Standing back a little and surveying the events of the last couple of weeks, gives a bleak view of the current state of western democracy.
We have seen what appears to be the most unconvincing of false flags in the Gulf. I pointed out why it was improbable Iran would attack these particular ships. Since then we have had American military sources pointing to video evidence of a packed small Iranian boat allegedly removing a limpet mine from the ship the Iranians helped to rescue, which was somehow supposed to prove it was the Iranians who planted the alleged device. We also have had the Japanese owner specifically contradict the American account and say that the ship was hit by flying objects.
The Iranians certainly have a strange method of bomb disposal if they carry it out using unarmoured personnel, with as many as possible crammed into a small boat in immediate contact with the “mine”. It is also hard to understand why the alleged “limpet mines” would be four feet above the waterline.
Limpet mines are placed below the waterline. There are numerous reasons for this. Firstly, holes above the waterline will not sink a ship. Secondly, the weight of the water helps contain the blast against the ship. Thirdly, it is obviously harder to detect both the diver placing the mine and the mine once placed if it is below the water. In fact it would be very difficult for a diver to place a limpet mine four feet above the waterline, even if they wanted to.
There seems to be a remarkable disconnect between the widespread popular disdain at yet another fake western power casus belli in the Middle East, and the near universal complicity of the UK political and media class in promoting this transparent lie. It is as though even pretending to have any respect for truth and fact has simply been discarded within the UK’s governmental system. Which ought to worry us a lot.
The second development ought to have been the biggest media story of the decade in the UK, if we had anything like a free and honest media. Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State, made plain the Trump administration’s intent to prevent the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister. Pompeo told a meeting of Jewish leaders:
It could be that Mr. Corbyn manages to run the gantlet and get elected. It’s possible. You should know, we won’t wait for him to do those things to begin to push back.
This blatant interference by a foreign power in the UK’s democracy is an absolute scandal. Compare the lack of media outrage at Pompeo’s intervention with the ludicrous claims made about much less high profile Russian attempts at influence. This incident provides incontrovertible proof that the world does indeed operate in the way that I have been explaining here for a decade. It is not a “conspiracy theory” that democracy is manipulated by hidden powers, it is fact. Pompeo’s description of Corbyn’s route to election as “running the gauntlet” is particularly revealing. Even more so is the cursory coverage this story was given, and I have seen no evidence to date of any MSM “journalist” attempting any follow-up investigation on the methods the US are planning to employ – or more likely already employing – against Corbyn.
Everybody should be incandescent at this, no matter who they vote for.
Something else which revealed the truth of the way the political world now operates, and which again did not get nearly the media attention it deserves, was Matt Kennard’s stunning revelation of the way the Guardian has been taken over by the security services. I have been explaining for years that the Guardian has become the security services’ news outlet of choice, and it is very helpful to have documentation to prove it.
It is worth noting that the Guardian obeyed completely the DSMA committee ban on mentioning Pablo Miller in reporting the security service fantasy version of the Skripal story. As Kennard points out, it is also very interesting indeed that the Guardian published Luke Harding’s front page fabrication of Manafort/Assange meetings two weeks after MOD Director Dominic Wilson congratulated Guardian deputy editor Paul Johnson on “re-establishing links” with the security services. The Guardian is, like other British newspapers, as controlled by the military and security services just like in any other decent autocracy.
Incidentally, I cannot find Matt Kennard’s excellent work set out anywhere, except in that twitter stream. Surely there is an article on a website somewhere? I cannot find anything on Google, but as it is exactly the kind of information Google routinely suppresses, that does not mean it is not out there. Anyone seen it?
Finally, we have of course seen Sajid Javid sign the extradition warrant for Julian Assange to be sent to the United States for the “crime” of publishing truthful information about US government illegalities. Julian’s extradition hearing was, contrary to normal practice, held despite the fact he was too sick to attend in person. And it was presided over by Judge Arbuthnot, despite the fact that her husband is a former Tory defence minister who started a “security consultancy” in partnership with a former head of MI6, the war criminal John Scarlett who oversaw the fabrication of the dossier of lies about Iraqi WMD, in order to launch an illegal war of aggression that killed and maimed millions. The Assange team had asked her to recuse herself on that pretty obvious basis, but she had refused. At an earlier hearing she taunted Assange with the observation that he could get adequate exercise in the Embassy on a 1.5 meter Juliet balcony.
Just as the Guardian has never apologised for, nor withdrawn, the utter lie of the Assange/Manafort story, so the identity politics promoting, false “left” has never apologised for its pursuit of Assange over sexual allegations in Sweden, which were obvious on the slightest scrutiny to be only a fit-up designed to get him into custody. Those figures like David Allen Green, Joan Smith and David Aaronovitch, among scores of other pustulous hacks, who mocked and scorned those of us who always said that Assange faced not extradition to Sweden but to the United States for publishing, have been shown up as, at the very best, stupid naive and unwitting tools of the state, and more likely, insincere and vicious propagandists.
This brief review of current issues reveal that not only do western governments lie and fake, they have really given up on trying to pretend that they do not. The abuse of power is naked and the propaganda is revealed by the lightest effort to brush away the veneer of democracy.
I find it hard to believe that I live in times where Assange suffers as he does for telling the truth, where a dedicated anti-racist like Corbyn is subjected to daily false accusations of racism and to US and security service backed efforts to thwart his democratic prospects, where the most laughable false flag is paraded to move us towards war with Iran, and where there is no semblance of a genuinely independent media. But, starkly, that is where we are. This is not unrelated to the massive and fast growing inequality of wealth; the erosion of freedom is the necessary precondition that allows the ultra-wealthy to loot the rest of us. It remains my hope there will eventually come a public reaction against the political classes as strong as the situation demands.
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Where’s Martinned when you need him?!!!
Are these times any different from before? The only difference is we have the internet to give us various truths the establishment would prefer covered up. Now they rely on people being too dumb or too lazy to do anything…
No, these are unusual times. I take on board what you say about technology, it’s important, but the defining feature of this era is the starkly apparent decline of the west and the utter desperation on display as attempts are made to avert that decline. When we say “the west”, we really mean the US post-war international system.
There was a time in the post-war period when the US really wanted countries around the world to respect the UN and international law, and play by the rules when it came to democracy, capitalism, finance, etc. Those days are gone and now the US stands for the rights of Rogue States everywhere, breaking and flouting the rules, and pure desperation.
We used to say the only strong card we had was military power, but now it’s the only card full stop, and the answer to almost every problem we face. We used to use arms sales as means to ends, opposing third world leaders in proxy battles, etc., but now arms sales are ends in themselves.
Meanwhile, the whole global economy is about to crash massively again and what then? Maybe Iran is their solution.
“There was a time in the post-war period when the US really wanted countries around the world to respect the UN and international law, and play by the rules when it came to democracy, capitalism, finance, etc”
Right up to the point in time (1947) when the CIA was formed under the auspices of the National Security Act and perpetual conflict was adjudged the foundational basis for a self-sustaining economy.
That’s the part that eludes most and a look at U.S./world history in the ensuing decades bears just that out precisely.
How’d “They” do it? Like this:
https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/ST/
Don’t forget Major-General Smedley Butler’s famous confession in 1935, relating to events going back almost to 1900.
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents”.
There is another strong card the West employs which is economic power. True, it can be ignored, as sanctions pile up against a country which ignores the “West’s” demands. Still these countries are severely economically punished leading to distress and even starvation in the population.
If a country or company wishes to take part in the World economy they better not piss off the Americans, or threaten their domination in particular fields. See Huawei.
I was surprised that Mr Murray failed to mention Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s frank and apparently shameless – even proud – admission that, when he was CIA Director, “we lied, we cheated, we stole…” http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2019/april/23/pompeo-finally-tells-the-truth-we-lie-we-cheat-we-steal/
Surely it’s significant when a man like that becomes, arguably, the second most powerful person in the world. Although I notice that even Mr Pompeo refrained from mentioning the millions of murders and the thousands of people who were vilely tortured under his watch.
I am pretty sure he is equally proud of those deeds, but even he sees that it is wiser not to brag about them in public.
An optimistic hope, I would suggest. Neither Pompeo’s open threats re Corbyn nor the revelation that spooks control Britain’s leftmost paper excited much interest even on here last week. In fact, many of your readers think salvation lies with the Brexit party and Trump.
You are another right wing troll I believe.
You are wasting your time.
You believe wrong. Just stating observable facts.
Their are minds out their who equate the two: Stating observable facts is right-wing trolling. Facile minds perhaps believe this.
Without evidence or logic or any sort of coherent and non-hypocritical argument, how do you win?
You’re full of shit Franky, for reasons too obvious to belabour.
Nope, last week I posted about the MoD/Guardian documents on here and there was zero interest. Shatnersrug also tried to drum up some interest but again no be was forthcoming from those who pontificate all day long about everything and nothing. Same with Mike Pompeo’s open threats to Corbyn: no grasp of its significance from all the professional conspiracy identifiers.
What that ought to tell you is that for all the linking to this and that and expert explaining on here there is a general lack of appreciation of what is actually important. And yes, it is a more rightwing commentariat than you wish to believe. My observance of a year or so is that the issues that excite the most genuine passion, for non-Scottish commentors, seem to be British ‘sovereignty’, defending Trump and denying climate change.
Your conclusions are ridiculous.
I for one think that the best path towards safety – salvation is perhaps too much to hope for – lies in a no-deal Brexit.
First we must take back control of the UK from Brussels. Then we must take back control from the UK government.
Of course, the very thought of placing any trust or reliance on anyone in the Swamp (Washington DC) is too ludicrous to contemplate. On the contrary, we need to get rid of its pensioners and acolytes in London.
The Graun stopped being the leftmost paper some time ago. There is of course still the Daily Star and even though it is online online the Independent still functions. I would also say The National the only daily which supports Scottish Independence is easily to the left of the Graun which sells practically nothing in Scotland these days.
I long ceased to visit it even online, let alone pay for a dead tree copy. I did online subscribe to The National until finances (wrong non payment of my UC) forced me stop, for the moment. UC: a device to stop the dispossessed from funding truth telling media. Discuss.
Was Alan Rusbridger the last sanity and, if you will anti-war, editor at The Guardian?
Also on the Guardian exposé in the article. I actually wrote about Paul johnson case in april, it was not my find though,
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/04/julian-assange-socialists-and-liberals-must-now-choose-their-side/comment-page-3/#comment-851658
Fact of the matter is. The information is out there, unfortunately there are too many lazy people that do nothing – simply put there are far far to few Craig’s out there, we need to get much much better, everyone needs to help. Put up a goal to investigate something, create a blog and post it. That is how its done!
Interestingly enough, Boris Johnson defended the guardian and Rusbridger over the Snowden leaks, saying they were in the public interest. I’m no fan of Johnson, and quite frankly I think he’d say anything to be popular and in no way can you predict his future behaviour if faced with a similar situation.
But it could go some part of the way in explaining, why there appears to be a major organissed effort underway to foist Rory Stewart on that party. Johnson may simply be seen as uncontrollable and erratic.
In answer to your question regarding Rusbridger et al : http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2015-09-20/guardians-terrible-dilemma-over-corbyn/
In answer to your statement ‘there are too many lazy people’ it’s probably the other way around. There are too many people paid too much money to pump out too much bullshit, while most people are dog tired out by the struggle to make ends meet and many of the rest are entranced by the escapism afforded by late capitalism. What you mean is, you haven’t thought of a way to engage them yet or you haven’t the energy to do so.
“Was Alan Rusbridger the last sanity and, if you will anti-war, editor at The Guardian?”
Alan Rusbridger was editor of the Guardian throughout the Iraq war and the fomenting of civil war in Libya that led to the lynching of Gaddafi and regime change. I cannot recall any opposition to those two crimes from that newspaper at the time. I can recall Brian Whittaker’s enthusiastic coverage of the mission creep of the Libyan project throughout and the triumphalism over Gaddafi’s murder. Where you got the notion that the Guardian has ever been “anti-war’, let alone during the period of two of our most criminal foreign enterprises in the last twenty years, is beyond me.
They were, if not against – highly critical of that war by US against Bagdad.
I do not recall that newspaper echoing the sentiments of the million plus who marched to oppose it before it even began. You’re right, they were not against it – they were not “anti-war” – and they were positively enthusiastic over fomenting civil war and regime change in Libya, as I said. They have also been supportive of intervention in Syria, under Rusbridger, who was responsible for creating the impression in his newspaper that the Syrian opposition were a), predominantly Syrian, and b), moderate; we now know that the vast majority of them are and were foreign Salafi terrorists whom we’ve been using as proxies, the remnants currently holed up in Idlib, but we didn’t learn any of that from Rusbridger.
Forthestate
Many times they did echoing ” sentiments of the million ” during the war. That is not to say they did it in every article but I would say in a majority of cases.
But yes you are right about Libya and to an extent Syria even though Guardian have become FAR worse since Rusbridger left 5 years ago.
My original comment simply meant that The Guardian was far better in 2003 than it was in 2019. That is perhaps something we can agree on?
@Jack
I agree that the best that can be said for Rusbridger is that the newspaper is even worse, and considerably so, since Viner replaced him. It’s now unreadable.
The security services preference would clearly be these newspapers self-censor through their ‘friendly’ channels. The idea of unspecified ‘consequences’ is very intimidating, and no investigative journalist can really function under such conditions. We don’t take’free speech’ nowhere near seriously enough in the UK; it needs protecting with intense vigilance and judicial backing. And sadly, our political class, on the whole, are an unenlightened, lackadaisical bunch.
Tyranny doesn’t happen overnight, it’s a gradual, pernicious process, in which open talk turns to whispers, then whispers to nervous silence.
«We don’t take’free speech’ nowhere near seriously enough in the UK; it needs protecting with intense vigilance and judicial backing.»
What the middle classes of England wan to protect is a high level of housing cost inflation, and that is taken very seriously. “Free speech” doesn’t redistribute £20,000-£40,000 per year to the savings of property owners from the incomes of renters and buyers.
If they want to protect house price inflation they are foolish and sadly deceived. It avails a person nothing to own a house valued at £1 million unless they can somehow realise that money. If the house is sold, there is the need to find somewhere else to live.
In any case, as Michael Hudson has repeatedly stated, house price inflation is caused by banks and other lenders which offer far too much easy credit. The price of property will rise as far as bank lending will take it.
“This blatant interference by a foreign power in the UK’s democracy is an absolute scandal. Compare the lack of media outrage at Pompeo’s intervention with the ludicrous claims made about much less high profile Russian attempts at influence.”
“Everybody should be incandescent at this, no matter who they vote for.”
Oh believe me, I am Craig. But what can be done? What I don’t understand is how they get away with it. It’s like three quarter’s of the world is asleep – in some sort of trance. I told my family yesterday – my parents and my sisters and their spouses – that the US spends (wastes) billions of dollars on their military behemoth. I think they are open to what I am saying, I think most people would be, but the MSM is a part of the problem and people listen to the MSM.
Yes, and Julian as well. I wish there were something we could do for him. Good men and women have spoken out in his defence, but again the MSM calls the shots and Julian does not get the publicity he needs.
My hope at the moment is that some sort of miracle can happen in this situation and that the MIC and the warmongers can somehow be put in their place and that Julian can be freed. Maybe needs someone to come up with an ingenious idea!
The fact the PLP aren’t outraged plays a big part in the muted response the MSM can get away with. Who is going to complain besides the likes of G.Galloway(who’s not even in the party) – Galloway has raised this already on Twitter. And Chris Williamson MP (who is in the party obviously, but is currently suspended for no apparent reason).
Ultimately, that lack of protest is partly Corbyn’s fault. He has a huge membership behind him (500,000+), his supporters control the party’s NEC and yet he hasn’t leveraged that membership to bring in open selection , which would democratise CLPs , preventing the Blairites from ever retaking control of the party and turning it into a hawkish corporate outfit again.
The PLP outraged? It’s members of that group who have actively constructed the “gauntlet” Pompeo refers to. They are the ones making Corbyn run that gauntlet and the most favoured weapon is the anti-S stuff. Anyone who dares speak up will be labelled accordingly and suspended.
This Fifth Column led by Watson don’t represent a political Party or its members or even its voters. They serve another master altogether.
That recording of Pompeo was very telling. The ongoing attempts to bring Corbyn down are clearly referred to by him. He’s recognising the existence of the crusade. It proves that this mob within the PLP are working to an agenda that is nothing to do with the Brexit business, the economy or, “the people”.
Andy MacDonald said quite clearly last week that PLP meetings are now, essentially, “livestreamed” straight to journalists from certain PLP members. What a state of affairs, what appalling and treacherous behaviour from them while, at the same time, Watson dares to repeatedly attempt to occupy the moral high ground!
I’m not a member of the Labour party, nor of any political party. Personally, I’m more interested in progressive reforms and democratic/ constitutional reforms and I’m not fussy who or what combination of parties deliver that i.e., likely anyone other than the regressive, reactionary Tories. I see parties and politics only in terms of who is most likely to deliver reform.
Cobyn has clever people around him, I’m sure they’ll know what needs to be done with the more hostile parts of the PLP, it’s a question whether they leave giving CLPs a say too late?
I’m not a Labour Party member either but I’m astonished by your laid back approach to what is happening. You don’t have to be a member of any political Party to feel horrified. Democracy is gone, Goose. That ship has sailed. And the MSM doesn’t care for investigative journalism any more either. That ship’s sailed too.
There are three UK Parties in the Commons who have members with a shared interest. Follow the money! They’re not interested in reforms, they’re doing very nicely.
Jo1
Sorry, I am horrified at any external interference, just as Pompeo no doubt would be horrified if some foreign leader were recorded talking about stopping a GoP or DNC candidate. Senior US officials probably never ask themselves how would we like it , if what we do, someone was doing to us?
As for Labour, my somewhat cold, dispassionate interest in process over personalities(Corbyn) is n the basis of my belief that changes to the democratic processes are the best defence against interference, of the type Pompeo and his CIA friends could possibly be capable of. Imagine a democratic system whereby replacing Corbyn would be futile because ALL the democratically selected MPs broadly share his views.
Hope this makes things clearer.
Note : ALL the MPs in the Labour party that is – just to be clear.
As would probably happen too, over time, were it left to CLPs using open selection to select their candidates; kicking out those determined to sabotage the party. The chances of another Blair taking the party and membership off in a right-wing direction it wasn’t happy with would be near zero.
«Ultimately, that lack of protest is partly Corbyn’s fault.»
My impression is that Corbyn knows the boundaries of realpolitik and perhaps reckons that being taken out by an “accident” caused by a “madman” would not help the party.
Because the crucial detail around which the infighting in Labour is all about is reducing the threshold for nominations to the leadership from 15% to 5% of MPs, so that a potential leader popular with the members but unpopular with Tony Blair could be nominated again. Without that change nothing else matters in the Labour Party, and it has not happened yet.
Blissex
No, imho, the key change is introducing open selection so CLPs can democratically choose more representative candidates.
There are only about dozen Labour MPs that hold a similar political views to Corbyn, Blair was very effective at shaping a party in his own image, moving the party rightwards ; parachuting in Blairites to safe seats in the North of England and elsewhere. He almost eliminated the left from the PLP’s ranks. Shuffling people to the HoL and retiring others to make way for even more fake left, red Tories who’d be lobby fodder. Thus, to be blunt, there isn’t much leftist talent to choose a new leader from regardless of thresholds. And as we can see with Tom Watson and others, the Brownites & Blairites are always waiting to grab the party back, reduce its membership and take back the NEC.
Why is our hero Craig censoring comments?
He must have had good experience while serving the British Empire for so long.
Does he not accept that the world would have been a much safer place if his favoured candidate Hillary Clinton had become the POTUS?
sure, electing the candidate that wanted confrontations with russia over the ukraine and syria was “a safer choice”. you bet.
Craig said, ‘I find it hard to believe that I live in times where Assange suffers as he does for telling the truth, where a dedicated anti-racist like Corbyn is subjected to daily false accusations of racism and to US and security service backed efforts to thwart his democratic prospects, where the most laughable false flag is paraded to move us towards war with Iran, and where there is no semblance of a genuinely independent media.
Of course the ‘closed door’ meetings with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Jewish leaders was in part to overly plan and assemble a media release fixated on the Labour leadership’s failure in handling anti-Semitism issues. In truth the meetings were an examination of Iran’s ballistic missile program and their ability to deliver Russian nuclear war-heads.
The US according to British commanders is wrapping up the software updates needed to the so called antiballistic shield in Europe so that it becomes offensive using theTomahawk BGM-109G fitted with nuclear warheads. We know this because Britain is evaluating the effectiveness of European AEGIS sites against a Russian/Iran nuclear launch. The analysis has been addled by opposing arguments on the Chinese strategy and whether Iran will directly target Israel and Britain in the event of a US/Russia nuclear confrontation.
Politically it is clear that Jeremy Corbyn as leader will severely handicap US plans to use Vanguard class SSBN and the Trident II D5 missiles in this nuclear scenario and according to top secret documents he must NOT rise to power at whatever cost.
The DSMA site publishes all their meeting minutes, FWIW:
https://dsma.uk/dsma-committee-meeting-8-november-2018-minutes/
Re “The DSMA site publishes all their meeting minutes…”
Indeed it does, see: https://dsma.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/181108-DSMA-Committee-Meeting-Minutes.pdf
Tantalisingly these minutes cover general issues discussed but not what was said or what was instructed to leave out. Basic obfuscation.
So like every Committee then…
Craig’s rather sensationalist approach to the Guardian’s attendance at DSMA meetings is somewhat undermined when the membership also consists of representatives of the BBC, ITV, Huffington Post, Press Association, The Times, Harper Collins and the Publishers’ Society.
That certainly is ‘a bit Irish’, as we say in England. None of what you say undermines Craig’s position on the Guardian.
Full on propaganda, abuse of power, interference in politics by foreign government, politicians taking money from foreign powers, a wing of the army which gives out false information and discredits our own citizens, our Military Intelligence gathering information on its own citizens wholesale, without reason and stockpiling it for potential future use without reason or legal grounds, FTA law used to illegally detain people, secret courts, arresting journalists for BEING journalists, having tame newspapers and paying to plant stories, suppressing news, passing off opinion as fact and blatant biases in TV and print news, fabricating ‘fact’ as pretexts for war. None of us is actually safe from this. Our own government (and not just this Tory government either) have crossed the line from democracy to a ‘soft’ form of fascism. Step out of line and get ‘stepped on’ You’ll be discredited, arrested, made out to be a criminal and what’s reported in the newspaper will go further again. DARE to put your head above the parapet and you’re at risk.
For example, in this week’s Blackpool Gazette you will see an interesting article about one of the protestors on their local fracking site. This site has had many protestors for a protracted time. The local authority objected but Westminster over rode their objections, hence the protests. One of their protestors was singled out. They’d managed to identify those involved and cross checked them against benefits data. They charged, then this week convicted, one lady who said she could “barely stand” as she was seen standing at one of the protests. Now I don’t know the state of her health but I DO know that PIP and ESA are based on the state of your health on a ‘bad day’ not your best day. I also know that some conditions, like fibromyalgia, come in ‘attacks’ and are not consistent or constant. Regardless of her true state, this is just ONE example of abusing power that we now see. The police actively looking to victimise those who speak out by trawling their records LOOKING for something. I always recall the TV cops being told that they can’t “go on a fishing expedition” but it appears that these days, in Blackpool anyway, this is perfectly acceptable. Having worked in the Civil Service I kno just how hard it is to get a case over the line of getting the police to look at it, never mind convict. But they seemed to take the initiative this time?
I know it’s an overused phrase, but it really IS ‘the thin end of the wedge’
Of the many infractions we (our government) accuse foreign countries of, we are guilty of most of them ourselves. On the one habd instant access to systems brought about by the internet and greater use of computer networks IS good. Better for health, better for ease of use, better for access to blogs (like this one) where you can get an idea of what is REALLY happening. On the other hand, we have the abuse of this access and power as in this case.
Worse though, where does this lead next??
General Election. If not get the pitch forks out!
Dungroanin-if elections could really change anything, they’d be banned. Move straight to the pitchforks!
My comments on the Guardian are pre-moderated… something they say only happens for a short time… but mine have been for years… they’re terrified I might do something like link to their own 2003 article called “The spies who pushed for war” or otherwise mention the connection between the Israeli lobby and the invasion of Iraq.
There seem to be many of us in this situation, which might account for the apparent turn towards the ‘centre’ (i.e. nulab) of comments btl in the Guardian. Also, of course, comments are nowadays generally only allowed on politically mundane or trivial topics; so many of the more committed and passionate commenters have probably given up . . .
If you use social media – Twitter, Facebook you can comment there more freely without any moderation.
“If you use social media – Twitter, Facebook you can comment there more freely without any moderation.”
Um, you can fart in the wind and piss up a rope too, but what you’ll find is you’ll be “shadow-banned” a significant part of the time if delving on hot topics too frequently. At least this is so on Facebook (Spybook,) many’s the time I’ll post on something antithetical to the Owner class and it will get little to absolutely no response(s) and I’ve had to re-post items up to 3 times in 36 hours in order to finally generate some feedback.
Do the Guardian actually pre-moderate your comments? I get that warning from time to time, but they don’t in fact pre-moderate.
They pre moderate my comments and have been doing it for 18 months.
If the ships were attacked at dawn then why is the IRG boat casting a shadow on the starboard side of the tanker headed south.
A ship heading south would only have these shadows cast on it at dawn if the boat casting the shadows was on its port side rescuing the crew as the starboard side was where the fires were.
Maybe I’m overthinking this, rather than underthinking like the intelligence services.
StephenR, you are quite right. But then you are thinking with your brain, which puts you in a tiny minority which the powers that be feel safe in ignoring.
The vast majority think with their glands, and it is those glands that government and MSM propaganda aim at controlling.
With regards to the placement of the limpet mine four feet above the water line, I’m sure we can assume that the water line would change depending on how much the ship was carrying. Eureka! Not that it matters, it’s pure fake news lies anyway.
As for “It remains my hope there will eventually come a public reaction against the political classes as strong as the situation demands”, well, that’s an interesting way of calling for revolution. And let me say that that’s exactly what we need, a revolution. Just one problem; most people are either too thick or too distracted by misery to pay any attention to what’s going on above.
I’m not sure if it’s legal or not to say it — and if it isn’t then that’s all the more reason for saying it — but the UK seems to have been hijacked by a bunch of sociopathic paedophiles whose lust for blood is matched by their disregard for International law and basic morality.
Mugs who put up with this, deserve this.
H: ” … I’m sure we can assume that the water line would change depending on how much the ship was carrying.”
You think those ships arrived full, had the limpets planted under the waterline, then sailed out of the Gulf empty?
I have no idea what direction the ships were heading in, what they were carrying on the way, or what they weighed when they left.
But if you had, you would have been saved from posting a counter-factual comment – as you did.
..and of course the skipper on the bridge would not notice a suitcase-sized lump on the side of his ship. The best explanation I have seen so far is that the IRN was removing a magnetic ladder stabiliser which had been deployed to help get the crew off. Seems reasonable – but who knows for sure. Certainly they seemed to be pretty casual removing whatever it was – not the behaviour expected of disposal experts retrieving a mine that should have gone off but hasn’t.
The ship would appear to be well up to her marks (the load line can be seen just forward of the launch).
For the record, apostle of peace Hillary Clinton was our hero Craig’s favoured candidate for the POTUS.
Read this comment now because our hero Craig will remove it as soon as he sees it.
As opposed to the peace-loving, considered and painfully honest POTUS you obviously prefer – Trump – I take it?
Quite simply a lie. I supported Bernie and then Jill Stein. Mods please ban Chemical Britain. Posting deliberate untruths as a troll activity does not come under the heading of free speech.
Thank you, Craig. I DO recall your stance on the candidates and what you state is so.
Period.
As I dimly recall – and I am grossly ignorant of the US political system – neither Bernie Sanders nor Jill Stein became available as a candidate in the presidential election.
The system blocked them so that the voters would not have the opportunity to vote for them.
You are full of crap.
To make it crystal clear, I was referring to Chemical Britain and not Craig Murray of course!
Citation please. One of the joys (rapidly fading, as censorship rises) of living under the anglosphere concept of law is the idea of innocent until guilty.
Craig Murray,
Awesome post – probably your best. Where the hell did you dig all that up from?
Tony
I agree it was a fantastic post. Well done, Murray.
That’s Mr Murray to you 🙂 copyright Sharp Ears.
The DSMA website, it is all published there. It didn’t require James Bond.
I take a little heart from how lukewarm, generally, the response has been to The Gulf of Trumpkin incident. Aside from a few of the predictably hawkish voices, there’s been a near complete-absence of media hysteria here in the US. Perhaps there’s a longer strategy of trying to provoke a response from Iran or against Iran, but frankly not many people seem willing to believe that Iran would be motivated to carry out these attacks on tankers, and none of the absurd grainy visuals appeared to show anything more than an Iranian navy vessel attending to a stricken tanker. The idea that this was presented as “proof” of Iranian guilt was treated with near-total derision.
The outrage of our blogger is sometimes so precious, because he is describing what politologists in other peripheral protectorates, from Latin American to Europe, call “limited sovereignty”, and where the USA ambassador is a proconsul and the USA security services routinely “help” local politics stay within the bounds of that “limited sovereignty”; in those peripheral protectorates that is an accepted state of affairs, it is accepted because it has some big advantages (mainly preferential access to the USA markets for exports) and the smart nationalists know that in realpolitik the exact boundaries of “limited sovereignty” are somewhat negotiable, as long as the USA corporate interests get their due.
It is precious because he is outraged that “limited sovereignty” is happening to the UK, a country whose corporate interests used exactly the same techniques (which are quite ancient) over the English Empire, in both the colonial and suzerain areas it extended over. People with a finer sense of realpolitik have realized that is the past, it is gone, and this country has been a “limited sovereignty” protectorate (like Brazil or Italy or south Korea) for decades now. Deal with that.
I personally think that being part of the USA co-prosperity sphere is or was a good enough deal, even given the big downside of the allowed forms of “limited sovereignty”.
What has changed in more recent times is that after the collapse of the USSR the exercise of imperial power has become more brazen, just as the brutality of elite power has become more in-your-face in each country, with a very strong desire to move politics back to the pre-1917 period, and ideally to the 1850s (or the 1750s).
«It is precious because he is outraged that “limited sovereignty” is happening to the UK»
Also because pretty overt signs of that “limited sovereignty” have happened before, for example, as written by William Rees-Mogg (a sterling far-right nostalgic imperialist) in “The Times”, 2006-08-07:
“When Jack Straw was replaced by Margaret Beckett as Foreign Secretary, it seemed an almost inexplicable event. Mr Straw had been very competent — experienced, serious, moderate and always well briefed. Margaret Beckett is embarrassingly inexperienced.
I made inquiries in Washington and was told that Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, had taken exception to Mr Straw’s statement that it would be “nuts” to bomb Iran. The United States, it was said, had put pressure on Tony Blair to change his Foreign Secretary. Mr Straw had been fired at the request of the Bush Administration, particularly at the Pentagon. … The alternative explanation was more recently given by Irwin Stelzer in The Spectator; he has remarkably good Washington contacts and is probably right. His account is that Mr Straw was indeed dismissed because of American anxieties, but that Dr Rice herself had become worried, on her visit to Blackburn, by Mr Straw’s dependence on Muslim votes. About 20 per cent of the voters in Blackburn are Islamic; Mr Straw was dismissed only four weeks after Dr Rice’s visit to his constituency.
It may be that both explanations are correct. The first complaint may have been made by Mr Rumsfeld because of Iran; Dr Rice may have withdrawn her support after seeing the Islamic pressures in Blackburn.
At any rate, Irwin Stelzer’s account confirms that Mr Straw was fired because of American pressure.”
Compare this story from Andrew Marry’s “A history of modern Britain”:
“In 1942, as Rommel’s tanks drew nearer, and Churchill was fulminating about Cairo being a nest of ‘Hun spies’, the British ambassador told Egypt’s King Farouk that his prime minister was not considered sufficiently anti-German and would have to be replaced. The King summoned his limited reserves of pride and refused. It was, he insisted, a step too far, a breach of the 1937 treaty.
Britain’s ambassador simply called up armoured cars, a couple of tanks and some soldiers and surrounded King Farouk in his palace. The ambassador walked in and ordered the monarch to sign a grovelling letter of abdication, renouncing and abandoning ‘for ourselves and the heirs of our body the throne of Egypt’. At this royal determination crumbled. The king asked pathetically if, perhaps, he could have one last chance? He was graciously granted it and sacked his prime minister.”
Thanks for that, Blissex. Quite fascinating and intriguing as well.
“The king asked pathetically if, perhaps, he could have one last chance? He was graciously granted it and sacked his prime minister”.
It’s easy to criticize after the event, but I feel the king would have been fairly safe telling the ambassador to get knotted. To have killed the king so openly would have had disastrous effects on British rule.
General Election. If not get the pitch forks out!
Exactly, Dungroanin. I keep hearing politicians bewailing that there is no “consensus” or “political will” or whatever for Brexit in the political class.
Well, in that case democratic principles dictate that they should submit themselves to the judgment of the electorate, which would thus be able to select a new “political class” that will – for once – do what its constituents tell it to.
With apologies to Edmund Burke.
Blissex
“I personally think that being part of the USA co-prosperity sphere is or was a good enough deal, even given the big downside of the allowed forms of “limited sovereignty”.
Really?
«“being part of the USA co-prosperity sphere is or was a good enough deal, even given the big downside of the allowed forms of “limited sovereignty”.
Really?»
And what is the realistic alternative? Also:
* Splendid Isolation and Imperial Preference, that is in effect autarky, were possible when England owned 1/3 of the world. That’s gone.
* Full sovereignty and independence come out of the mouth of cannons (and their logistic backstage), not from tall and loud declamations. English defeat in 1941, when Roosevelt gave Churchill the choice between becoming a protectorate of mr. Hitler or of the USA, was due to running out of money and equipment to continue the war.
* The biggest markets are all part of the USA co-prosperity sphere, and the USA in particular is one of the biggest net importers around (a similar policy to that of the chinese emperors to bind satellites to them with “gifts”).
* Access to the markets of the USA co-prosperity sphere is not a given, it is reserved to loyal protectorates, subject to whatever conditions the USA elites choose to impose. As D Trump has been reminding various “partners”.
* As an imperial suzerain the USA is less brutal and vicious than many others (compare 1930s Japan and their co-prosperity sphere), even if sometimes USA policy is driven by metaphysics (often ideological insanity, from Vietnam to Iraq).
* USA sanctions work and impoverish countries like Russia, Iran, Cuba, precisely because access to the markets of the USA co-prosperity sphere is so valuable.
Also there are zero chances that the USA would let a nuclear power, even a make-believe one like the UK, loose. India and Pakistan are already too much of a problem.
EU?
A big fish in a big pond.
Or a mini me to a loser empire.
You makes your bed…
NATO is dead. Long live the SCO!
Dungroanin’ for me, the EU is a big fish in a big pond and has yet not used its full power to curb the USA.
That is the point I was attempting to make in a rush, thanks for clarifying
Your arguments sound very similar to those trying to convince everyone that it is a very good thing to join a mafia protection racket.
«that it is a very good thing»
The least bad practicable option. It is called “realpolitik”. The question then becomes how to get a better deal from the USA, rather than going it alone, turning from an operetta kingdom to a hermit kingdom.
«to join a mafia protection racket.»
That’s what empires are. And the question remains: what is the realistic alternative?
Is that the “have your cake it and eat it” option of enjoying all the benefits of membership of the USA co-prosperity sphere without any of the costs, while bellowing about sovereignty and independence?
That kind of option is sort of popular nowadays :-).
You are mad. The average member of the public reading this article would back away quickly, sorrowfully shaking their head.
Very possibly, from what I have seen. So much the worse for the average member of the public. Almost all of them have chosen the blue pill: “a beautiful prison—it would lead him back to ignorance, living in confined comfort without want or fear within the simulated reality of the Matrix”.
Whereas most of us here have chosen the red pill, which “represented an uncertain future—it would free him from the enslaving control of the machine-generated dream world and allow him to escape into the real world, but living the “truth of reality” is harsher and more difficult”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_pill_and_blue_pill
“The Iranians certainly have a strange method of bomb disposal if they carry it out using unarmoured personnel, with as many as possible crammed into a small boat in immediate contact with the “mine”.”
Anyone would think it wasn’t actually a mine.
More likely a magnetic mooring point used by small boats to attach to big ships like this.
Google it!
Yes.
They were busy detaching it with a shovel and a pick axe and probably kicking it.
According to sources of course.
I do note re: The Guardian and the spooks the word ” re-establish ”
So they were initially established – then un- established ( Snowden?) and now are established again?
We can all sleep safe in our beds can’t we.
On first reading I can only say hear hear. The blog articulates my loosely formed thoughts and feelings.
If that’s all there is to Pompeo’s reply to the question, I think it’s a stretch to see it as a clear reference to US efforts to prevent Corbyn’s election. It’s possible that’s what he was hinting at, but other meanings of “run the gauntlet” are at least equally plausible.
I can’t stand Pompeo, Trump, or the attacks on Corbyn, and I certainly don’t put it past the US government to interfere in UK politics. I respect Mr Murray and appreciate much that he has to say on this blog, but occasionally he reaches too far and offers tendentious interpretations.
(Note — I’m not the same Hmmm as in the first couple of comments here.)
“If that’s all there is to Pompeo’s reply to the question, I think it’s a stretch to see it as a clear reference to US efforts to prevent Corbyn’s election”.
Well, I am a fluent speaker of English, which I can also read and write. As an experienced writer and editor, I pride myself on fairly good comprehension of the language.
As far as I can make out, Mr Pompeo said in so many words that the US government would do what it could to prevent Mr Corbyn from becoming PM. His exact words, as quoted widely, were:
“It could be that Mr. Corbyn manages to run the [gauntlet] and get elected. It’s possible. You should know, we won’t wait for him to do those things to begin to push back”.
How on earth can you interpret that as meaning anything other than that they will do their best to prevent his becoming PM?
I’m going to test the limits with this post, sorry,
From wiki
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Cooperation_Organisation
‘The SCO is widely regarded as the “alliance of the East”, due to its growing centrality in Asia-Pacific, and has been the primary security pillar of the region.[5][6] It is the largest regional organisation in the world in terms of geographical coverage and population, covering three-fifths of the Eurasian continent and nearly half of the human population.’
…
‘The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), or Shanghai Pact,[1] is a Eurasian political, economic, and security alliance, the creation of which was announced on 15 June 2001 in Shanghai, China by the leaders of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan; ‘
‘the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Charter, formally establishing the organisation, was signed in June 2002 and entered into force on 19 September 2003. The original five nations, with the exclusion of Uzbekistan, were previously members of the Shanghai Five group, founded on 26 April 1996.’
—————————————————–
Since then, the organisation has expanded its membership to eight countries when India and Pakistan joined SCO as full members on 9 June 2017 at a summit in Astana, Kazakhstan.
—————————————————–
‘The Heads of State Council (HSC) is the supreme decision-making body in the SCO, it meets once a year and adopts decisions and guidelines on all important matters of the organisation.’
‘Military exercises are also regularly conducted among members to promote cooperation and coordination against terrorism and other external threats, and to maintain regional peace and stability.’
‘The SCO is widely regarded as the “alliance of the East”, due to its growing centrality in Asia-Pacific, and has been the primary security pillar of the region.[5][6] It is the largest regional organisation in the world in terms of geographical coverage and population, covering three-fifths of the Eurasian continent and nearly half of the human population.’
From Putin
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/60750
“President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr President of Kyrgyzstan, colleagues,
I certainly agree with the positive assessments of the activities of our organisation, the SCO, which have just been voiced here. The SCO is indeed successfully developing and strengthening its positions in regional affairs, making a significant contribution to ensuring peace, security and stability in Eurasia.
Given that at the end of today’s meeting, Russia will take over the Presidency of the SCO, I would like to outline Russia’s vision of the most promising areas of the organisation’s work in 2019–2020
We believe that the fight against terrorism and extremism remains among our top priorities. We consider it important to increase cooperation within the SCO’s Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure, to cut off the financial support of terrorism through drug trafficking, and to make every effort to prevent terrorists laying their hands on chemical, biological or other weapons of mass destruction.
Russia also advocates close cooperation with the SCO member states in curbing the propaganda of terrorist and extremist ideas on the internet and the use of information and communication technologies for criminal purposes. The Concept of Cooperation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Member States in Digitalisation and Information and Communication Technology, which we are approving today, is aimed at strengthening cooperation in this area.
Over the period of Russia’s Presidency, the SCO will certainly face a great deal of work to settle crises and peacefully resolve conflicts seated near the external borders of our states.
The developments in Afghanistan require special attention; my colleagues have already spoken about this here. The Afghan people need help in achieving national reconciliation and economic recovery.
We fully support the plan to expand the organisation’s security, economic and humanitarian cooperation with Afghanistan, as reflected in the relevant roadmap to be signed today. We aim to contribute in every way to the revival of the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group’s activity.
Real results in the fight against international terrorism have been achieved in Syria. The militants have been defeated there largely due to Russia’s comprehensive assistance to the legitimate Syrian government. Damascus has regained control over most of the country’s territory. The political reconciliation process is progressing, and work is underway to set up the Constitutional Committee.
Our immediate task now is to ensure the complete elimination of hotbeds of terrorism that remain in Syria, primarily in Idlib, and at the same time to increase the volume of humanitarian aid and assistance to the economic reconstruction of Syria provided by the international community.
The Iranian nuclear programme still raises concerns. The US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – as a reminder, it was unanimously approved by the UN Security Council in 2015 – is not only destabilising the region, but also can undermine the nuclear non-proliferation regime.
While presiding in the SCO, we intend to work to ensure that the parties to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action fulfil their obligations. We consider this to be the only logical and correct path.
Colleagues,
We also plan to focus on deepening the mutually beneficial economic ties between the SCO member states. In this context, we propose considering new promising projects in trade, industry, energy, infrastructure, science and technology, and innovation. The SCO Business Council and the SCO Interbank Consortium could play an important role in this work.
The expansion of mutually beneficial inter-regional trade, investment and humanitarian contacts within the SCO will certainly contribute to the development of the SCO Heads of Regions Forum, a new mechanism within the organisation. It was established at Russia’s initiative, and we propose holding the first meeting early next year.
We will continue to interact with our colleagues in the SCO to combine the integration processes being developed in Eurasia, harmonise national development strategies and regional multilateral economic projects.
We see a promising potential in integrating the Eurasian Economic Union with China’s Belt and Road project with a future aim of building a larger Eurasian partnership and an open and equal constructive cooperation space based on the principles and norms of international law without any political or economic bias, but with consideration of each other’s legitimate interests.
During Russia’s Presidency of the SCO, we will certainly pay particular attention to deepening cultural and humanitarian ties, which our colleagues have just talked about here too. In particular, we will focus on the implementation of cooperation agreements reached in the fields of media, physical fitness, sports and tourism. I fully agree with that.
Next year marks the 75th anniversary of Victory over Nazism in the Second World War. We in Russia attach great importance to preserving the memory and historical truth about this great and tragic event of the 20th century.
We are planning, also with our partners in the Commonwealth of Independent States, to organise an ambitious programme of celebrations and invite all the states represented here to take part in this work. The SCO Youth Council could also join the organising activities, which I think will be extremely beneficial for young people.
Colleagues, we will be delighted to see you at these events, including the Victory Day celebrations in Moscow.
Colleagues,
In conclusion, I would like to congratulate Kyrgyzstan on successfully completing its Presidency of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and say that the Russian Presidency will ensure continuity in the organisation’s work.
We invite you to the next meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State on July 22–23, 2020 in Russia.
Thank you for your attention.
See also
Meeting of SCO leaders
June 14, 2019
OK TELL ME I’M A RUSSIAN TROLL.
So well put, Craig. Your justifiable vexation is palpably resonant through my computer monitor. You speak for so many of us. Thank you.
Thanks Craig. A memorable statement and for what it’s worth, a sentiment shared by many. I hope it pricks a few consciences. On a constructive note, regarding Google, the internet is a black hole without adequate indexing, most of the search engines are a combination of salesman and spook, selling or misdirecting according to role. Most of the tools they offer have been scaled back or always were sub standard. Fixing that one thing would make a decisive difference.
I have recently searched G—– for items easy to locate ten or fifteen years ago. It’s as if they disappeared. Then I search for the same items using Yandex and find that they are as accessable as they ever were. Make of that what you will.
True enough (to a degree) but Yandex is nowhere near as good as Google once was, nor, importantly as widely used. And its news search is restricted to the Russian language as far as I can tell.
Despite the glimmering of a few very good ideas (their image search facility for example) what could have been very interesting and useful comes with woeful, cumbersome and restrictive tools, problematic UI and very little imagination spent on freeing it’s users (rather than entraining and confining them.) Could still be special if they strike out on a different path though. With an entirely different philosophy something entirely different can easily emerge. Software often feels like subtle indoctrination, designed to train users to think like the programmers think while overtly designed to take their money as efficiently as possible. Undeniably though, technological developments have been on the whole been coercive.
We were imagining scalable and adaptive technology which would anticipate and even mould itself to how people actually want to use it, redesigning itself to meet their way of thinking, fully customisable UI on the Lego principle, open and modular software you can add to or take away from, respectful of privacy and with an expanding array of tools as the level of interaction grows. Some software made a few steps in this direction, Firefox was one, but the drift away from the end user is accelerating considerably today.
With a fraction of the resources available to Google it could be done far better but that was never the criteria. And the problem isn’t only lack of decent, impartial indexing and a suitably useful array of tools, but how the security and corporate state stampede all the major tech developers toward monopolistic monoculture, ‘walled gardens’ where ‘users’ can be ‘revenue streamed,’ their data acquired and picked over more profitably. Capital flows ensure that the slow and painful take up of new or interesting ideas is often diverted, bastardised or outright clobbered by more corporate/state friendly tech.
I and a group of friends anticipated a considerable number of advances in net based technology over the last fifteen or twenty years (as so many did in the nineties and early oughts when the onrush of possibility set our little imaginations free for a while.) And these a good long time before they occurred, mind you. We asked simple questions like, what would I do with the internet? We also asked, what would developers do with it (by then the answers were moving away from anything good.) Then we asked what would corporations do with the internet, and we were already anticipating the world pretty much as it later developed.
That said, and quite interestingly, many of our best ideas remain unused. I’ve shared some of them with good people over the years and one or two have been taken up. We were asking obvious questions like, what can we do now which would have been impossible before but also what can we do that allows more time for the things we really want to do? How can information become more like ecology than economy? How can technology facilitate and even create community? How can technology reveal things we don’t know that we know. Apple is a perfect example of missed opportunities in this regard. Very successful at making money, piss poor at making utopia (or even technology in my view. I’d be happy to defend this opinion further.)
In other words, while the majority still ‘don’t know what it is they don’t know’ as Chomsky put it, few in silicon valley are offering to lay a path while Google is actively engaged in building more barriers (and latterly, servicing the technological requirements of the Empire of Woe.)
How did you get on with DuckDuckGo?
DDG is just Bing. And at least as heavily censored as google.
Re search engines…
There are many search engines other that Google, some of them are listed on wiki:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_search_engines
amongst them:
Gibiru.com claims to be an unfiltered uncensored private search engine.
Quant.com claim to be an uncensored European search engine.
Omgili.com claims to search discussions, blog posts etc. (“vertical searches”)
Searchencrypt.com claim to be private and – for the paranoid- encrypts your search history after searching.
There are also many subject specific search engines, too many to list here.
I have no idea if these work as described, I find duckduckgo okay for me.
DDG, like Google, certainly make it hard work to find non MSM versions of current events. It wasn’t always that way. Anyway, thanks for the list, I’ll have a look.
«Matt Kennard’s stunning revelation of the way the Guardian has been taken over by the security services. I have been explaining for years that the Guardian has become the security services’ news outlet of choice, and it is very helpful to have documentation to prove it.»
Actually the documentation is that the “The Guardian” is part of the D-Notice system, which is the law of the land and an entirely public policy; perhaps the only “novelty” is that it is documented how quite enthusiastically it loves the D-Notice system, but whatever.
Conversely the very point of the security services, that distinguishes them from say the police, is that their operations are outside and even against the law (necessarily so for the operations of foreign intelligence in other countries of course, but the political security services have few qualms either about domestic law).
From occasional reports from other countries and many decades the picture that I have in mind of how outlaw organizations, including all the security services, “influence” the media is that they compromise (bribe, blackmail, intimidate) individual journalists; the easiest way is to offer junior journalists career boosters, such as harmless scoops, help gaining a promotion, some “consultancy” gig on the side, to hook them, and when compromised enough, “guide” them. Outlaw organizations can take years and decades to put the people they own in positions of usefulness.
They’re not referred to as “the firm” for nothing
We need a modern-day, more succesful, ‘Von Stauffenberg’.
The failure of our state-controlled media to be enraged at the implicit threat to Jeremy Corbyn is astonishing. I still feel Corbyn is being setup to be the release-valve, he’ll become PM and make nothing more than superficial futile attempts to right anything, his brand of left politics is not economic redistribution downwards, but identity politics virtue-signalling, symbolic gestures. Enough to allow enough to start pretending to themselves that we live in something approximating democracy, while Corbyn takes the fall for all manner of dirty tricks sprung on him/us. The Sturgeon Party will lap up Corbyn’s socialist-lite but ever so PC displacement activity and forget about independence entirely if they haven’t already. The whole country will be decked out in vomit-inducing union flegs.
Craig, your blog has become an essential public service! You’ve become too big to fail, we’ll have to nationalise you.
LOL
Corbyn is like previous left Labor leaders; he is the hostage of Labour’s policy-making body, the NEC. Michael Foot was left-wing, until he was elected leader. Then he became basically a centrist. Same goes for Corbyn. He cannot promote the policies he has always stood up for – unilateral disarmament, anti-militarism, disengagement from the EU, anti-racism everywhere (including in Israel), because they are not the agreed policies of the party that appointed him leader.
This is a profound defect in the Labour Party’s constitution. It has the result that a left-wing Labour leader will constantly be discredited by his own membership and his own policy-making body. Remember that the NEC is composed of (a) Trades Unions – an intrinsically right-wing group; the PLP – intrinsically moderate, in that they depend for their seats on a broad coalition of voters, but currently dominated by Blairite neo-cons; and the delegates from constituency parties, who are the only group that might support left-wing policies, but are in a minority on the NEC.
So watch as the left-winger Foot transformed from a left-wing firebrand into a whimpering lap-dog. See how Corbyn, an outspoken leftist and anti-racist, now mumbles about how the scourge of anti-semitism is rife in his party, and has to by purged, how he supports the Trident replacement,
In UK General Elections, the fact is that voters do not vote for their consituency MP; that is a constitutional fiction. They vote for their preferred party (often the one their parents voted for), as personified by the party leader. They usually don’t even know the name of their local MP, let alone his policies. They are more likely to know the name of their local councillor.
Jlmneh people can raise all sorts of issues re Corbyn here but what cannot be refuted he has a considerable track record, over many years as an MP, voting against wars, against austerity, against injustice and against policies or laws that will harm the most vulnerable in society. He is the only decent, honest, person in politics at the moment and the only teller of truth. Whatever people say that he might not be able to implement his Manifesto because of security services interference or whatever, the Labour Party is the ONLY Party in the UK the moment that will stop the rot, corruption, incompetence, warmongering Tory Government and as such, should be given a chance at being the Prime Minister. After all, he will do significantly better than the scum trash we currently call our Government.
An exceptional piece, Craig, highlighting brilliantly the treachery of our government. Isn’t it suspicious how quick Hunt and Javid have been in the last days to brown-nose to the Americans and attack Corbyn – almost as though they need to do so to have any chance of being chosen. Why would that be? Strange too that no journalist ever asks the leadership contenders why they’re happy for our foreign policy to be run by the USA but not to work in collaboration with our EU neighbours. Of course, we know the answer – that our political class and media are basically already in the pocket of Washington with the toad Murdoch working as the chief propagandist and go-between.
What’s more disgusting about the Guardian’s behaviour is they pose as being liberal and even left-wing. Yet in reality they promote the far-right while while their columnists and an army of trolls attempt to divide the Left and damage Corbyn with various trojan-horse issues – usually a new Brexit referendum, the environment or feminism. You could almost smell their dismay and shock as Farage lost Peterborough.
I suppose at least we might be able to take comfort from the sheer desperation of these recent false flags and the brazenness of Pompeo and his ilk.
Tom
The ‘special relationship’ dictates that this country’s political class must be staunchly pro US. Brexit is now turning into a battlefield between those traditional Atlanticists and those who would like more independence from the US by stronger ties with Europe and that is why US politicians have now come up strongly in favour of Brexit and in open interference with this country’s politics.
SA true. The EU closed down further negotiations between the EU and the USA on the Trans Atlantic Trade Treaty because it was just an exercise by the USA to transfer millions of jobs from Europe the USA, the USA were demanding the abolition of food standards and regulations so they could import chlorinated chicken amongst others and a host of other demands. Yet, as the French Minister and one of the negotiators said, the USA had no intention of a mutual trading relationship, they wanted to transfer European assets and jobs to the USA in their millions. Hence, no Trade Atlantic Trade Treaty. This Tory Government, anything the Orange One wants, they will brown nose to give him, even if it is to the detriment of jobs, standards and regulations, the NHS to mention but a few. They are so far up the USA’s backside, they have completely lost of the British Nation and sorting out the mess they have created.
Thanks for explaining, SA. However, the views you express are just that – views and opinions.
For myself, I want to see the UK independent of both Europe and the USA. As a nation with nearly 1% of the world’s population, and an unrivalled record of discovery, invention and innovation, there is no reason at all why we cannot be extremely successful on our own.
And of course there is absolutely no reason why academic, scientific and commercial cooperation should be in any tied to political subservience.
Mind you, I am old enough to remember when the UK was a viable independent state – which all too many voters do not remember.
One good result of the pathetic False Flag ship attacks is it has drawn Sputnik into rehashing older American False Flag ‘casus belli’; more power to their elbow: ‘Oil Tanker Attacks in the Gulf Have US Fingerprints All Over Them’:
https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201906151075885485-oil-tanker-attacks-us-fingerprints/
Thanks, Craig, we knew something about all about these matters, but it’s useful to have a review and a context by a sane and knowledgeable commentator.
I don’t know what you’ll be able to do about “Western” democracy, but I think we all know what you’d like to do about Scottish democracy! Living 12,000 miles away, it would be presumptuous to be advising the citizens of Scotland what they also should be doing, but it’s increasingly obvious that the citizens, already probably the most politically aware citizens on the planet, should be re-debating and re-informing themselves about all this, prior to another referendum. Your First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, showed something of her better side when someone commentated that she’d be looking forward to a Boris Johnson premiership as helping the cause of Scottish independence, and she replied, I believe, to the effect that this might be appealing, but she actually had wider concerns for the health of the entire UK under a Boris Johnson leadership. Yet, would it be true, you folk who live in Scotland, that Boris as UK PM really does put the Union at risk? Would enough Scots hate Boris enough to overcome their doubts and scruples to change their minds about independence? I’d be interested to hear the comments. Because in England, is the danger to the Union by a BJ premiership ever raised in the MSM?