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.
Suhayl What happened to all the spam you mention? I can’t remember seeing any?? Or were you in novelist mode?
Craig asked on the previous thread, Are we so cowed that we will accept this? Problem is, when we break the law we go to jail. When they break the law they redefine it so they haven’t broken it. What can you do?
Inquests for destroyed or irrecoverable bodies
Where there has been destruction of a body – by fire for example – or where the body may be irrecoverable (such as ‘lost at sea’) an inquest will be held as defined by section 1 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. The Coroner is required to apply to the Secretary of State for permission to hold an inquest, who will direct whether the Coroner should proceed; in these circumstances, the inquest will be treated as an inquest where body does not lie within the coroner’s district.
The coroner has to provide evidence to the Secretary of State that a death has actually occurred; it is not sufficient for there to be a ‘suspicion’ of death, upon the disappearance of an individual (for example, a leg washed ashore would not be sufficient to amount to a suspicion of death; however if a rib case or skull were to be found in the same circumstances, there is a stronger case of certainty of death). The Coroner may also have to prove the body has been destroyed or lies in a place from where it cannot be recovered as well as meeting the criteria required for an inquest.
http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/a_to_c/coroners/#a04a
I hope the families of those killed take things further.
Craig, I am mostly in agreement with all of this. I’m persuaded by the Propaganda Model and have been for some years – and am continually impressed with what Media Lens do on a meagre budget.
I agree that, when it is all written down like this – and with the compliance of the “Left-wing” media – it sounds like a grand collusion amounting to a war crime. I guess my dilemma – and it is a detail in comparison to the horror of the scam – is who participates in these crimes knowingly. You mentioned the Red Tories e.g. Blair and Straw and their small coterie of legal advisers – but outside that small clique, I might be persuaded that most Labour MPs etc are not actively aware of the precariousness of the Bethlehem Doctrine (as compared, say, to a reader of your article). In fact I wonder whether most of them have not even heard of him.
I wonder whether decisions of this kind are in fact made primarily by the deep state – that part of “democracy” that can never be voted out – and they’re the real offenders. The decisions are then sanitised according to the Propaganda Model by virtue of how the media system works, and, as you point out, who gets to serve in it (the husband of Mel Phillips – you could not make it up!). That explanation would accord well with the otherwise good MPs who regret voting in favour of Iraq, etc.
I do not mean to excuse people within the power structure who ought to know better, and who ought to know how our vicious state works. However, I think it is important we examine the issue of who is culpable – to my mind it reveals that ordinary MPs don’t have a great deal of power over this monster, nor over the relatively hidden individuals who really have their hands on the decision-making levers.
I’d add as well, that whilst I agree our democratic potential is very limited, most MPs genuinely are not conspiring to knowingly front a “fake opposition”. Outsiders such as the readership of this blog are probably closer to revolutionaries than the reformists in the Commons. And thus it is that most Left MPs “do what they can” within a system that – we and they are agreed – is locked down rather tightly.
Am looking forward to the LP leadership result on Saturday, and am crossing fingers for Corbyn. Now there’s an MP who knows what the underbelly of the British state looks like.
Well it is coming a lot closer, Cam can and pass death sentences saving on the cost of courts, barristers, solicitors, CPS and no need to legalise capital punishment as it already is legal cuz Cam says so.
@John Goss
10 Sep, 2015 – 4:24 pm
Thanks for the link, John. I suppose all that can be said about Japan at the moment is that it’s a bit like a ‘Thunderbirds’ episode gone wrong; not just Fukushima directly, but its root cause, which is the horrifying political situation in Japan and neo-liberalism in general…
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Jeff-Kingston/4371/article.html
For four and a half years now there’s been three nuclear reactors at Fukushima Daiichi in complete and ongoing meltdown, and as a result the northern Pacific Ocean is now on its last legs.
I sometimes think that the psychos should just press those red buttons, and get it over with quickly.
‘The British Foreign Office has appointed a controversial Israeli government adviser to one of its most sensitive posts as head of the legal department. Advice from Daniel Bethlehem QC in 2002 to the then Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, led Israel to block a UN inquiry into the battle of Jenin. The Israeli refusal to cooperate was widely condemned at the time by various human rights organisations. Mr Bethlehem, who was Israel’s external legal adviser, also took the lead for the Israeli government at the International court of justice in The Hague in 2004 to defend the barrier being built along the West Bank. Israel lost the case.
…
He will have to advise Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, on a host of issues ranging from Guantánamo Bay to the legality of any pre-emptive strike against Iran.
…
The job was advertised last October. On his appointment, the Foreign Office published a lengthy CV listing 27 international disputes in which he has been involved but omitting Jenin.
…
Mr Bethlehem, a specialist in international law at Cambridge University, warned in a memo for the Israeli government that if the inquiry’s findings “uphold the allegations against Israel – even on a poor reasoning – this will fundamentally alter the dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian leadership and may make it impossible for Israel to resist calls for an international force, the immediate establishment of a Palestinian state and the prosecution of individuals said to have committed the alleged acts.” In the memo, a copy of which was leaked to the Israeli daily Ha’aretz, Mr Bethlehem said the seriousness of the inquiry should not be minimised and that “for all practical purposes, Israel is faced with a war crimes investigation”.’
Attributed to Ewan McAskill, Guardian, 7 March 2006
http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/authors.php?auid=10281
UK envoy makes new legal argument for drone killings in Syria
Letter from British permanent representative to United Nations says airstrikes were justified on basis of ‘collective self-defence of Iraq’
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/10/syria-drone-killings-legal-justification-uk-envoy-un
CIA had a particular end in mind when it directed its British W.O.G.s to adopt US extrajudicial killing procedures. They hoped to set precedents for customary relations that perpetuate their impunity for wilful killing. That secret acts of the clandestine service can make law is a delusion peculiar to the CIA. The law says secret actions have no legal force.
CIA’s immediate problem is A/RES/67/168, adopted without a vote in 2013:
http://www.icla.up.ac.za/images/un/ga/2013_03_15_GA_Resolution_67-168_Extrajudicial_summary_or_arbitrary_executions_N1248868.pdf
A/RES/67/168 clarifies customary international law and gives the international community a way to confront the related crimes of killer police in the US, disappearances in US torture camps, NATO drone murder, and state violence through incited or fabricated terror attacks. The immediate result has been intensified coordinated pressure of the treaty bodies for the CAT, ICCPR, and CERD together with the Human Rights Council, including an ICC investigation.
In the long run, the world is gradually tightening restrictions on the extreme state violence of the US. The US response will be to turn the world into a war zone. The US regime cannot survive without impunity for violent repression.
Someone in an earlier comment mentioned Awlaki, a regular visitor at the Pentagon, whom it was claimed,was killed by a drone strike in Yemen, for which the Bethlehem twaddle was used to cover the non-event.
The two undetectable Celtic ISIS boys, were most probably long dead, maybe murdered out of hand in the UK, no matter. To carry out such a stunt is way beyond the capability of the British, so I would suggest that the purpose of the claim was more likely, as with Awlaki, to prepare us for the coming drone massacres.
Daniel Bethlehem, ‘The Propaganda Model’ and the government consensus surrounding the use of drones.
10 September 2015
http://cultureandpolitics.org/2015/09/10/daniel-bethlehem-the-propaganda-model-and-the-government-consensus-surrounding-the-use-of-drones/
Craig’s article quoted throughout.
Hat tip Johnhol Medialens
@Jon, your “dilemma” is based on a false premise; Blair & his hand-picked Yes men were only able to get away with doing what they did, exactly because of “otherwise good MPs”, are not otherwise “good”; It’s an a contradiction to believe & to argue that “good” people would give their consent & approval to launch war, when everybody knows that war is the ultimate crime, unless as a part of an actual defense by a country, which only occurs once another country has actually attacked, This is even without going into the obvious & farcical lying fabrications, and without considering the morality of unleashing mass death & destruction on a defencless population.
Just like you cannot be half-pregnant, you cannot be “otherwise good”.
Peter Beswick, I found your comments at 3.35 p.m. very interesting. I won’t ask how you discovered these strange facts but I have a simple and perhaps naïve question: do you have an alternative version of the sad but convenient death of Dr Kelly?
Is it something which might see the light of day sometime?
By the way, Craig, I found your post both devastating and depressing. For me, the only means of escape is independence.
Macky, I think it is well understood (as a legal principle) that people can be both good and bad, and thus the binary nature of pregnancy is not a good analogy at all.
Let us say that Blair and Straw and their advisers in the deep state are put on trial for war crimes, and they are found guilty, and they are each given life sentences. Should we therefore say that for all MPs and everyone in the civil service who participated in the atrocity that they receive the same punishment? No, we do not say that: we examine each person’s case individually, finding out what they knew and when, and examine what reasoning they took and why. This would be like a murder trial, but with some sort of limited option – like manslaughter I suppose – available for people with less culpability than the main offenders.
I should reiterate that I do not seek to diminish the magnitude of the offences carried out under these sorts of legal doctrines – like Craig and others here, I find the abusive power of the modern British state to be quite appalling.
No doubt someone has posted this before, but it’s worth repeating:
“Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, says that air strikes in Syria may be needed to stop Isil ‘for once and for all’ as David Cameron considers a vote on military intervention.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/11846683/Britain-should-help-crush-Isil-in-Syria-former-Archbishop-of-Canterbury-warns.html
What about the reverse of this case? Ie should the participants whom facilitated the mass murder of Iraqis and the destruction of Iraq in a the fashion of Genghis Khan, be left to trough away and enjoy the opulent life they have become accustomed to, along with benefits thrown in as a sweetener?
This is a slight of hand three card trick fashion sophistry. These luminaries were not and are not ordinary people, they were part of the decision making constructs! hence these cretins ought to have made it their business to go and find out as much as they could. They ought to have made it their business to ceaselessly question their dear leader and his minions to find out as much as they could.
This is the Guinness trial/Janner et al how to get out clause! The simple fact is they did sanction the attacks and therefore they stand guilty of joint criminal enterprise. Nuremberg principles were applied to the damn book keeper in the concentration camp, here we have the complicity in mass murder and we are busy looking for reasoning and whys?
You don’t say?
bbcnews now reporting syria chem weapons use ..
‘Former Archbishop of Canterbury’, well if he says i’m sure it’s true. and it wont lead to strengthening isis, creating more violence…
And we are back to air strikes are we?…God we need violence to end violence, this will finish it, the people say no but isn’t it obvious we know better. Look at all the peace we create with it, glorious.
We are witnessing the unfolding of war crimes. Again. And again, And again. These people need to be stopped because they are not going to. There is no end to this doctrine, it never stops and they say the same things over and over. It’s a war crime, it’s immoral and there is ample proof it’s not helping anything.
I expect the terrorist threat to go up, As if they care. Bonus in fact…more ‘justifications’…
@hasbara has-beens No. 1,943,847,456 – Sir.
It would appear that Northern Ireland is going tits up. It’s nice that people have got time on their hands. First of many Twitter Executions. This all started in ’93 in Chechyna.
I love law but it’s mainly just guidance.
Hi Tinto
The answers to your two questions are 1) yes and 2) no – respectively in order they were posed.
The detail of the answers are quite complex and not appropriate for this thread. I will say however that the crime (if Kelly was murdered) pales into insignificance given the harm the cover up has reaped.
I can prove conclusively (beyond reasonable doubt) that the police, Hutton and others lied about the circumstances of Kelly’s death.
The standard of proof required from a coroner to rule a verdict of suicide is the highest required in law (beyond reason doubt). Hutton applied no standard of proof to his proceedings; zilch, zero!
Hutton took no evidence on oath, no second opinion of the cause of death was asked for, no cross examination of the pathologist took place and if it did Hutton would not have understood the significance of what was being said. He had no medical qualification, no Coronial experience and did not possess the legal power to rule on the cause of death.
None of the evidence was tested to any standard of proof.
The cause of Kelly’s death has never been ruled on by a Coroner (as require by law0), no final death certificate exists (as required by law) and the inquest abandoned (not formally closed as demanded by Rule 16 of the Coroners Rules 1984).
The Law doesn’t tell us how Kelly died but as I say it was the cover up of his death that did more harm.
But this thread is about the abandonment of Law and the people who engineer it and the reasons they do.
This, from yesterday:
“Seven political parties united in a debate in the House of Commons this evening, to call on the UK government to do more to help refugees from the Middle East.
The motion being debated on the SNP Opposition Day was led by SNP Westminster Leader Angus Robertson MP, and backed by Labour, Plaid Cymru, the Liberal Democrats, SDLP, the Greens and Ulster Unionists.”
Angus Robertson opened the debate…
http://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/56fe1db5-095c-4ce8-bb0b-bef2a39568f9?in=12:53:33
The trouble was, that as the afternoon wore on, all the Tories and Labour began drifting off to the gin palaces and kiddie brothels.
Here’s Tommy Sheppard, doing his best yesterday evening…
http://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/56fe1db5-095c-4ce8-bb0b-bef2a39568f9?in=17:22:54
The Commons session yesterday was opened with tongues firmly up her Maj’s arse…
http://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/56fe1db5-095c-4ce8-bb0b-bef2a39568f9?in=11:34:03
“They ought to have made it their business to ceaselessly question their dear leader and his minions to find out as much as they could.
Indeed, bombs are not doping on us. But it’s clear the same kind of narrative is taking place…
“bbcnews now reporting syria chem weapons use ..”
It’s not about questioning it’s about getting behind a pre despond PR offensive for war/ killing, whatever…In another country, that posses not significant threat. The reports come though not to examine situations, but to impose this order that elites have decided for themselves, and us…and that order requires the obedience of a large group of people to function.
I would say some are more guilty, but without going along it does not function.
I really don’t get why they insist on always going of on one. Hugely wealthy. It’s just like pissing on democracy. All these high flung ego maniacs that get off on this power trip join in. Bishops, lords, lady’s, Media barons. And keep the status quo going, amazing class system. Filthy wealth disparity.
The thing is they can’t leave people with time to consider or question, if ‘we’ want what we want (and they know what they want) it’s about forcing that agenda through. We must just trust, obay. Because better people know….
Indeed. Clearly the City of London can’t keep its territories from sliding into 3rd-world basket case chaos. Time to cut the restive regions loose and let the international community handle it, Wouldn’t you say? Saw the UN and EC rebuild one of your colonial possessions from the ground up, after another long festering failure. Didn’t do a half-bad job! So hand off Scotland and Northern Ireland, and Wales. And Man and England, too. The Soviets went through it and emerged much improved. So shall you.
Thanks, Peter, for your frankness. Most interesting, and disturbing at the same time.
‘Nuff said.
It seems like it’s also kinda seasonally predictable. When they make the push, like some kind of unwritten ritual in the uk.
enochered 10 Sep, 2015 – 8:19 pm
It might have been me mentioned the extra-judicial murder of al Alawki and his sixteen year old son and many others in this comment two posts back.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/09/operation-flavius-and-the-killer-cameron/#comment-548862
I am intrigued by your comment, and as an unpaid journalist I have little interest in anything but the truth as regards international affairs. I read your blog-post on the Bullingdon Club, which, as with the Skull-and-Bones across the herring-pond, is an undergraduate introduction to more senior clubs of a similar nature.
While I agree that the death of al Alawki may not have occurred it goes against the testimony of a reputable journalist imprisoned for revealing the collateral murders that took place at the same time. Yes, I know psyops take place all the time, but unless you can prove that al Alawki is still alive it is hard for the most scrupilous to challenge the official version. Shaye could have been duped. Do you have any hard evidence?
Can’t France go instead this time.?
Fedup, just a couple of remarks:
– Regarding someone as a cretin is not compatible with regarding them as a knowing accomplice in a crime
– Nuremberg may not be a good model for modern war crimes charges: Nuremberg is said to be a good example of victors’ justice. Chomsky has suggested, in fact, that some of the charges were carefully worded to ensure that British actions were not included, despite all sides having carried out war crimes as we now understand them.
I do understand your anger, and that you want someone to “pay” for what has been done to Iraq and elsewhere, but if we do not have the rule of law, what do we have? And, though it is unlikely, the Left only has the rule of law with which to press charges.
Ian Pannell is reporting on Syrian chemical weapon use allegedly by the Syrian government and IS.
Syria conflict: New evidence of chemical attacks
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34213206
This is how the veracity of the content in his previous reporting in 2013 was contested by Robert Stuart who has exhibited amazing tenacity in dealing with the Orwellian BBC complaints system.
Robert Stuart’s website.
https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/
and an article he has just written.
Analysis of the 30 September 2013 BBC Panorama documentary ‘Saving Syria’s Children’ and related BBC News reports, contending that sequences filmed by BBC staff and others at Atareb Hospital, Aleppo on 26 August 2013 purporting to show the aftermath of an incendiary bomb attack on a school in Urm Al-Kubra are largely, if not entirely, staged.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-bbc-saving-syrias-children-documentary-staged-events-fake-video-footage/5470158