at a senior level in the OPCW to manipulate evidence and come to conclusions not supported by their investigators .
Le Mesurier died mysteriously; somehow falling from his balcony at his home in Ankara to his death in the middle of the night without his wife hearing anything. And yes, security cameras reveal no breach of security at his home- so presumably-no evidence of murder.
Did Mesurier jump because he knew he was soon to be exposed to the world as the charlatan he was, and not the humanitarian portrayed so well in the White Helmet’s expensive movie and Western mainstream media?
Or was he pushed because he knew too much? Perhaps we will never know.
We do know from TASS however that the British have been getting increasingly concerned about the ongoing ever-deeper incursions into Idlib in Northern Syria by Russian and SAA troops, where most of their intelligence operatives are working alongside the jihadists and particularly Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) , the Al Qaeda affiliated group funded by the Saudis. A captured British operative in Idlib could reveal much of the very embarrassing support by the British French, US and Turkey of the jihadists (including the White Helmets), and their links to Israeli operatives.
In addition, “Old Boy” Boris Johnson’s Etonian and City of London links might be put even more at jeopardy if any of this little escapade comes to light during the current British General Election…
As with U.S. foreign policy, we need to understand that British realpolitik is simply about the money. How much can I or my cronies get out of this next little war?
We have often heard that it is in America’s “interests” to start this or that war, to “defend democracy and human rights” or some other envisioning of the United States as that Shining City on the Hill of freedom and light. However when we come to examine what particular Interests are at stake for the United States in these aggressions, we somehow fail to note that those interest are solely business interests- – and not just any businesses- but big business- large powerful corporations with tentacles in many countries whose financial interests may either be jeopardized or opportunities lost if this or that country is not subjugated once again by the U.S. military for the profit margins of United States’ businesses.
Pity the poor country that dares to not bend its knee to U.S. corporate interest…it will be sanctioned, ridiculed, its minority groups funded and trained to create instability, (or worse), and if that doesn’t succeed in bringing that recalcitrant country to the ‘negotiating’ table- then a little genocidal war might help.
As U.S Major-General Smedley Butler has often been quoted:
Supporting big business in any way the U.S. military can ( regardless of international conventions, human rights, human lives, human decency or any other ‘soft’ issue) is and always has been, therefore the complete and total sum of United States international relations- it has no other purpose.
“Foolish” and soft issues like the global emergency ( maybe more like global ‘catastrophe’?) are therefore a complete irrelevance. American exceptionalism is seen in its true form- red in tooth and claw as Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote about nature. No morality, no ethics, pure barbarism and pure profit.
It is small wonder that those poor American soldiers coming back from America’s pointless and endless wars of total barbarism, struggle to come to terms with their “moral injury” to the propaganda they have been force-fed from an early age, of the United States being a civilizing and enlightened country in a world of barbarism.
U.S. bases surrounding Iran
Peculiar to those pink-skinned Americans who front for big business in the military and in Washington, is a deeply entrenched racism of those who are “other” and darker skinned:- whether they be Plains Indians, Filipinos, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Iraqi’s, Libyans, Syrians- even the Slavic Russian and Serbian nations .. the list goes on and on and on….
It is time for the world to recognise the savagery and brutality of United States’ international relations. It is time to press for reparations for the environmental destruction, the war destruction, war crimes, loss of life, the torture and the murders that the United States has inflicted on the world in the fictitious name of “democracy and freedom” in the past 100 years. It is time to end this barbarism and stupidity.
The United States is indeed ‘exceptional’, but not quite in the way that their propagandists planned it. The American state is exceptional in it being a war machine; the government’s role is largely to fund and plan wars which will assist the American armament industry to sell more weapons at home abroad.
That racist old warmonger, Winston Churchill, has often been quoted as saying, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”…
Is it true now?- and was it ever true?
The capacity of taxpayer funded government institutions to manipulate public opinion has grown over the past 100 years as the theories of propaganda and the power to influence individuals’ beliefs with media, particularly electronic media, has grown exponentially.
Modern government bureaucracies have always constructed ‘stories’ for their publics about how the world is: who is our ‘enemy’ – what is ‘safe’ and what is ‘appropriate’ etc; and the major medium in the past has been via status quo newspapers ( the vast majority of modern newspaper and visual media publishers are active mouthpieces of state propaganda ( as in the U.K. with the BBC and The Guardian) perhaps because of the enormous costs of printing and distribution which requires substantial funding from status quo funders.
Solely online social media however; blogs and online newspapers require far less input and resources, and their legitimacy and media sources can be easily hidden. They are easily accessible at minimum cost to every member of society, and the public can be ‘fed’ the official line-subtly and invisibly through advertising and other online preference algorithms. The one small downside of the electronic medium world for governments however, is that ‘rogue’ alternative media outlets also have access to this cheap media distribution process (hence the desperate measures by ‘respectable’ news outlets and governments to promote the ‘fake news’ narrative and the need for major search engine algorithms to be tightly controlled by ‘respectable governments.
To foster and maintain the government narrative therefore requires more and more input to feed the official media line. As Craig Murray notes, in the U.K. there are very large amounts of tax payer money going into manipulating public opinion for the benefit of those currently in power. The 77th Brigade of the British Army, the Integrity Initiative, MI5 and MI6 and GCHQ all run major programmes of covert online propaganda. These information warriors operate on twitter, facebook, and in comments sections across the internet.
We can be sure that those U.K. manipulation agencies also exist everywhere across the world where there is sufficient taxpayer money, and sufficient need to maintain the status quo.
We could accurately call these individuals and agencies, the ‘Secret Thought Police’.
Perhaps, if those agencies had some access to a higher truth; a global need for a better life for all, saving the planet or simply creating a more equitable world, we might be able to possibly argue that those secret agencies are to our mutual benefit. But the reality is far from that. Those agencies are designed to entrench those in power with more power, and with more money, and to negate, satirize and destroy by whatever means available, alternative arguments, alternative strategies that might benefit and save ourselves and the planet. They are in consequence, administered by humans with limited understanding of their world, with vast prejudices and with limited ethics and morality.
With those huge resources of thought engineering at their disposal, ‘governments’ which across the world, have demonstrated their blindness and total incapacity to respond to the catastrophes of global heating and species loss facing us now, have instead steadfastly maintained their incestuous linkages with the very corporations and industries which have created the nightmare unfolding day by day in front of us.
When many Western governments, but especially the U.K. and U.S., have knowingly and actively collaborated with states, individuals and agencies over many years in many countries that create public fear through violence (the anatomy of terrorism), then we have a sick and debauched set of governments who have no moral right to govern. Certainly the current leaders of Britain and United States will, in the future, be key defendants in the dock for war crimes in Yemen and other countries.
The Colour revolutions of the past 10 years , (harnessing local discontents with resources from foreign governments and NGOs and businesses such as Soros) which have destabilized both authoritarian and socialist governments alike across the globe, have also, perhaps inadvertently , cast into question the authority of ‘democratic’ governments. Election results are more easily able to be questioned and invalidated in their eyes of their voting publics. Even those governments who have destabilised other foreign governments with such tools for many years; particularly the U.K. and the U.S. , now find themselves the victims of such anti-establishment processes.
We have the somewhat unique situation of the U.K.s Brexit poll being questioned by many in the U.K.; not because the voting was flawed, but simply because it was not the result that the powers that be , wanted. The U.K. may therefore hold further Brexit votes until they get the answer they want; a process which naturally underlines the key premises of the democratic system- that you vote for a party or issue at a certain moment in time to make longer term changes which you may or may not disagree with later.
The recent Hong Kong riots are an example of the complexity of the issues where governments are actively destabilised by internal groups. The fears that the proposed new extradition laws from semi-autonomous Hong Kong to mainland authoritarian China will create opportunities for Hong Kong dissidents to be controlled or imprisoned in China are likely correct. As a former British colony , ceded by the Qing dynasty of China to the British after the First Opium War, a brutal and ethically bankrupt war raged by the British to ensure a good supply of Chinese opium addicts, British Hong Kong was governed by a British Governor appointed by the British “Crown” and who had significant powers of authority up to 1997 . The current dissidents therefore hancor for a non existent time when there was in fact a democratic Hong Kong not controlled by ‘foreigners”. It is very likely that , in the current anti-Chinese climate being rapidly developed by U/S. intelligence agencies, that their British underlings are supporting the dissidents in Hong Kong to put further pressure on Communist China, along with the National Endowment for “Democracy”, an NGO front for the U.S. government destabilization agenda.
We are in desperate need of change. Our ‘democratic’ system is deeply flawed, easily manipulated by the powerful, and does not benefit in the longer term or even, in many cases, the short term , its constituent publics.
With dear little Mike Pompeo immediately accusing Iran of attacking two Japanese-bound tankers in the Gulf of Oman with supposed “torpedoes” or limpet mines (note that limpet mines have limited effect above the waterline and would only punch a small hole in a large tanker, and that torpedoes have not been known to fly out of the water to hit targets above the waterline) – we reach new heights of lunacy within the United States foreign policy arena. The attack was precisely timed to ‘fit’ with Iran’s meeting with a Japanese foreign policy team attempting to defuse a confrontation between Iran and the U.S. -which cannot be defused. (Clear principle of mediation Mr Trump (oh wise and great mediator!) – where one party is attempting to threaten and bully another party into total submission- no agreement is possible until the bullying party desists. The other party will fight to defend itself unless physically defeated. Where the bullied is aware of the bully’s strengths and weaknesses , the bullied party can and will come up with alternative strategies that defeat the bully at their own game…they are after all, fighting for their survival and their lives, not for new profits in the weapons industry..
It is quite likely that one of John Bolton’s terrorist allies, like his good friends the brutal MEK , played a part in the tanker bombings after having not achieved the desired result a few weeks ago in a botched attack on other tankers in the Gulf that caused minimal damage . The fact that Pompeo, -ex CIA Director, ( it tells one a lot about ‘intelligence’ agencies when they have men with the extraordinarily limited intellectual capacities like Pompeo at their heads ) has immediately come out saying it was ‘Iran wot did it’, does somehow demonstrate the crudity and stupidity of American foreign policy, and its total reliance on violence and intimidation as its sole foreign policy tool.( with a little bit of bribery and corruption thrown in for good measure)
The United States has been forthright in saying that Iran does not behave like a ‘normal country’ . What they mean is that Iran does not accept the United States’ right to impose its will and ‘values ( such as they are) on other countries – Iran does not behave according to ‘accepted international norms’.
An article by Christopher Black in New Eastern Outlook article by notes that the (U.S.) ‘Indo-Pacific Strategy Report’, of June 1, 2019 includes the statement that, “We will not accept policies or actions that threaten or undermine the rules-based international order (my emphasis)– an order that benefits all nations. We are committed to defending and enhancing these shared values”.
Christopher Black notes that, ‘”What they mean by “rules based international order” is not the order of international law as accepted by the world governments in the United Nations Charter and other international agreements but a US imposed international order, – an order that does not yet exist except in the fantasies of these gangsters-but which they never stop trying to impose on the world, an order of militarism, fear, and tyranny for the rest of the world”.
The fact that the United Kingsom’s current government can immediately endorse the wild accusations of these crazed and foolish Americans about Iran being the cause of the tanker attacks , is not unsurprising. Britain since the First World War has promoted and supported the brutal Saud tribe in Arabia and its fanatical Wahhabist ( and anti-Shi-ite) teachings, and used to such great effect in Libya, Iraq Afghanistan and Syria in promoting sectarian division and violence to provide power and profit for both British and American business interests in the Middle East.
What is perhaps most disturbing in recent analyses of the rumours that the U.S. will bomb Iran’s non-existent nuclear bomb facilities -even by those opposed to the bombing-is that this is not going to end well for the United States. As with the previous multiple acts of murder against the Iranian people; (not least the attack by USS Vincennes on an Iranian civilian jumbo-jet which killed 290 people in 1988: -(just one of so many attacks the United States has never apologised for ; let only compensated the victims for)we see the complete absence of analyses of what terror, murder and destruction such attacks will inflict on Iran’s 80 million people -already under atack from years of United States’ vicious sanctions . As with almost every United States war; this is a rascist war- a war of agression against darker skinned peoples who clearly are no match for ‘exceptional’ (white) Americans like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo.
It’s time to acknowledge that the United States is simply a rogue state that needs to be controlled by others more mature and steady and with some modicum of intelligence. Hvaing pychopaths at the helm does not bode well for the survivability of the planet.
The arrest of Julian Assange for absconding while on bail from a UK court; (a charge that normally requires a non custodial ( non-prison) sentence) and his proposed extradition to the United States for ‘conspiring to hack into a Pentagon computer network in 2010″ alongside Chelsea Manning, raises important issues , not only for journalistic freedom, but also puts into question the right of those in power to have any moral capacity to make any decisions for the publics they supposedly represent . Assange’s real crime is that his website Wikileaks exposed, and continues to expose, the criminal behaviour of state actors.
The U.K. judge, Judge Michael Snow, presiding over Assange’s arrest, made the highly unprofessional and unscrupulously biased comment when describing Assange in his legal judgement as a “narcissist, who can’t get beyond his own selfish interests” and found him guilty of failing to surrender to bail in 2012. No doubt “Justice” Snow, considered it contemptable that an upstart colonial boy like Assange should challenge his imperial betters in such an unseemly way. The personal characterization of Julian Assange by Judge Michael Snow was “highly improper,” Mads Andenas, former UN special rapporteur on arbitrary detention noted. Should being a narcissist ever become a chargeable crime then certainly most judges and every politician would be spending long periods in incarceration. As Craig Murray notes: One key fact gave away Snow’s enormous prejudice. Julian Assange said nothing during the whole brief proceedings, other than to say “Not guilty” twice, and to ask a one sentence question about why the charges were changed midway through this sham “trial”. Yet Judge Michael Snow condemned Assange as “narcissistic”. There was nothing that happened in Snow’s brief court hearing that could conceivably have given rise to that opinion. It was plainly something he brought with him into the courtroom, and had read or heard in the mainstream media or picked up in his club. It was in short the very definition of prejudice, and “Judge” Michael Snow and his summary judgement is a total disgrace.
Its noted that the current prime minister of the U.K. Theresa May stated in related to Assange’s arrest that “This goes to show that in the United Kingdom, no one is above the law”. . One assumes that May will therefore proceed to the nearest Police Station to confess her direct complicity in genocide in Yemen, and that her predecessor Cameron will come forward to be charged with war crimes in Libya and Syria and that the ever determinedly evil Tony Blair will finally confess to his monumental war crimes in Iraq and elsewhere.
Similarly the media’s constant attempts prior to Assange’s arrest over the previous 6 years to characterize him as some objectionable human being; including his not emptying the kitty litter for his little cat (who was voluntarily extradited to safety in November 2018) , or his personal hygiene (one wonders how much those journalists might smell after being incarcerated in virtual solitary confinement for 7 years?) clearly demonstrates the depths to which Western mainstream journalism has sunk, and its cosy-ing up to “intelligence’ services determined to punish and get rid of Assange. ( as well as the extensive limitations of its case in attempting to justify locking Assange up). One can expect the (linked) type of response from newspapers like the Daily Mail, but Mainstream media’s attempts to character assassinate
Assange have continued after his arrest. Note the language in this screenshot from the ‘respectable’ news outlet Reuters from 12th April 2019 , stating that Assange was being indited for sexual offences (charges which as the U.N. has noted, were dropped almost two years ago). Wikipedia notes:‘On 19 May 2017, the Swedish chief prosecutor applied to the Stockholm District Court to rescind the arrest warrant for Julian Assange,[39] effectively ceasing their investigation against Julian Assange.[40] The case may be reinstated until the expiration of the statute of limitations. Additionally, Britain’s arrest warrant pertaining to bail violations remains open. In 2013, Sweden tried to drop Assange extradition but the English Crown Prosecution Service dissuaded them from doing so.[41]‘
There appears to be some not inconsiderable discrepancy between the intent and motives of the two women involved in the Swedish rape cases and the Swedish prosecution’s account of events.
Or we can note another ‘respectable’ media U.K. outlet, with its ongoing wild accusations ( screenshot below) that Assange and Wikileaks were somehow
connected to Russia’s “military intelligence spy agency” who supposedly ( without a shred of evidence) had hacked the U.S. Democratic Party’s servers, exposing the very real corruption within the party to ‘select” Hilary Clinton as a presidential hopeful..
The numerous attempts by the UK Justice system to force Sweden to maintain its prosecution case for rape against Assange, despite their clear resistance, is one more line of evidence of conspiracy against justice by those currently in power in the United Kingdom. Ms. Agnes Callamard, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions tweeted that the expulsion of Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London exposed him to “risks of serious human rights violations”.
However it should be noted that the U.K.; like its ‘partner’ the U.S. , takes no cognizance of its extensive human rights violations, as it is apparently above international law. In December 2018 the U.N. has noted that the U. K. should: ‘abide by its international obligations” and allow Mr. Assange safe passage out of the embassy.
“States that are based upon, and promote the rule of law, do not like to be confronted with their own violations of the law, that is understandable. But when they honestly admit these violations, they do honour the very spirit of the rule of law, earn enhanced respect for doing so, and set worldwide commendable examples,” said a statement released by the Working Group.
In December 2015, the Working Group concluded in its opinion No. 54/2015 that Mr. Assange – who at the time had a European arrest warrant issued against him for an allegation of crimes committed in Sweden ‑ was being arbitrarily deprived of his freedom and demanded that he be released.
“Under international law, pre-trial detention must be only imposed in limited instances. Detention during investigations must be even more limited, especially in the absence of any charge” said the experts. “The Swedish investigations have been closed for over 18 months now, and the only ground remaining for Mr. Assange’s continued deprivation of liberty is a bail violation in the UK, which is, objectively, a minor offense that cannot post facto justify the more than 6 years confinement that he has been subjected to since he sought asylum in the Embassy of Ecuador.”
“Mr. Assange should be able to exercise his right to freedom of movement in an unhindered manner, in accordance with the human rights conventions the UK has ratified,” the experts added.
Of course it should be remembered that those U.K. and U.S. people in positions of power are the very same people who ultimately will face extradition to The Hague and life-time imprisonment for their war crimes and facilitation of genocide in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and now Yemen, and whom Wikileaks has exposed as genocidal abnd corrupt psychopaths, time and time again.
It is now high time for the public in both the United States and the United Kingdom, to acknowledge that those who rule those two nations (and who view themselves as the ‘elite’ despite all the evidence to the contrary of their minimal vision and intelligence), are simply parasites who have no moral right to rule. That in fact they are the people who need to be in the dock now for their well documented war-crimes and murders of many millions of people world-wide in their corrupt drive for power and more money.
As Richard Falk notes, the attempt to extradite Assange to answer for his access to, and publication of, criminal wrongdoing by state actors, and thereby muzzle the release of further information on state criminal activity, is indisputably an international act of criminality in itself.
connected to Russia’s “military intelligence spy agency” who supposedly ( without a shred of evidence) had hacked the U.S. Democratic Party’s servers, exposing the very real corruption within the party to ‘select” Hilary Clinton as a presidential hopeful..
New Antarctica 