The planned scenario for a war with Iran is playing out before our eyes at frightening speed now. Unfortunately. as I have frequently said, Iran has a regime that is not only thuggish but controlled by theocratic nutters: the attack on the British Embassy played perfectly into the hands of the neo-cons. William Hague is smirking like the cat who got the cream.
The importance of the Fox-Gould-Werritty scandal is that it lifts the lid on the fact that the move to war with Iran is not a reaction to any street attack or any nuclear agency report. It is a long nurtured plan, designed to keep feeding the huge military industrial war machine that has become a huge part of the UK and US economies, and whose sucking up of trillions of dollars has contributed massively to the financial crisis, and which forms a keystone in the whole South Sea Bubble corporate finance system for servicing the ultra-rich. They need constant, regenerative war. They feed on the shattered bodies of small children.
Gould, Fox and Werritty were plotting with Israel to further war with Iran over years. The Werritty scandal was hushed up by Gus O’Donnell’s risibly meagre “investigation” – a blatant cover-up – and Fox resigned precisely to put a cap on any further digging into what they had been doing. I discovered – with a lot of determination and a modicum of effort – that Fox, Werritty and British Ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould had met many times, not the twice that Gus O’Donnell claimed, and had been in direct contact with Mossad over plans to attack Iran. Eventually the Independent published it, a fortnight after it went viral on the blogosphere.
The resignation of the Defence Secretary in a scandal is a huge political event. People still talk of the Profumo scandal 50 years later. But Fox’s resignation was forgotten by the media within a fortnight, even though it is now proven that the Gus O’Donell official investigation into the affair was a tissue of lies.
Take only these undisputed facts:
Fox Gould and Werritty met at least five times more than the twice the official investigation claims
The government refuses to say how often Gould and Werritty met without Fox
The government refuses to release the Gould-Werritty correspondence
The three met with Mossad
How can that not be a news story? I spent the most frustrating fortnight of my life trying to get a newspaper – any newspaper – to publish even these bare facts. I concentrated my efforts on the Guardian.
I sent all my research, and all the evidence for it, in numeorus emails to the Guardian, including to David Leigh, Richard Norton-Taylor, Rupert Neate and Seumas Milne. I spoke to the first three, several times. I found a complete resistance to publishing anything on all those hidden Fox/Werritty/Gould meetings, or what they tell us about neo-con links with Israel.
Why? Guardian Media Group has a relationship with an Israel investment company, Apax, but the Guardian strongly denies that this has any effect on them.
The Guardian to this day has not published the fact that there were more Fox-Gould-Werritty meetings than O’Donnell disclosed. Why?
I contacted the Guardian to tell them I intended to publish this article, and invited them to give a statement. Here it is, From David Leigh, Associate Editor:
I hope your blogpost will carry the following response in full.
1. I know nothing of any Israeli stake in the ownership of the Guardian. As it is owned by the Scott Trust, not any Israelis, your suggestion sems a bit mad.
2. The Guardian has not “refused” to publish any information supplied by you. On the contrary, I personally have been spending my time looking into it, as I told you previously. I have no idea what the attitude of others in “the Guardian” is. I form my own opinions about what is worth publishing, and don’t take dictation from others. That includes you.
3. I can’t imagine what you are hinting at in your reference to Assange. If you’ve got a conspiracy theory, why don’t you spit it out?
I can understand your frustration, Craig, when others don’t join up the dots in the same way as you. But please try not to be offensive, defamatory, or plain daft about it.
As I said, it would be honest of you to publish my response in full if you want to go ahead with these unwarranted attacks on the Guardian’s integrity.
Possible some Guardian readers will get drawn to this post: at least then they will find out that Werritty, Fox and Gould held many more meetings, hushed up by O’Donnell and hushed up by the Guardian.
It should not be forgotten that the Guardian never stopped supporting Blair and New Labour, even when he was presiding over illegal wars and the massive widening of the gap between rich and poor. My point about Assange is that he has done a great deal to undermine the neo-con war agenda – and the Guardian is subjecting him to a campaign of denigration. On the other hand Gould/Fox/Werritty were pushing a neo-con project for war – and the Guardian is actively complicit in the cover-up of their activities.
The Guardian. Whom does it serve?
Glenn, thanks for your moving account of the visit to Ann Frank’s House. Poor child. I remember reading extracts from her diaries, a young girl, nearly a woman, with all her life in front of her, imprisoned by war.
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So much evil happens during war. Young soldiers, who have not seen their wives or girlfriends for a long time, resort to multiple and shared rape to satisfy some primeval urge they may have been able to control under normal circumstances, without concern for the victim. Innocents killed deliberately and by mistake because of slogans like “kill them before they kill you”. War is sick. It’s first victim, to use a well-worn cliche, is the truth. Now we are in a state of perpetual war we cannot rely on the media to tell the truth. In a way that is what Mr Murray’s current blog is saying.
Craig,
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Until a couple of days ago, newsnow.co.uk had “Liam Fox Resignation” as one of its “Hot Topics” – both The Independent and Private Eye pieces were featured.
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In fact, ir came up on their home page fearured listings – looks like someone noticed, and had it “pulled”.
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Laughably this is their proud boast:
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“NewsNow.co.uk is the UK’s first and leading home-grown and independent news aggregation service. Fully-automated, and on a continuous basis, NewsNow updates breaking headlines linking to news websites all around the world.
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Our mission is to help provide people with links to the news they need to read, and publishers with people to read the news they write.”
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Independent yet curiously “compliant” – they may respond to protests, however – I wrote ro them and got 911Blogger re-instated as a source a while back.
Dear Craig,
Thanks for this. I am quite moved by your courage. We shouldn’t forget how much The Gaurdian was mean to Gordon Brown. Probably because he isn’t a man to take orders for wars from a foreign country. What is important here is Character…
P.S. Excuse my mis-typing.
P.P.S. As your blog gets more popular, isn’t it time to add time codes as well as date to enable easier navigation and links to comments of particular interest?
Op ed in today’s FT by David Miliband and Nader Mousavizadeh pretty vociferously opposes war with Iran. Is this also the view of Miliband’s brother?
John Goss
For the last six decades World has not known peace, the “good war” that was fought as wwii, in fact was never finished, and the emotional cues anchored with this sacred carnage of all things human has been explained away as the rightful retribution to the lowlifes and evil doers. All the while setting the scene up for the next ww.
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The Berlin airlift, Cuban crisis, Korea, Vietnam, …… Afghanistan, Iraq, …… etc.
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No one ever heard the cries of the German women whom walked into the river Elbe or other rivers to put an end to a life of getting raped in multiplicity of times everyday, less said about their suffering from; cold, hunger, beatings, humiliation, pain, and disease.
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The bastards whom made the industrial carnage of civilians an acceptable facet of the twentieth and twenty first century were the ziofuckwits, that have come to make acceptable, the likes of “Tommy Robinson”, “Pamela Geller”, making acceptable outright racism against Muslims an acceptable and tolerated facet of life. The “new normal” can be found displayed here
Glenn, “What makes one have even less faith in humanity than usual is that the same people who fervently run around the world advertising this horror, are enthusiastically visiting it themselves on another undefended set of people.”
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This is true of some, for example the Zionist elements about whom this blog aims to out, but not all Israelis, and not all other minorities who might have suffered under the Nazis.
It seems to be a part and parcel of “our values” thanks to the ziofuckwits making racism mainstream
Glenn,
Just to make sure you know this
Resume:
Christian Sweeting, founder of seventeen one-man companies (fifteen defunct), chartered accountant, property developer, unsuccessful Tory candidate, formerly representing Tullow Oil, now of Heritage Oil (prop. Tony Buckingham), acquitted of firearms offence, involved in alleged planning fraud, and soi-disant peddler of influence; his company, London and Central European Investments, has a maildrop business address at 65, Bond Street, unless you entertain the possibility that it is in some way involved with Calvin Klein, downstairs, and another address at Riverside House, Romford. He has approached Hague and Fox on behalf of Tullow, and certainly met the former.
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I am now hoping to find out that he was a Cabinet minister’s best man. The similarities with Werritty are striking. In particular the facility with which a complete nonentity can gain access to the highest levels of government. But not a complete nonentity like you or me, obviously.
Fedup, I think we’re in general agreement. Thanks, my stepson showed me the racist video the other night. With hope one day she will reflect on her racism. Did you notice when the first person addressed her her son turned his gun on her. My God, how young does this aggression start? Having said that, wouldn’t every child want to protect its parents?
Ken/Fedup/Jives et al – can we ease up on the attacks? (I apologise that I am probably generalising here, as I’ve not read every word of the thread). It would be good if we could either discuss something, or hit the brakes if it is felt that ones opponent is not arguing in good faith and/or there is too much political distance to get any sort of agreement.
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There may be troublemakers hereabouts, but it probably is best to assume that everyone here is acting in good faith to start with.
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@Ken – Mary is a long-term poster here, and a valued member of the board. Just IMO, she has consistently demonstrated a care for people caught up in the machine of war, and is a seeker of peace and justice. I am quite sure she harbours no racist views of Israeli/Jewish people.
At risk of interrupting something important, one last post, highly relevant to Franz’s re-invocation of oil as the motive…
http://www.scribd.com/doc/72567229/Christian-Sweeting-Letter
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Not that I think it’s the only facet of Fox-Werritty. What was going on with Israel wasn’t oil.
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Night, all.
@Enochered
“It would seem to be a half blind position to adopt, by referring to the leadership in Iran as thuggish, in the same manner as was Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Assad, Mubarek, Castro et al,”
“All happy families are alike but an unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion” (from Anna Karenina) I think applies with nasty regimes as well.
Fedup: What was the point of that – to show that Palestinian leadership back 70 years ago supported the Nazis? I’m shocked – kill all their grandchildren and great-grandchildren at once!
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Guess what? None of them are alive anymore. Here’s another surprise for you, the Germans supported the Nazis even more enthusiastically! So did the Spanish, the Italians, the Austrians, why aren’t you running around squealing about that too?
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Here’s another shocker – the Israeli government is carrying on in a fashion that would bring tears of joy to any old Nazis still kicking.
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Any bit of demonising works for some, I guess.
(For the record, I’ve deleted a couple of posts from Tony0pmoc – I’ve given up editing each one. Tony ol’ chap, please stop the disruptions – thank you!)
I lied. It’s a Mossad thing….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/01/israel-legal-challenge-palestinians-gaza
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So, you’re living in Gaza. You want to sue an Israeli. You have to appear in court in Israel. But you aren’t allowed to go.
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‘Course, if an Israeli wants to sue you, you get free transport under armed guard to an Israeli jail, asap. And free home demolition.
Tell us more about human rights.
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Night, all.
Jon..
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Mary is a long-term poster here, and a valued member of the board. Just IMO, she has consistently demonstrated a care for people caught up in the machine of war, and is a seeker of peace and justice.
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If she is so caring a person then why has she not condemned the treatment of Iranians under their government? She did not and had plenty of chance to but what she did do was try and discredit the Amnesty report I posted into human rights abuses in Iran by linking to a Holocaust denier. Sorry I do not buy your line that she is caring etc etc..My opinion of Mary is that she rants on about the human rights abuses that Israel brings on the Palestinians and ignores what the Iranian government does to its own people,she has selective morals and that is not a good thing.Of course you are free to believe whatever you want about here,I am just going on the evidence presented in this thread.
Fedup: I wrote in haste, sorry – thought you were referring to the approval of Nazis by the Palestinians back in WW-II. Israel frequently refers to this, which is odd because I thought they wanted to pretend the Palestinians didn’t exist, particularly not before Israel was established.
Ken- I hate it when people demand that one condemns this or that in order to fend off some slur. Don’t you? After all, there are so many people tearing apart their shirts with anger at our Official Enemies (Iran, right now) in the MSM these days, why should it fall to poor old Mary to pick up any slack they might have left?
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If there’s something invalid in what Mary says, have a go at that. But it’s incredibly slimy to make insinuations based on what they _haven’t_ said. As you’ve done, repeatedly.
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You some sort of troll or something mate? Being insincere with others is how you spend your time? I haven’t said anything about Iranian abuses either, you got a problem with that? I haven’t heard you condemn the disgustingly inhumane practices involved in producing shark fin soup – what sort of miserable person are you?
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[Mod – fixed name]
Another error! My last message was of course addressed to Ken, not Jon. Aaaghh![Mod – fixed].
PS – Jon, can’t you get timestamps going on each post, instead of just a date?
“Biden: No indication Iran attack on UK embassy orchestrated”
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US Vice President Joe Biden said on Thursday he had seen no indication the attack on the British embassy this week in Tehran was orchestrated by Iranian authorities, but it was another example of why the country was a “pariah”
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Biden, wrapping up a three-day visit to mark the end of the US troop presence in Iraq, also played down the risk of Iran exploiting the departure of US troops by year-end. (Reuters)
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http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4156038,00.html
Yes, whom does the Guardian serve indeed? (I could give an answer to WHAT the Guardian serves and it isn’t truth)
Incidentally, Robert Halfon in his Rob’s Blog has seen fit to write a long piece about his tussle with Paul Flynn and reproduces his short article to the Jewish Chronicle.
http://roberthalfon.blogspot.com/2011/12/paul-flynn-mp-is-no-anti-semite-but-i.html
Glenn.. Oh more name calling. Is this really all you people can do on here. You are the 4th or 5th one to revert to that. Mary clearly tried to discredit the links that I put up from Amnesty that detail human rights abuses in Iran. She clearly was trying to say that Amnesty is run by the so called Jewish Mafia and that Amnesty should not be believed,she clearly linked to an Holocaust denier to do this.She has then when called on it preceded to insult me personally. That is not the action of a caring person with any morals,well maybe where you hang out it is.
More details of the GMG/Apax takeover of emap involving offshore tax structures in the Cayman Islands from the Guardian
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Guardian Media Group and the Apax deal
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The Tesco writ made a reference to Guardian Media Group’s purchase of Emap plc in partnership with Apax and sought to make parallels with its property deals. Ian Griffiths and Felicity Lawrence set out below the details of the deal and the tax consequences
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/may/03/1
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So the association between The Guardian and Apax is deep and complex and not something you’d expect considering the Guardian keep telling us that they’re immune from commercial influence by their governing structure. Nick Davis was going on about it this week at the Levenson Inquiry – was he aware that it’s changed?
Ken,
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(Side issue – if you are quoting someone, it helps to use angle brackets or something – makes it much easier to discern who said what).
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> If she [Mary] is so caring a person then why has she not condemned the
> treatment of Iranians under their government?
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Well, I can’t answer for Mary, but I will try to answer that in the general case. Why do people on the British left sometimes not criticise official enemies of the Establishment? Well, there’s two reasons, to my mind:
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1. The bad reason is that some people get caught up in the fallacy that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’. Hence, some people take the view that Iran/Iraq/Libya under a dictator has positive features (if not necessarily exclusively “good”) because it is, perhaps, resisting Western imperialism.
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2. The good reason is that, in the context of building war against Iran, people on the Left who are opposed to military action do not wish to get involved with the drumbeat of the war machine. If the whole of the British Left were to, right now, start marching against Iran, criticising them at every opportunity, it would shift the (mainly apolitical) centre of “British popular opinion” to the right. Which, of course, is very amenable for the militarists and the war machine.
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I sense that Mary comes under the second category, though of course she may wish to add some detail to that. Equally, you have insulted her sufficiently that she may also wish not to deal with you further. She is not obliged to answer your questions, but if you take a more conciliatory tone, she may do.
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FWIW, I am suspicious of the Iranian regime also, and think that Craig/AI etc are quite right to criticise it. But I do find myself in position (2) a fair bit, which may also be partly why I limit my criticisms more than I would if it were, say, the US.
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Anyway, suffice it to say I think criticising Iran whilst steadfastly being opposed to any military actions against it is an intellectually consistent position. I think that whilst Iran has been given many reasons to acquire the bomb – mostly by Israel – I don’t think they have any credible technology and won’t any time soon. I am with Medialens on this one.
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Last point – the militarists would have to be extremely brave/stupid to try ramping up more nuclear fears at the moment. The media faithfully conveyed all of those lies regarding Iraq, and can’t be seen to be openly lying twice in such short succession. It would destroy limited British/US faith in the media system, which is already at an all-time low for a variety of other reasons. And if neoliberal capitalism over-reaches, the likes of Occupy and alternative movements would have their hands strengthened (though I would hope that would happen anyway, of course).
@Glenn – on timestamps, good idea. If you want to see them, check the RSS feed, they should be on there. But I will email Tim the web-man to see if it can be done. (Sadly us mods only get limited permissions – the Fantastic Blogging Machine won’t even make us a decent brew!)
@Jon (you have insulted her sufficiently)
Really? So stating the facts is now insulting. I see no mention from you of all the insults she poured on me. You are just making up excuses to defend your mate,this type of thing is common practice on every Internet site where people post.Mary got caught out trying to discredit a report from Amnesty about human rights abuses in Iran and when caught out she reverted to attacking me personally and name calling.There is no excuse for what she did. Now you can either be against human rights abuses in the world like me or you can pick and choose like Mary does.I have seen her argument on many boards for many years,it is nothing new and it is not good.
@Jon(I think criticising Iran whilst steadfastly being opposed to any military actions against it is an intellectually consistent position)
That is my position exactly anything else is hypocrisy.
I feel sorry for Barbie 😉