From a British diplomatic source I learn that Britain has lobbied the United States against the publication of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on torture and extraordinary rendition. The lobbying has been carried out “at all levels” – White House, State Department and CIA. The British have argued that at the very least the report must be emasculated before publication.
The British argument is that in a number of court cases including the Belhadj case, the British government has successfully blocked legal action by victims on the grounds that this would weaken the US/UK intelligence relationship and thus vitally damage national security, by revealing facts the American intelligence service wish hidden. [We will leave aside for the moment the utter shame of our servile groveling judges accepting such an argument]. The British Government are now pointing out to the Americans that this argument could be fatally weakened if major detail of the full horror and scope of torture and extraordinary rendition is revealed by the Senate Intelligence Committee. The argument runs that this could in turn lead to further revelations in the courts and block the major defence against prosecutions of Blair, Straw and Dearlove, among others, potentially unleashing a transatlantic wave of judicial activism.
The unabashed collusion of two torturing security states in concealing the truth of their despicable acts – including complicity in the torture of women and minors – and blocking criminal prosecution of the guilty is a sign of how low public ethics have sunk. Fortunately there are still a few people in the British Foreign Office disgusted enough to leak it.
@Mary
and Michelle is busy lighting the candles.
https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/455872355311419392/photo/1
Same old, same old – what are you trying to say, somehow I doubt it is Happy Passover.
“More to the point what are armoured vehicles bearing the Russian flag doing in Eastern Ukraine doing today! Hardly the local militia that the Putinistas deceitfully claim.”
Did you just make this up, ESLO, or do you have a source?
Sounds like total bollocks, but amusing that you don’t even seem to understand that.
I’ll save him the trouble, Herbie.
A soldier guarding one of six troop carriers now under the control of the rebels told Reuters he was a member of Ukraine’s 25th paratrooper division from Dnipropetrovsk.
“All the soldiers and the officers are here. We are all boys who won’t shoot our own people,” he said, adding that his men had had no food for four days until local residents fed them.
A spokesman for the separatists and a witness in Kramatorsk said the Ukrainian troops had given up their vehicles to the rebels after talks.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/04/16/uk-ukraine-crisis-idUKBREA3D0C420140416
Whose oligarchs do you want to win, ESLO?
Neither – but you forget where the Ukrainian oligarchs originally got their ideas from and how they benefit from Putin wishing to have a similar type of system to that which he imposes on Russia.
Herbie
Try the 5th photo from Reuters here – also reported on Sky TV
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27045534
Some Latvian’s are Russian origin – some are North American origin
Latvia’s President Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga (1999 – 2007) who grew up in Canada, not USA, was alleged to have been successively KGB then later CIA agent…
Lithuania also had a former U.S. Citizen as President (1998 – 2009), Valdas Adamkus , who was NCO in the US Army Intelligence (Lithuania coincidentally had a black-torture-prison about this time)
Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves (2006 – present) was educated in the USA before performing journalism/intelligence at RFE/RL [wikipedia]
not that we’re exempt from ‘meddling’ in the UK – with Kennedy Memorial Trust/Laurence Stern Fellowships/British American Project alumni everywhere in British Meeja & Poli-ticks
So it’s not exactly the Russian invasion ESLO tried to pretend.
It’s the Ukrainian army surrendering to local civilians.
Dear, oh dear.
There’s no way in a million years Putin would send forces across the border, without first openly stating his pretext.
“but it’s very supportive of the Russian Authorised Version”;
The Saker is not only an ex-military analyst, but Russian as well, that his opinions may coincide with the Russian, is open for rigorous testing by his commentators, in one of the least moderated blogs I have encountered yet;
“First, this blog deals primarily with two regions: the Middle-East and Russia. The reason for that is because these are the regions where, in my opinion, most of the important “action” is happening. Recently this blog has been “wall to wall Ukrainian”, but that is only because something really important is happening there. Before, for *years* I did not post a single thing about the Ukraine. In the past, I posted mostly about the Middle-East and, especially, Iran and Hezbollah. I did that because I considered that they played a crucial role. Eventually, when I realized that Syria had become the front line, I did a huge amount of coverage of the civil war in Syria. If tomorrow something massive happens in Australia or Iceland or Tahiti, I will try to cover that too. But the fact is that for the foreseeable future the Middle-East and Russia are the two spots on the planet where the most important things are happening”
http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.fr/2014/04/personal-announcement-appeal-to-my-non.html
I forget very little, Eslo. You forget that the Maidan protests were originally against oligarchy in general, and that they utterly failed to improve the situation. And have now been hijacked by oligarchs.
Viz:
https://www.kyivpost.com/content/business/oligarchs-step-in-to-save-ukraines-sovereignty-338116.html
It’s basically one bunch of oligarchs against the other at the end of the day. Each citing the ‘threat’ posed by the other, and somone still waiting to see how it pans out before taking another slice of Ukraine’s GDP (1/3 of Poland’s, per capita, btw)
Where did they get the idea? Milton Friedman, probably. Or maybe Fukuyama. Greedy bastards are transnational.
Fair enough, Macky. Just registering my caution. I wouldn’t want to be like ESLO, uncritically swallowing soundbites from the people I liked.
ESLO
“Neither – but you forget where the Ukrainian oligarchs originally got their ideas from and how they benefit from Putin wishing to have a similar type of system to that which he imposes on Russia.”
What are you on about. In Ukraine as in the West, Oligarchs have directly controlled the state.
They don’t in Russia, since Putin took over.
He doesn’t allow them to directly involve themselves in politics. He manages them by playing one off against the other, often invoking the national interest in oppossition to their business interests.
If only we could have something like that in the West, we’d all be much better off.
Another Russian who understands what is going on
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/the-true-role-of-the-fsb-in-the-ukrainian-crisis/498072.html
@Herbie
“They don’t in Russia, since Putin took over.”
Comedy gold – please read something about Russia other than Putin’s propaganda – the whole State is being run for the benefit of Putin and those oligarchs in his circle. You really have no clue whatsoever.
Herbie
Ask yourself why the Sochi games were so expensive.
Herbie
Ask yourself why the Putin’s Party is usually called the “Party of Crooks and Thieves” in common Russian parlance.
“He doesn’t allow them to directly involve themselves in politics.”
So why did he appoint Roman Abramovich as governor of Chuchotka for 8 years – during which time his company was able to take advantage of some local tax concessions in order to reduce the tax on his companies which were located there?
ESLO
Spouting propaganda seems to be all you have. Amusingly that propganda would be far better directed at the West than at Russia under Putin.
The simple fact is that Putin has relegated the oligarchs to interests competing with other interests, the most important of which is for Putin, the Russian state itself.
He’s sharing the wealth amongst the people, increasing salaries and pensions and so on.
We know what the West wants of Russia, that it be as it was under Yeltsin, him drunk as a skunk, whilst people starved and died as the resources of the country were stripped.
You see, he changed all that. That’s the point. It’s also why the West don’t like him.
Western oligarchs continue to plunder their peoples, and it will only get worse.
Putin put it all back the way it should be with competing interests evaluated according to the priorities of the country as a whole.
He’s what used to be called a one nation Tory.
ESLO
Abramovich was in politics at the beginning of Putin’s term, but he’s no longer involved in politics.
That’s the transition.
But even in Putin’s early days it’s clear the direction he wanted things to take.
It looks as though Putin got him to put something back in the meantime, before he resigned from politics:
“”There are probably strings tied to his governship of Chukotka, such as having to spend quite a lot of extra money there alleviating poverty,” says Ms Ter-Sakarian.
However, Mr Abramovich is estimated to have already spent $1.3bn of his own money on good causes in the state.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4293684.stm
ESLO
“Another Russian who understands what is going on”
That would be Andrei Soldatov …
who works for Foreign Policy and Foreign Affairs, the Neocon house magazines.
Dear, oh dearie me.
The Moscow Times takes a Western line on matters Russian.
Ba’al. 1:36 pm
Is that how people who play chess in the street arrange the delivery of APCs?
“All the soldiers and the officers are here. We are all boys who won’t shoot our own people,” he said, adding that his men had had no food for four days until local residents fed them.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/04/16/uk-ukraine-crisis-idUKBREA3D0C420140416
Maybe the citizens of Donetsk should just organise a big street party with lots of FOOD!
RT asks
How will the standoff between Russia and the West over Ukraine play out?
28% – The heightening of tensions will spark a new Cold War
9% – Western sanctions will force Russia to come to the bargaining table
46% – The West will accept Crimean integration with Russia for economic reasons
17% – Crimea will remain a simmering issue for decades
http://rt.com/news/
Sofia – Is that how people who play chess in the street arrange the delivery of APCs?
It’s how I’d arrange it if the Russian Army were just a hop and skip over the border waiting for a civil war to happen. But I’m crap at chess, as I said. And I agree re. food. Maybe they should roast an oligarch or two, and I am really neutral as to which ones.
ESLO – So why did he appoint Roman Abramovich as governor of Chuchotka for 8 years – during which time his company was able to take advantage of some local tax concessions in order to reduce the tax on his companies which were located there?
I’m sure you know really. Try to think of it as the Russian equivalent to Osborne’s appointment of Angela Leadsom as City Minister (what that? New Libor ministry?), also giving her the brief for the “help-to-buy” scheme. An ex – Barclay’s investment banker, as is her husband, and deeply into buy-to-let, she’s not short of a bob or two… but hey, why not buy Private Eye this week and see for yourself?
Take-home message : the impression is that “…despite his protestations of clamping down on Britain’s many financial excesses, Osborne has given the Treasury’s City brief to a wealthy ex-banker who uses trusts to reduce her tax bill and offshore accounts to exploit a booming property market”
Both Russia and the US do it bigger, but we do it too.
The fog of war = the fogh of Rasmussen
NATO ups military presence amid Russian threat
April 16, 2014
BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO is strengthening its military footprint along its eastern border immediately in response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, the alliance’s chief said Wednesday.
Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said NATO’s air policing aircraft will fly more sorties over the Baltic region and allied warships will deploy to the Baltic Sea, the eastern Mediterranean and elsewhere if needed.
“We will have more planes in the air, more ships on the water and more readiness on the land,” Fogh Rasmussen told reporters in Brussels, declining to give exact troop figures.
/..
http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/NATO-ups-military-presence-amid-Russian-threat-5406300.php
And Abramovich? We’re all one happy (royal) family…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/9138812/The-Queens-man-Sir-Michael-Peat-strengthens-his-ties-to-Roman-Abramovich.html
David Swanson who co-founded After Downing Street.org, another American to whom we owe our gratitude, writes –
Torture is Mainstream Now
by David Swanson / April 15th, 2014
As Rebecca Gordon notes in her new book, Mainstreaming Torture: Ethical Approaches in the Post-9/11 United States, polls find greater support in the United States for torture now than when Bush was president. And it’s not hard to see why that would be the case.
Fifteen years ago, it was possible to pretend the U.S. government opposed torture. Then it became widely known that the government tortured. And it was believed (with whatever accuracy) that officials had tried to keep the torturing secret. Next it became clear that nobody would be punished, that, in fact, top officials responsible for torture would be permitted to openly defend what they had done as good and noble.
The idea was spread around that the torture was stopping, but the cynical could imagine it must be continuing in secret, the partisan could suppose the halt was only temporary, the trusting could assume torture would be brought back as needed, and the attentive could be and have been aware that the government has gone right on torturing to this day with no end in sight.
/..
http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/04/torture-is-mainstream-now/
DAVID SWANSON is the author of “War Is A Lie” and “Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union.” He blogs at http://davidswanson.org and http://warisacrime.org
Swanson holds a master’s degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including press secretary for Dennis Kucinich’s 2004 presidential campaign, media coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association, and three years as communications coordinator for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.
Swanson is Co-Founder of AfterDowningStreet.org, creator of ConvictBushCheney.org and Washington Director of Democrats.com, a board member of Progressive Democrats of America, the Backbone Campaign, and Voters for Peace, a convenor of the legislative working group of United for Peace and Justice, chair of the UFPJ working group on Accountability and Prosecution, and a member of the Robert Jackson Steering Committee.
Mandelson and the Oligarchs (cont’d) – Evtushenkov, Deripaska:
http://alexanderboot.com/content/mandelson-won%E2%80%99t-be-short-rouble-or-two
A cutting wit at work here.
Ba’al Zevul
Reported tax breaks of $482 million for one company.
But he spent $1.5 billion of his own money.
Not quite the kind of deal you’ve described above.
Macky – Not saying I agree with everything this man says, but just to give the other side of Church – State relations in Russia, apropos the (Russian Ortho) Saker blog:
http://alexanderboot.com/content/letter-friend
Herbie – Just to complicate the picture further, Abramovich (philanthropic as he certainly was to Chukotka – $179M annually since 1999, estimated) resigned the chairmanship of the legislature last year. In response to bad mans Putin’s decree:
A United Russia source said that Abramovich’s decision to leave Chukotka was motivated by Putin’s decree that elected officials must get rid of their foreign property if they wish to hold office in Russia. Faced with the choice between wealth overseas or political power at home, many officials have already departed, though not always willingly. Nine members of the Federation Council (five of whom are on the Forbes list of richest Russians) have left since Putin first floated the ban last December. Federation Council member Valentina Matviyenko said she expected two more wealthy council members to quit in the autumn. By contrast, Mikhail Rostovskiy writes that Abramovich was relieved when Putin announced the policy, since he was tired of playing “papa” to the distant Chukotka okrug
http://imrussia.org/politics/515-the-end-of-the-affair-abramovich-leaves-chukotka
IOW he left Russian politics in order to Follow The Money.
Like Blair.
WHO CONTROLS BRITAIN?
Barack Obama far from dismantling George W Bush’s secret state has diligently reconstructed and extended it, consolidating British expertise and resources in intelligence gathering to boot. Part of that deal was a promise not to rake up the past, except to rewrite history, which meant no naming or shaming the agencies torturers and their top level planners.
The other part of course, according to a number of analysts including investigative journalist Jason Lewis, revealed it was the CIA that helped draw up the dodgy Iraq Dossier which John Scarlett produced as chairman of the UK governments Joint Intelligence Committee.
http://not4attribution.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/rendition-did-uk-play-secret-role-new.html
I strongly believe this secret entanglement between Britain and America needs urgent investigation and inquiry.
Clearly the CIA were involved in the Lockerbie bombing.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/scotland/top-stories/but-if-he-didn-t-do-it-who-did-the-other-theories-1-906931
Within an hour of Flight 103 crashing American personnel were on the scene and took over to the annoyance of the local SOC police.
We can ask, does America control the British Establishment? – Certainly Blair, Milliband and Balls furthered their education in America. UKIP was formed by American influence; EDL is suspected of being CIA sponsored, while other British political advisers are members of the elite British American Project, another CIA sponsored organisation.
It seems our own ‘secret courts’ best answers this question – To be sure we are being screwed by the people we pay – WE PAY – to preserve our hard won freedoms now seriously undermined and eroded.