It is tempting to treat the jailing of fake bomb detector salesman James McCormick as comedy, so risible were his completely bogus detectors. Indeed, one day I have no doubt we shall be seeing a television film treating him as a lovable rogue; the con-man figure is the staple of many movie plots. He will probably be played by Alfred Molina.
But the seriousness of the case goes much wider than the fact that people have probably died as a result of the non-protection of his fake bomb detectors. This case speaks volumes about the Iraq the western armies have created. We are continually told the media that the war, justified on weapons of mass destruction – a much bigger con, killing far, far more people than Mr McCormick – is post hoc justified because at least we brought democracy to Iraq. What we brought, in both Iraq and Afghanistan, are the world’s most corrupt governments. According to the widely respected Transparency International, Iraq is the 169th most corrupt country in the world and Afghanistan the 174th. Out of 174.
It does not take a great deal of acuity to work out that McCormick’s bomb detectors – which contain no working electronics – are fakes. He did not succeed by persuading buyers they really worked. He succeeded by persuading Iraqi officers, officials and ministers to accept cash in return for buying rubbish with state funds – most of which funds were supplied by the American taxpayer.
But McCormick was just small beer. He was the unauthorised con. The authorised con involved more money by a factor of twenty million; it was a multi trillion dollar con involving entirely fake and planted evidence as a justification for a war in which millions were killed or maimed, the infrastructure of a modern country bombed back to the Middle Ages, and vast personal fortunes made in the arms, mercenary, military support, banking and oil industries.
Yes McCormick should be in jail. But those much, much more guilty are walking around, opening libraries and giving lecture tours.
I would like to see McCormick spend 10 years in Iraq at checkpoints using his so called bomb detectors. I hope the US authorities go after him as well after he has served his sentence.
I find your presentation of these figures confusing; surely it would be more comprehensible to say that Afghanistan is the most corrupt country in the world, and Iraq is the sixth most corrupt? (That is, there are just five countries more corrupt than Iraq.) Or did I misunderstand what you meant?
Hear Hear Craig and we know to whom you refer in your final sentence.
Collusion as I always suspected.
Fraudster who sold fake bomb detectors in war zones advised by UK officials
Whistleblower warned business department in 2008 about Jim McCormick’s fake detectors, saying lives were being put at risk
Read the whistleblower’s emails
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/23/uk-government-helped-fake-bomb-detector-fraudster
The government were told about it and did nothing. Those individuals should be in jail with him. The judge gave McCormick the maximum sentence. But the charges were a joke – why not charges of assisting terrorism and manslaughter. As were the past years where he’s been on bail – presumably still enjoying his fraudulantly acquired millions. He should not be being released. Certainly not in five years time with deductions.
Al
You don’t seem to be confused all, you are quite right.
All heads of governments and their heads of Security Services who were involved in sending their countries troops to Iraq and Afghanistan should be arrested and tried by the ICC. They are as guilty of crimes against humanity as were the Serbian Generals.
It is interesting on how corruption is measured. I for instance convinced that Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tadjikistan and Azerbaijan are the most corrupt countries followed by Russia, Belorus and other former soviet countries. And then there are African, Latin American countries, Middle East, South and South East Asia. Bribery, patronage, favouritism, money laundering are not confined to Afghanistan or Iraq. In fact most of heroin from Afghanistan is transported via Central Asia and Russia, does this not make these countries as much corrupt as Afghanistan. Afghanistan at least have an excuse in the form of long lasting civil war, what excuse Central Asian countries and Russia have?
By the same token, shouldn’t those who were responsible for supplying an armoured vehicle which did not protect the lives of those three young men killed this week ,also be brought to book?
Pardon my OT-ishness, but on the topic of GWOT frauds (from CBC):
“In his new book, The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism, investigative journalist Trevor Aaronson analyzes 10 years of terrorism cases that were prosecuted in the United States after Sept. 11.
By assembling a database of the cases and going through court records, he concluded that the FBI, which receives $3 billion per year for counterterrorism, is “the organization responsible for more terrorist plots over the last decade than any other.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/05/01/f-q-a-trevor-aaronson.html
And, well done for all the posting Mr. Murray; the blog is going like a track-star lately.
At the start I wholeheartedly supported intervention into Iraq as prospect of toppling brutal dictatorship for whatever reason appealed to me.
However; Intervention into Iraq unwrapped seriousness of the situation from different prospectives. First it showed that there was no mechanism of toppling dictatorships without direct intervention and causing much more severe deaths of innocent people.
Second it showed that artificially created national borders by people least concerned with well being of those people who live within these borders cannot last forever and that these borders can only be confined by brutal force. As soon as this brutal force is toppled, problems that were ignored by artificial border drawing exercise become obvious and start claiming many lives of innocent people.
Third it showed that country that have too much oil but is governed in the way that could provoke modernising forces (European and US powers sticking their noses and teaching good manners) will always be a target for intervention or meddling.
But above all intervention into Iraq unwrapped weakness of international system and that it is still preety much based on rivalry and post WWII arrangements which are way too old and inefficient for dealing with problems of modern days.
A post and reply from Medialens.
Iraq War leaves lasting impact on healthcare
Posted by The Editors on May 2, 2013, 5:54 pm
Iraq had prioritized healthcare at least since the 1920s, when the Royal College of Medicine was formed to train doctors locally. By the 1970s, Iraq’s health care system was “one of the most advanced” in the region, according to researcher Omar Al-Dewachi, a medical doctor who worked in Iraq during the 1990s before emigrating to the US. Health indicators improved quickly and significantly in the 1970s and 1980s, only to deteriorate again after the first Gulf War of 1991, which destroyed health infrastructure, and during a decade of sanctions, which drastically reduced government spending on health and led to a brain drain in the medical profession.
After the 2003 invasion, the healthcare situation deteriorated considerably, and Mac Skelton, a contributor to the Costs of War project, fears it may never recover. Between 2003 and 2007, half of Iraq’s remaining 18,000 doctors left the country, according to Medact, a British-based global health charity. Few intend to return.
“Getting back to that robust, excellent standard [of healthcare] is not going to happen anytime soon,” Skelton told IRIN. “Unlike buildings that can be rebuilt, migration patterns aren’t reversed easily.”
In 2011, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), Iraq had 7.8 doctors per 10,000 people – a rate two, if not three or four times lower, than its neighbours Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and even the Occupied Palestinian Territory. In the Muslim world, Iraq’s doctor-patient ratio is higher only than Afghanistan, Djibouti, Morocco, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97964/Iraq-10-years-on-War-leaves-lasting-impact-on-healthcare
DC
Re: Iraq War leaves lasting impact on healthcare
Posted by Gloriousrevolution on May 2, 2013, 7:51 pm, in reply to “Iraq War leaves lasting impact on healthcare”
The central point, which is so terrible that most people can’t even contemplate it, ‘Surely that’s not the kind of society we are?’, is that destroying a country like Iraq makes it far weaker and easier to control. Instead of Iraq developing and increasingly using its oil and gas resources, they are forced to export it to make up for the damage we’ve imposed on them. This western grand strategy, deliberately designed to subjugate foreign countries so they don’t threaten our interests, is, looked at ‘rationally’ justifiable, but absolutely criminal. Yet, for most conservatives, liberals, and vast swathes of the left, improbable and an unacceptable view.
April Showers may have changed her nom de plume but retains all the hatred of everything British (or English, if you will) of her former self “Mary”.
Her post at 10h41 is intended to convey the impression that UK officials actively colluded with the fraudster by actively aiding and abetting him in the fraud.
If, however, you “could be arsed” (reference to Doug Scorgie here!) to read the source she gave, you get a rather different impression : of official UK negligence, of slowness to act, and finally of not in 2010 imposing a blanket ban on those exports rather than just bannoing them for export to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Not quite the same thing.
And, of course, no mention by Mary of the main fact (a fact mentioned clearly in the source article), ie, the CORRUPTION OF IRAQI POLITICIANS, PUBLIC OFFICIALS AND MILITARY.
But naturally Mary would choose not to mention this, because as we all know, all evil flows from the UK (and the US and at a pince the EU, Australia, Canada, etc) and the evil that flows from anyone else is also, ultimately, the fault of the West.
Why, I wonder, does Mary hate the UK (and the West) so obsessively?
Ali Abbas whose arms were incinerated and his bones turned into white ash.
http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRfNpjgzImJfapMVUFvbP5hVvurJOSXr1Jqpb6Ps0MNf293Ecq0-Q
http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/PBHxPN.jYRq_5PQCWXLYZA–/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NQ–/http://mit.zenfs.com/579/2012/09/1928255.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Ismail_Abbas
Hi Craig
I’m having a kiddies birthday party at the weekend and wondered if you’d be available!!
Seriously though, I remember watching a US (GAO) audit committee hearing about 5 years ago now and the audit manager as good as said ‘yeah, there’s a couple of billion dollars that we’ve got fuck all knowledge where it’s gone and fuck all chance of ever finding it – enjoy the sandwiches, i’m off to the boozer’.
Some people have become multi millionaires without ever getting off their arses. War, what is it good for – absolutely everyone assuming you’re not a soldier, civilian, human – but apart from that!
Breaking on Russia Today
http://rt.com/shows/the-truthseeker/boston-bombing-truth-propoganda-755/
Hammond has been getting an ear wigging from the PTB in Washington. He MUST spend more on DEFENCE aka OFFENCE.
Defence cuts risk Britain’s Nato standing
New defence cuts mean Britain could fall below the Nato standard for defence spending, straining the UK’s military co-operation with the US, it has emerged.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/10034230/Defence-cuts-risk-Britains-Nato-standing.html
Amazing that there is a NATO ‘standard’. I would have thought that the two soon-to-be redundant aircraft carriers being built and the planned Trident replacements would suffice.
Trident replacement plans are based on outdated ideas, says former minister
Nick Harvey says Ministry of Defence cannot afford new Trident fleet and everything else needed by armed forces
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/22/trident-replacement-plans-outdated-ideas
(Got to do a bloody maths exam just to post now!)
Dad!
Gary just showed me your latest attack-posts and I just don’t get it if you really are a double agent with the FBD then why are they chasing you too and since Mr Kemp and That Man and all those vans and commenters on Craig Murray’s blog and Volgograd’s elite State Institute of International Relations (VGIMO)
and the FBD and those men in the black SUVs all want you to stop then why do keep on posting all that horrid stuff?
Anyone recollect the substandard body armour supplied to the US soldiers by a firm that its owner spent a cool one million dollars on his daughters batmitzvah?
Or the twenty three year old boy getting awarded with a multi million dollar contract for supplying the US forces with ammunition in Afghanistan, the chap a nicea boy, that little troll graville jenner would be proud of was buying sub standard ammo from China, and pocketing the millions, and the racket came to an end when he took the piss and double charged for his scam.
Or what happened to the three cargo aircraft taking off from Baghdad airport carrying Saddam’s millions of dollars stashed in the aluminium housings and no one knows where these aircraft landed or what happened to their payload?
Dose anyone know about B liar and his cohorts now become oil barons in Iraq?
I’m somewhat surprised that there has not been a peep from the self-professed ‘humanitarians’ on this blog about the refusal (so far) of the UK government to let their Afghani interpreters come and live in the UK after the future troops withdrawal.
One would have thought that this would be a wonderful stick with which to beat the government yet again.
Could it be that the Eminences hate the Afghani interpreters who loyally served the British troops even more than they hate the UK government?
Should I be mistaken, please all write to David Cameron urging him to reverse this shameful policy.
@ Fedup (13h45) : Anyone recollect the substandard body armour supplied to the US soldiers by a firm that its owner spent a cool one million dollars on his daughters batmitzvah?
Or the twenty three year old boy getting awarded with a multi million dollar contract for supplying the US forces with ammunition in Afghanistan, the chap a nicea boy, that little troll graville jenner would be proud of was buying sub standard ammo from China, and pocketing the millions, and the racket came to an end when he took the piss and double charged for his scam.
Or what happened to the three cargo aircraft taking off from Baghdad airport carrying Saddam’s millions of dollars stashed in the aluminium housings and no one knows where these aircraft landed or what happened to their payload?
Dose anyone know about B liar and his cohorts now become oil barons in Iraq?”
——-
Well, I don’t, for one.
Sources, please.
Thank you.
John Goss,
Can RT be considered as an unbiased source? It is very unlikely. Observe that on their web site they keep calling them RT and not Russia Today, masquerading their Russian-KGB-FSB origin. Its chief editor is Margarita Simonyan well known in Russia and beyond as Putin’s underling. Do not be fooled, just because their broadcast is different from main stream English speaking media it does not mean it is unbiased. With the same success I might just as well post sources from Uzbek new agencies sometimes.
“Anyone recollect the substandard body armour supplied to the US soldiers…”
An important constituent of the warmongers coalition in the US and the UK consists of chancers with rubbish to unload on the inevitably corrupt occupation authorities. These range from “experts” ready to channel Bernard Lewis for payment through arms salesmen to the more honest types like McCormick whose products are unarguably bogus, fail every practical test and have the saving grace of exemplifying the full spectrum of corruption that these wars involve.
The same types, salivating copiously, are currently pouring into Lebanon and Jordan in the hopes of being in the right place at the right time when Syria falls.
This long tradition of cannibalistic feasting on undefended peoples is central to Our Island Story now being re-written to include our cousins’ achievements.
John Goss,
By the way Margarita Simonyan does not even bother to put brave face and hide biased nature of her journalism. In one interview to Russian Afisha magazine when asked about censorship in Russia she responded that there were many truths in journalism and how one sees truth depends on how one looks at it. Says a lot to me.
Also I advise you to check her twitter https://twitter.com/M_Simonyan to get more information on how biased her views are. Truely ‘Russian jorunalis’, no wonder she was picked to head RT despite being in profession for less than 6 year.
“At the start I wholeheartedly supported intervention into Iraq as prospect of toppling brutal dictatorship for whatever reason appealed to me.”
Maybe it’s just me, but whenever I heard that from somebody, it irrevocably perjudices me against absolutely anything they may later say.
Guess it’s just my personal hang-up.
Macky,
I do now regret that I supported it but I am being honest. If you ever lived in the country run by dictatorship (I lived in 2 such countries) you would understand, perhaps.
Just had interesting letter from Andrew Robatham at the M.o D.in which he reassures me that Depleted Uranium is, to all intents and purposes, totally harmless to human health.I have received much the same letter a number of times over the last 12 or 13 years.It was therefore interesting to find a two page article in the Daily Mail on the 25 April interviewing a soldier about her experiences in Iraq.I quote “Before she flew home from serving in Iraq in 2003,she was handed a white plastic card by Army officials.It stated:”You have been working in an area where (DU)munitions have been used.DU has the potential to cause ill health.You may have been exposed to dust containing DU during your deployment” Needless to say the soldier in question is seriously ill but what is most horrific about the article is that it states that as early as 1997,British Army doctors warned the M.o D.that all military personnel should be aware that DU dust inhalation carries a long term risk.The dust has been shown to increase the risks of developing lung,lymph and brain cancers. So basically we use it ,warn the troops we may have poisened them but if the public make enquiries through their M.P.s they are given a load of bull.See if you can track down the article which,in true Mail fashion, failed to mention anything of the suffering of the Iraqi people.And the bliar continues to hoover up his rewards for the genocide.
Iraq Constitution statement:
“We the people of Iraq, newly arisen from our
holocaust and ruindisasters and looking with confidence to the future through a democratic, federal, republican system, are determined – men and women, old and young – to respect the rule of law, reject the policy of aggression, pay attention to women and their rights, theelderly and their cares, the children and their affairs, spread the culture of
diversity and defuse terrorism.
We are the people of Iraq, who in all our forms and groupings undertake to establish our union freely and by choice, to
forgetlearn yesterday’s lessons for tomorrow, and to write down this permanent constitution from the high values and ideals of the heavenly messages and the developments of science and human civilization, and to adhere to this constitution, which shall preserve for Iraq its free union of people, land and sovereignty.”Despite these words the corrupt legacy of Chief executive Paul Bremer remains as Iraq continues it’s path to the abyss, exempt from audits, contract preference to American firms, control of the media, fraud, corruption and misdemeanors protected by foreign contractor immunity to Iraq law.
Sectarian tensions have escalated, welfare of the people tuned out, law and order neglected and ignored and a political class currently in control of Iraq where individual ministers make use of the institutions that they control as private bank-accounts. This is perhaps the most corrupt and incompetent that the country has ever seen.
Sorry forgot to mention that the article was by Sue Reid and was on pgs 30&31
No it is not. Most decent people hate seeing another human being hurt, or killed. However, there are those wankers who will always try and side with the warmongers, and upon the failure of the said warmongers then change trenches and start singing another tune.
Hence your attitude is a natural reaction of any decent human being to those aforementioned wankers.
Agreed on all issues, except the fall of Syria, contrary to the Western media propaganda, Syrians are no longer passively standing by, and watching their country go to shit. In fact most Syrians are now actively seeking out and identifying the terrorist hideouts to the Syrian army, that in turn is making sure the bastards cannot kill more innocent Syrians under orders from Saudi, Qatar, US, and Eric Prince.
Further, Syria is the test case for Putin, if he fails to hold onto it, then in effect he has allowed the Mediterranean basin to become a private lake for the US and toadies. It is reported that Putin in a private gathering has stated, he will protect Syria, even if it means the fighting ends up in the streets of Moscow.
The chancer parasites you mentioned are only there to take a bite from the millions that is poured into the area by the US, and the coalition of the pederast, ie the sheiks ruling the various emirates in the Mid east.
I wonder whose toes McCormick stepped; who he pissed off? 50 million stolen seems to be a small bar for corruption. Did he break the rule “Steal nothing small”?
He’s our token grifter taken down.