It is an astonishing fact that, despite near universal recognition now that the war in Iraq was a disaster, no major British social institution is headed by a single one of the majority of the population wo were opposed to the war.
Every Cabinet Minister actively supported the war. Of the fifteen Tory MPs who rebelled and voted against the war, not one is a minister. Civil servants officially have no politics but privately their opinions are known. There is not one single Permanent Under Secretary of a UK government department who was known to be against the war and most were enthusiasts. Simon Fraser, PUS at the FCO, was an active Blairite enthusiast for the war. Though no Blairite, the Head of MI6 Alex Younger was also an enthusiast.
The BBC was of course gutted following its revealing of the truth about Iraqi WMD, and the subsequent murder of David Kelly. Following the ousting of Greg Dyke, both Governors and Directors-Generals have been known supporters of the war. Of the 107 bureaucrats in the BBC who earn over 100,000 pounds pa, insiders estimate that only five were opponents of the war. Craig Oliver – who has now left the BBC for Cameron’s media operation – and James Purnell are absolutely typical of the BBC Iraqocracy.
Every current editor of a UK national newspaper supported the Iraq war. At the time of the war there was one editor opposed – Piers Morgan – who subsequently became a derided and marginalised figure. Not only are the editors firmly from the neo-con alliance, but the high profile commentators who cheered on the war – David Aaronovich, Nick Cohen, Melanie Phillips, John Rentoul, Rod Liddle etc. – have all seen their careers flourish. None has suffered from their appalling lack of judgement. There is no similar raft of commentators who were against the war who enjoy such constant media promotion and massive salaries. Many, like Peter Oborne, have suffered unexpected career glitches. There is no head of a major TV channel in the UK who was against the war in Iraq.
The theme runs through all the public professions. Of the hundreds of academics who took firm positions against the Iraq War, I cannot find a single example who went on to become a University Vice-Chancellor or Principal. By contrast actual war criminals Richard Dearlove and Valerie Amos were parachuted into academic leadership posts. The Chiefs of Staff of the armed forces were all true believers, compared to the massive scepticism that existed among senior officers.
The Iraq test even extends into the heads of institutions apparently quite unrelated, such as City of London banks and insurance companies. There are a tiny number of heads of FTSE 100 companies who were against the war.
It is not that there is an Iraq test. It is that Iraq is the touchstone for adherence to the neo-liberal consensus. All these professionally successful people share a number of attitudes, of which support for the Iraq War is a good indicator. There is a very strong correlation between support for the Iraq War and fierce Zionism. But there is also a strong correlation between support for the Iraq War and support for austerity economics. The strongest correlation of all lies in support for the Iraq War and for “business-friendly” tolerance of corporatism, TTIP, multinational tax avoidance, low taxation and marketization of public services including in education and health.
To return to where I started, the quite extraordinary thing is that there is a near-universal recognition in wider society that the Iraq War was both completely unjustified and a dreadful strategic blunder. Yet its support is a major pre-condition for membership of the governing elite.
The answer of course lies in its value as an indicator for a broad range of neo-liberal consensus attitudes. That is why both the SNP and Jeremy Corbyn provide such a threat to the Establishment, through denying those attitudes. The fascinating thing is that the SNP and the Labour Party could be the only public institutions in the UK of any note with an anti-Iraq War leadership. The significance is that, in slightly different ways, both the prominence of the SNP and of Jeremy Corbyn are the result of a public revolt which the Establishment has been trying, absolutely desperately, to cut off.
Ed Miliband did not actually vote against the Iraq War, contrary to popular myth. Having both the Labour and SNP parties led by people who reject the raft of values symbolised by the Iraq test, who have broken through the depleted uranium ceiling, is a massive, massive threat to the meritlessocracy. Institutional control appeared to be complete and impermeable. Suddenly they face the danger of the opinions of ordinary people carrying weight. Expect the media control mechanisms to whir into still greater overdrive.
Maybe as a very health person most of my life, I got kidney cancer this way by breathing in something no good?.
Now we have Islam barbecuing people alive the world really has moved on
Here’s a perspective on ISIS and their well publicised barbarity from a Russian point of view:
ooops, healthy person.
Paniguian became a director of Raytheon Systems Ltd on 5th August 2015.
http://companycheck.co.uk/company/00406809/RAYTHEON-SYSTEMS-LIMITED/directors-secretaries
http://www.raytheon.co.uk/rtnwcm/groups/gallery/documents/digitalasset/rtn_228419.pdf
It looks if Nato’s game is coming to an end soon.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4696268,00.html
Wasn’t it Rod Liddle who employed Andrew Gilligan on the Today programme?
“Maybe as a very health person most of my life, I got kidney cancer this way by breathing in something no good?.”
________________________
Hopefully Robert, this will cheer you up a wee bit. Next week STV are to broadcast a court case live.
What makes this particular event special, is the case in hand is that of a one Mr Alistair Carmichael.
Mr Carmichael a Libdem MP helped spread the lying vicious rumour known as Frenchgate. His constituents were so disgusted by his devious actions that they’ve taken him to court.
The overall goal is to at the very least force Mr Carmichael to rerun his campaign in Shetland and Orkney his constituency, bearing in mind he won his seat by a narrow margin.
The funds to take Mr Carmichael to court were raised by the public, over £60,000 pounds has been raised so far, a sign of public unrest at Mr Carmichaels, odious and reckless prevarications.
This is what I wrote on my Facebook page ([email protected]) about Craig’s piece.
It used to be that if someone in leadership was responsible for a major policy failure, they either resigned or were kicked out – think Churchill and Gallipoli, Eden and Suez, Lord Carrington and Argentina’s invasion of the Falklands. No doubt there were lots of instances where cock-ups were covered up, but in the main part there was an acceptance of responsibility for policy failures.
That all seems to have gone out of the window and I wonder why.
For instance nobody has paid the price for the intelligence failure over 9-11. Similarly of those responsible for the 2008 financial crash, whether in the banking/finance industry or on the regulatory side including politicians who gutted regulation and looked the other way, no one seems to have paid a price.
And thirdly, following perhaps the biggest disaster of all, the invasion of Iraq, it seems, at least in the UK, that it is mostly the opponents of the war who have paid the price. The attached article claims that almost to a man (woman) the leaders of British institutions from politics to the press to academia, were supporters of the Iraq debacle.
It is an interesting question as to why this is so. The perpetrators of these massive failures seem to have actually benefitted from the disasters they caused. The intelligence services have grown hugely in size and influence since 9-11; bankers and the City are getting their bonuses as if nothing happened; and in the UK supporters of the Iraq invasion have seen their careers flourish. It is not quite the same in the US where Obama at least voted against the war. But Hillary and all of the Republican contenders were gung-ho to go.
I don’t usually have a very high opinion of the way the public at large judges issues such as these, perhaps largely because of the way the press feeds them the line, but for once it seems that the a large segment of the general public have got it right As Craig Murray points out with the overwhelming support shown for the SNP in Scotland and for Jeremy Corbyn in England, the comfortable status quo of the political-media establishment is being shaken.
I strongly hope that Corbyn is elected for the Labour leadership, not really because I expect him to be able to accomplish much, but rather because I feel that it is important that opinions outside the existing consensus need to have a voice. We need an alternative voice to all-party consensus. The failures of governments and the media need to be exposed for all to see. And those responsible for policy disasters need to pay a price.
I would appreciate hearing people’s opinions on why things have got to be the way they are. I suspect it has a lot to do with careerism trumping conviction.
When Dr. Kelly’s dead body was discovered, Blair was on a visit to Washington, D.C. He was staying at Blair House, the coincidentally named guest house across the street from the White House (which communicates with the White House via an underground passageway.)
That was when the male prostitute Guckert/Gannon (the one who mysteriously got White House press credentials) boasted on line of having “entertained” Blair.
Wiiliam Reed @6.48:
“I don’t usually have a very high opinion of the way the public at large judges issues such as these, perhaps largely because of the way the press feeds them the line, but for once it seems that the a large segment of the general public have got it right As Craig Murray points out with the overwhelming support shown for the SNP in Scotland and for Jeremy Corbyn in England”
****
Why though was the public so quiet over Libya? Was it because it was an aerial campaign, or is your first thought the right one, that the public follow where they are taken? I was and remain surprised at the indifference to the Libya campaign. It came at a point where all those who had protested over the Iraq invasion had been proven right and yet (unless I missed it)there was only a collective shrug of the shoulder.
Republicofscotland.
I won’t see the court case because I do not have a television. I have had two letters from the T.V. License people this last month already. I am looking forward to a bit of fun with them when they turn up at my door.
Alistair Carmichael’s jaikit is on a shoogley nail. The electorate will get him at the next election, for sure.
” Of the fifteen Tory MPs who rebelled and voted against the war, not one is a minister. ”
Apart from Kenneth Clarke who was at Justice and is now Minister Without Portfolio. Half the others are no longer MPs.
” the subsequent murder of David Kelly. ”
Oh dear…
Oh and Piers Morgan was being derided and marginalised before 2003 and not without good reason. He was editor of the News of the World when the phone hacking was going on so maybe he deserves it.
Kempe
“Half of the others are no longer MPs.” Precisely. Ken Clarke is not a minister now. And it is a simple lie that Piers Morgan was widely derided in the media before 2003 and his opposition to the Iraq War – find me an example.
“Maybe as a very health person most of my life, I got kidney cancer this way by breathing in something no good?.”
I looked up causes of kidney cancer, Robert, as the answer is of interest to me too. There is cancer in my family and I have to keep an eye on my own health.
Some answers here
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Cancer-of-the-kidney/Pages/Causes.aspx
I hope you’re managing to keep your spirits up. I know that waiting for either test results, or a procedure that you’re not looking forward to, can often be a lot worse than the thing itself.
Robert Crawford
1 Sep, 2015 – 5:30 pm, said:
“Maybe as a very health person most of my life, I got kidney cancer this way by breathing in something no good?.”
Don’t get me on to that, Robert! All I will say, as someone who’s looked into this at great length, is that historical cancer statistics are very difficult to find (I wonder why). The United States, for example, which tested a huge number of atom bombs on its own soil during the 1940s, 50s and 60s, didn’t start recording proper cancer statistics until the 1970s, and these stats are rather patchy. Likewise with most other countries. What you can discern, though, is that cancer rates worlwide have gone through the roof since the end of the Second World War.
One country that did keep proper records, from 1910 onwards, was Sweden. If interested here’s a short paper that was published in a 2002 edition of the ‘Journal of Australian College of Nutritional & Environmental Medicine’. This research is based almost entirely on the Swedish cancer stats…
http://owndoc.com/pdf/cancer-trends-in-20th-century.pdf
Lysias. Not sure if that is right about Blair being in Washington when Dr Kelly was found.
Dr Kelly died on 18 July 2003. Bliar here is in Japan on the 19th.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3079787.stm
Those famous words from a journalist ‘Have you got blood on your hands Prime Minister?’, at which Blair looked ashen and very uncomfortable.
2.30 in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50ksL7fkBNM
~~~
Was he in Washington on his way to Japan perhaps?
Mark Golding
1 Sep, 2015 – 4:12 pm
I will tell you categorically that they had grave doubts about the legality of the war. Craig, by the way, is telling you the same.
Ultimately, they were military leaders of the invasion; and objectively, I agree that makes them pro-war. But they are nowhere near the same category of war supporter that Craig is listing here. They aren’t above criticism, but they aren’t from the cheer-leader clique that deserves to be held in total contempt.
Well two have been elevated to the Lords and half still remain. Clarke of course was removed to the back benches in 2014 but his appointment shows that his position on the Iraq war was no bar to his appointment to the cabinet.
As far as Piers Morgan is concerned I guess you’ve forgotten his public apology for the Mirror’s racist front cover and the City Slickers affair. Try reading his Wiki entry or invest in some back numbers of Private Eye.
It’s not too late to give Dr Kelly some justice
Thursday 27 August 2015
IN current affairs, the worst thing that can occur is secrecy. The Chilcot report and the death of Dr Kelly has been shrouded in silence.
A lot of the information was hidden away for 70 years. No one has been allowed to see what these writings were about.
Anyone alive in the last seventy years will have more important things to worry about than the tragic death of Dr Kelly.
A number of people should be brought to book, especially those who couldn’t remember what happened on a certain day.
Although it is late, justice must be served for the man who did so much for this country.
MARY GREETHAM
Faringdon
http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/yoursay/letters/13628271.It___s_not_too_late_to_give_Dr_Kelly_some_justice/
::::::
He will not live on but his name will never die.
Yes, Blair stopped in Washington on the way to Japan. Jeff Gannon “Entertained” Tony Blair.
Robert Crawford. It’s a wonder that more of us have not succumbed. I think I told you that the ENT surgeon who dealt with my thyroid cancer said he is dealing with an epidemic. Even four local GPs have been treated by him for thyroid cancer. Remember that we have had leaks from Windscale (only recently have restrictions been lifted on the land where animals grazed and their milk declared unsafe for consumption) and radioactive particles found on beaches in Cumbria and near Dounreay.
Plus all of this testing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9lquok4Pdk
Nuclear Detonation Timeline 1945-88
This is ‘D Group’ Mary. It picks up the pieces smashed through war.
http://www.dgroup.co.uk/uk-business-development/
Bechtel has been a member of ‘D Group’ for eight years. In 2003 Riley Bechtel was sworn in as a member of President Bush’s Export Council to advise the government on how to create markets for American companies overseas. Bechtel had a $2.8 aid contract in Iraq to rebuild hospitals, schools and infrastructure we crushed and demolished with our missiles and bombs.
As an example of over-priced and defective contracts the sewage/sanitation systems in Southern Iraq remain damaged and water is unsafe. In Fallujah well, two words – HELP US.
http://www.alternet.org/story/39860/bechtel_takes_a_hit_for_war_profiteering
Thanks for that confirmation Lysias. Imagine the content of the Bush/Blair conversation.
Dreoilin and RoBG.
I have been down all these avenues, thank you very much.
I said on a previous thread, the oncologist said we would probably never know how I got it. It is probably just the hand you have been dealt, Robert. Fine, we can’t turn the clock back.
The Urologist asked for my permission to keep my kidney to experiment with.
The only problem is, has it gone metastatic? That is what the next scan in a fortnight will tell us. Waiting until the 13th. October for the result is a bummer. My mind will have a month to run riot.
There were suggestions at the time that Bush may also have been sexually involved with Guckert/Gannon.
“October for the result is a bummer. My mind will have a month to run riot.”
Yes, that’s what I was getting at, Robert. My mind does the same. Hard to control! The only answer is to stay busy – get yourself a few good books, perhaps. I can bury myself in a book and forget about most things.
D Group? Staff D, within CIA, was the part of the CIA that handles signals intelligence from NSA. As a book I just finished reading, Joseph B. Smith’s Portrait of a cold warrior, makes clear, Staff D was a specially sensitive part of CIA that only the most cleared people were allowed to access.
@William Reed:
I strongly hope that Corbyn is elected for the Labour leadership, not really because I expect him to be able to accomplish much, but rather because I feel that it is important that opinions outside the existing consensus need to have a voice.
Corbyn is not outside the existing consensus. He’s just offering the Commie brand of globalization (See, the Soviet Coat of Arms), as an alternative to the EU, NATO, Anglo-US imperial model.
Both Corbyn and Cameron hate the idea of Britain as a sovereign state and the British people as a cultural and racial entity. Whichever party rules, the project for genocide by mass immigration, multiculturalism, petty nationalist separatism, and political submersion within supranational entities such as the EU, Nato, the WTO, the UN will continue unimpeded.
Mary.
That was some link! As usual.
The money that has been wasted to gain superior fire over other countries. Control frieks!
And they can’t use it without killing themselves. and losing their money and chatels.
Fools!!!.