This may be the most important article I ever post, because it reveals perfectly how the Establishment works and how the Red Tories and Blue Tories contrive to give a false impression of democracy. It is information I can only give you because of my experience as an insider.
It is a definitive proof of the validity of the Chomskian propaganda model. It needs a fair bit of detail to do this, but please try and read through it because it really is very, very important. After you have finished, if you agree with me about the significance, please repost, (you are free to copy), retweet, add to news aggregators (Reddit etc) and do anything you can to get other people to pay attention.
The government based its decision to execute by drone two British men in Syria on “Legal Opinion” from the Attorney-General for England and Wales, Jeremy Wright, a politician, MP and Cabinet Minister. But Wright’s legal knowledge comes from an undistinguished first degree from Exeter and a short career as a criminal defence barrister in Birmingham. His knowledge of public international law is virtually nil.
I pause briefly to note that there is no pretence of consulting the Scottish legal system. The only legal opinion is from the Attorney General for England and Wales who is also Honorary Advocate General for Northern Ireland.
So Jeremy Wright’s role is as a cypher. He performs a charade. The government employs in the FCO a dozen of the most distinguished public international lawyers in the world. When the Attorney-General’s office needs an Opinion on public international law, they ask the FCO to provide it for him to sign.
The only known occasion when this did not happen was the Iraq War. Then the FCO Legal Advisers – unanimously – advised the Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, that to invade Iraq was illegal. Jack Straw asked the Attorney General to dismiss the FCO chief Legal Adviser, Sir Michael Wood (Goldsmith refused). Blair sent Goldsmith to Washington where the Opinion was written for him to sign by George Bush’s lawyers. [I know this sounds incredible, but it is absolutely true]. Sir Michael Wood’s deputy, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, resigned in protest.
In consequence Blair and Straw decided that, again for the first time ever, the FCO’s chief legal adviser had to be appointed not from within the FCO legal advisers, who had all declared the war on Iraq to be illegal, but from outside. They had to find a distinguished public international lawyer who was prepared to argue that the war on Iraq had been legal. That was a very small field. Blair and Straw thus turned to Benjamin Netanyahu’s favourite lawyer, Daniel Bethlehem.
Daniel Bethlehem had represented Israel before the Mitchell Inquiry into violence against the people of Gaza, arguing that it was all legitimate self-defence. He had also supplied the Government of Israel with a Legal Opinion that the vast Wall they were building in illegally occupied land, surrounding and isolating all the major Palestinian communities and turning them into large prisons, was also legal. Daniel Bethlehem is an extreme Zionist militarist of the most aggressive kind, and close to Mark Regev, Israel’s new Ambassador to the UK.
Daniel Bethlehem had developed, in his work for Israel, an extremist doctrine of the right of States to use pre-emptive self-defence – a doctrine which would not be accepted by the vast majority of public international lawyers. He clinched his appointment by Blair as the FCO chief legal adviser by presenting a memorandum to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee in 2004 outlining this doctrine, and thus de facto defending the attack on Iraq and the Bush/Blair doctrine.
A key sentence of Daniel Bethlehem’s memorandum is this
“It must be right that states are able to act in self-defence in circumstances where there is evidence of further imminent attacks by terrorist groups, even if there is no specific evidence of where such an attack will take place or of the precise nature of the attack.”
There is a fundamental flaw in this argument. How can you be certain that an attack in “imminent”, if you are not certain where or what it is? Even if we can wildly imagine a scenario where the government know of an “imminent” attack, but not where or what it is, how could killing someone in Syria stop the attack in the UK? If a team were active, armed and in course of operation in the UK – which is needed for “imminent” – how would killing an individual in Syria prevent them from going through with it? It simply does not add up as a practical scenario.
Interestingly, Daniel Bethlehem does not pretend this is accepted international law, but specifically states that
“The concept of what constitutes an “imminent” armed attack will develop to meet new circumstances and new threats”
Bethlehem is attempting to develop the concept of “imminent” beyond any natural interpretation of the word “imminent”.
Daniel Bethlehem left the FCO in 2011. But he had firmly set the British government doctrine on this issue, while all FCO legal advisers know not to follow it gets you sacked. I can guarantee you that Wright’s Legal Opinion states precisely the same argument that David Bethlehem stated in his 2004 memorandum. Knowing how these things work, I am prepared to wager every penny I own that much of the language is identical.
It was New Labour, the Red Tories, who appointed Daniel Bethlehem, and they appointed him precisely in order to establish this doctrine. It is therefore a stunning illustration of how the system works, that the only response of the official “opposition” to these extrajudicial executions is to demand to see the Legal Opinion, when it comes from the man they themselves appointed. The Red Tories appointed him precisely because they knew what Legal Opinion would be given on this specific subject. They can read it in Hansard.
So it is all a charade.
Jeremy Wright pretends to give a Legal Opinion, actually from FCO legal advisers based on the “Bethlehem Doctrine”. The Labour Party pretends, very unconvincingly, to be an opposition. The Guardian, apparently the leading “opposition” intellectual paper, publishes articles by its staff neo-con propagandists Joshua Rozenberg (married to Melanie Phillips) and Rafael Behr strongly supporting the government’s new powers of extrajudicial execution. In summer 2012 Joshua Rozenberg presented a programme on BBC Radio 4 entitled “Secret courts, drones and international law” which consisted mostly of a fawning interview with … Daniel Bethlehem. The BBC and Sky News give us wall to wall justification of the killings.
So the state, with its neo-con “opposition” and media closely in step with its neo-con government, seamlessly adopts a new power to kill its own subjects based on secret intelligence and secret legal advice, and a very weird definition of “imminent” that even its author admits to be outside current legal understanding.
That is how the state works. I do hope you find that helpful.
This article has been updated to reflect the fact the Daniel Bethlehem is now retired from the FCO.
Keep it coming, Craig. I’m sure I’m not the only one who keeps a record of everything you say on this blog.
Unlike Dr David Kelly, et al, you have a high profile, courtesy of the internet.
I and many others have, or will, re-post your article.
As you say, the spooks are probably just trying to scare you at the moment.
I’m a relative newcomer to your blog, where you have a very big following.
‘They’ wouldn’t dare do anything nasty to you at the moment; likewise with Corbyn.
You are a brave man Craig. I don’t think they would dare. Alarming for Nadira too. What creeps.
Don’t go into lifts either and watch out for tennis players. Laughable if it was not so revolting.
Dubai murder: fake identities, disguised faces and a clinical assassination
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/16/dubai-murder-fake-identities-hamas
16 February 2015
I don’t agree. He’s kept on as a simplistic leftist, with whom it is easy to disagree.
Great post, Craig.
Sorry for O/T: Bibi in London to firm up lickspittle support ahead of UN vote on Palestine. Demo and scuffles and 100k petition. Not a peep on the state broadcaster. Footage on RT.
Wikileaks (interview with Assange) on US plan to oust Assad pre-2011. Not a peep on the state broadcaster. Interview on Press TV.
Soft power ignores when it’s not targeting.
Nuremberg principles 5 & 6 are interesting:
Principle V
“Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law.”
Principle VI
“The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:
(a) Crimes against peace:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
(b) War crimes:
Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the Seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
(c) Crimes against humanity:
Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.”
Mr Goss…
….is again being just ever so slightly misleading. As in
“Only Malaysia has deemed Blair a war-criminal (in his absence).”.
The casual reader might not know that when Mr Goss writes Malaysia (an entire country sounds impressive) he is actually referring to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission.
The KLWCC was set up by a former Malaysian Prime Minister largely because said PM thought that the IWCT in The Hague was focussing exclusively on third world villains and therefore thought it would be a good idea to have a counterpoise Tribunal which would look at so-called Western war criminals.
Both its founder and the self-selecting judges are characterised by a certain anti-Western feeling and rhetoric.
Here is a comment on the KLWCC
“The former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Param Cumaraswamy, has suggested the tribunal is a private enterprise with no legal basis and questions its legitimacy. The tribunal does not have a UN mandate or recognition, no power to order arrests or impose sentences, and it is unclear that its verdicts have any but symbolic significance.”
Pan earlier. Thanks for the RT link to the Netanyahu protest. I meant that there was no mention on BBC, Sky or ITV news broadcasts or on their websites as far as I can see. A protest outside Downing St which has resulted in seven arrests as I last heard surely merits reporting. No. The Zionist bias is being employed.
This letter was in the Guardian yesterday.
Israel’s prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
7 September 2015 18.09 BST Last modified on Tuesday 8 September 2015 21.06 BST
This week, David Cameron is due to welcome the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to the UK. As head of government, Netanyahu must bear responsibility for war crimes identified by the UN human rights council in its investigation into Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza. And yet, while Cameron continues to impose limits on the number of refugees who can take shelter in the UK, he is willing to welcome Netanyahu to our shores.
Palestinians fleeing the hell that Israel has created in Gaza (Report, 3 September) are among the thousands of refugees who have drowned in the Mediterranean in the last year. Our prime minister should not be welcoming the man who presides over Israel’s occupation and its siege of Gaza. We call on him to instead impose immediate sanctions and an arms embargo on Israel until it complies with international law and ends the blockade and the occupation.
Len McCluskey General secretary, Unite the Union
Mick Cash General secretary, RMT
Mick Whelan General secretary, Aslef
Manuel Cortes General secretary, TSSA
Jo Stevens MP
Cat Smith MP
Tommy Sheppard MP
Baroness Jenny Tonge
Geoffrey Bindman QC
Hugh Lanning Chair, Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Bruce Kent CND
Professor Steven Rose
Professor Ilan Pappe
Professor Karma Nabulsi
Alexei Sayle
Bella Freud
Benjamin Zephaniah
Paul Laverty
Ken Loach
Victoria Brittain
Ahdaf Soueif
re Craig 10.15
Yeah, like my mother, who was a great anti-apartheid wallah. The time of BOSS, the South African security service. One day we found the apartment raided, and nothing taken. Much the same sort of thing.
This article does help, very much. They are also using the principle of collecive self-defence over here in Oz. The opposition leader Bill Shorten, who will be dismal PM, is echoing the PM’s language, too. This ‘principle’ has never made any sense to me at all, but it strikes me that it’s essentially just ‘minority’ or alternative legal advice. So, various pols can point to this legal advice and say ‘invading such and such has been argued to be legal’. The advice itself appears, to this non-lawyer, incredibly dubious, and I’m not convinced you’d pass your bar exam with this kind of thinking. Shorten, after all, is discussing collective self-defence of Iraq, not Syria, and arguing that we can send in troops pre-emptively, to aid this defence. However, ISIS aren’t a nation-state army, so how bombing Syria is legal is entirely beyond me, especially given that Assad sent in Syrian troops to fight ISIS.
Of course, it could be plausibly legal, and one could still be against such military action. However, it really does behoove a national leader to get the legalities correct, before spouting of nonsense. You get more sense from a blogger these days, they at least attempt to wrestle with an issue.
Doubtless this Tribunal’s findings will also be dismissed by a troll.
Israel’s Crimes in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge – Extraordinary session of the Russell Tribunal
24-25 September 2014 – Brussels
http://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com/en/sessions/extraordinary-session-brussels
An impressive list of members and of witnesses.
Videos and written testimonies on the link above.
Their findings – http://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com/en/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/TRP-Concl.-Gaza-EN.pdf
::::::
@Michael T Darwyne
Yes the Prime Minister does have authority to use military intervention without a vote in parliament if he considers it in Britain’s best interests. He is, of course answerable to parliament and if any members now think he acted outside his remit and that he wouldn’t have had the backing of parliament they can move for a motion of no confidence and if the majority of MPs agree then Cameron, and his government would be out and an election called.
As for the attack being in Syrian territory that would be a matter for President Assad to object to. If he hasn’t then presumably either permission was obtained beforehand or it was assumed he wouldn’t much mind us disposing of a few of his enemies.
Laguerre What’s wrong with a leftist? They are in short supply in the British media.
Does he not also have to obey British law, which talks about ‘imminent threat’, which is far from having been proved.
“Does he not also have to obey British law, which talks about ‘imminent threat’, which is far from having been proved.”
I’m sorry, which law would that be?
The nightmare continues…
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/09/no-10-plans-limited-syria-strikes-isis-transition-assad
Notice how this kind of warmongering is now presented by the media as ‘normal’.
“Both it’s founder and the self-selecting judges are characterised by a certain anti-Western feeling and rhetoric.”
Well i’m sure you know all about self selected bodies characterised by anti feeling towards certain demographics. What’s wrong with that then?
“thought it would be a good idea to have a counterpoise Tribunal which would look at so-called Western war criminals.”
Great, apart for the “so-called”. I think it fantasy to imagine there are none. So your whole ‘point’ rests on…Form wikipedia “Kuala Lumpur, is the national capital and most prosperous city in Malaysia”, So like London in the uk? erm….
Even the casual reader must get what an empty shell your points contain. I feel stupid some things I post sometimes, but fuck. I feel stupid posting this reply.
To the casual reader, most people are past responding to habba, sorry if my reply offends your intelligence.
And what’s more, you could soon have an Extremism Disruption Order placed on you for expressing such doubts about the Government’s integrity, just as with 9/11 and 7/7 if the Extremism Bill goes through ‘Parliament’.
Fwister @10;50. You quote the Nuremberg principles which includes V1 [1b] War crimes. This is also part of the International Criminal Court UK Act [ICC] specifically the transfer of citizens of an occupying state into occupied territory. Lawyers for the Bilin Village [Palestine] v Green Park International[Canada] put forward this argument in its case in 2009.I also quoted the World Court [ICJ] opinion on this subject earlier in the thread,
“Under international law, it so happens that a breach of Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention is classified as a war crime. The term “war crime” has no clear, universally accepted definition, but essentially war crimes are those violations of the laws of war so grave that they have been specially designated by the international community as an extraordinary class of offence whose reprehensible nature would “shock the conscience of all right-thinking people” (to use the words of Cory J. in R. v. Finta, [1994] 1 S.C.R. 701). Laws against war crimes are generally aimed at atrocities against civilians, prisoners of war, and other non-combatants.
A war crime, to put it succinctly, is a very serious matter. Further, it is easy to see why the offence in question falls into this special category. Article 49(6) is essentially a law to prevent colonialism. One need look no further than the current condition of the indigenous peoples whose domain once spanned the entire expansive breadth of this continent to appreciate the gravity of the consequences territorial dispossession can inflict upon a population. Most war crimes deal with offences against individuals or groups of individuals, but the offence in Article 49(6) is one that threatens the integrity of an entire people. It clearly qualifies as an exceptional offence of higher order that is of grave concern to the global community as a whole”.
If the Palestinians concentrated on just these war crimes with their application for an investigation by the ICC Prosecutor, I think it would be as Americans say a ‘slam dunk’.
re Mary
“Laguerre What’s wrong with a leftist?”
Nothing wrong with being a leftist. I am that. Just I find that Milne is too simplistic; useful for the Guardian to play the “leftist” role.
It is not difficult to produce a socialist philosophy for today. If I had the time, I would do it. Fat chance, work doesn’t permit it. Maybe I should retire, and devote myself to it.
re Fred
I’m sorry, are we not into taking account of what Craig has just said?
You talk about the “most distinguished public international lawyers in the world”.
What use are these lawyers and to whom?
When was the last time the UK or a UK minister was brought before an international court of law and found guilty?
Which “distinguished public international lawyers” represented the UK government minister?
If the Iraq war was illegal according to the “most distinguished public international lawyers in the world”, why has Blair and Straw not been brought before an international court of law?
The truth is, “international laws” only apply to the weak and the poor.
As you say, the UK has made up its own “international law” to suit it.
No one can dare touch the powerful.
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[ Mod: Caught in spam-filter. Time updated by a couple of hours to compensate. ]
I see that Cameron has just said in parliament on radio 4 that Asad has bombed his own people. Is that not what Britain has just done: we’ve bombed our own people?
-Laguerre Milne is just one guy, agree that it’s ‘useful’ to have so few….
Jeez “Assad could be ALLOWED to stay in power for 6 mouths” from the front page.
Fuck you, you evil bastards, who do they think they are? It’s normalizing extraordinary war crimes. Totalitarian would domination thinking.
Madness…
“I see that Cameron has just said in parliament on radio 4 that Asad has bombed his own people.”
We have distoyed how may counties is it now? have they reached the 7th goal yet?
We didn’t just bomb them we cased the evisceration of the whole bloody country…
The mans a racist cunt. Blatant racist cunt.
Ishmael: ““I see that Cameron has just said in parliament on radio 4 that Asad has bombed his own people.”
Didn’t Cameron do the same thing, with drones – and to much approval from the popular press?
http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-daily-quote/20130630.php?t=Conditioning You can choose between blue cloth and red cloth, and that is about all
and right next to that
“Refugee crisis, Juncker calls for radical overhaul of European policies”
Yea well looks like the rise of recast nationalist supremacy is firmly embed in the mainstream. I expect this is nothing compared to the chaos they will unleash.
Iraq no 5 or 6, sure everything will be great. Madness, there fucking mad.
I wouldn’t take that to be the truth. Even they must understand that Asad out, means ISIS in Damascus.
Terrorism: the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism.
All terrorists are cunts. No argument. But the definition cuts a huge swath throughout our own culture of fear, doesn’t it?
“Didn’t Cameron do the same thing, with drones – and to much approval from the popular press?”
Yea I got that. Somehow I think being the cause of destroying the whole country a more significant harm. But it’s equally hypocritical no matter, sure.
It doesn’t matter if it’s Syrians or British or anyone to me. This is a racist policy meme and has no place in a civilised society.