Wednesday 19 September 2012

The lies that lead to war


The lies that lead to war
How the Government deceived Parliament, HM forces, the media and
the public into waging illegal wars with Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

“War is essentially an evil thing.  Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world.  To initiate a war of aggression therefore, is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”
                                                                                                         Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal 1946

The method used by British Governments to persuade the nation to wage war is as old as the hills - lie repeatedly about the illegality of war.  The British Government used the same lie to promote the war with Libya as it had done for the wars with Afghanistan and Iraq - that military action by HM forces is lawful and authorised by the UN Security Council operating under Chapter VII of the UN Charter

On March 21st 2011, shortly before 559 MPs voted in favour of illegal military action against Libya, the UK Government issued a statement making the false claim that the deployment of British forces against Libya was lawful and authorised by UN Security Council Resolution 1973; their note declared: 
“The Attorney General has been consulted and Her Majesty's Government is satisfied that this Chapter VII authorisation to use all necessary measures provides a clear and unequivocal legal basis for deployment of UK forces and military assets to achieve the resolution's objectives”.   
This Government statement, claiming that the armed attack on Libya would be legal, exemplifies the way in which British politicians, lawyers and civil servants pervert and break the law.  By cross-checking Government statements against the laws governing the use of force, it can quickly be established that the wars with Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya are all illegal. 

The law of war

The two main legal documents which govern the use of armed force in international affairs are the UN Charter and UN General Assembly Resolution 2625.  The first lays down the law and the second explains how to interpret it. 

The UN Charter

The UN Charter is the Statute which lays down the legally binding terms of this agreement in 111 Articles.  Article 2 states the purposes of the United Nations and includes these rules:

2.3   All members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace, security and justice are not endangered.

2.4   All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

Chapter VII of the UN Charter (Articles 39 - 51) contains the rules governing the measures that the UN Security Council may take to bring about peace and security.   Article 41 states:

The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon members of the United Nations to apply such measures…

To a person with common sense the phrase not involving the use of armed force means not involving the use of armed force; so why do British Government lawyers repeatedly claim that the UN Security Council has authorised the use of armed force when it is clearly forbidden?   

UN General Assembly Resolution 2625

In 1970 the United Nations agreed 51 new definitions of the law governing in UNGA Resolution 2625:

DECLARATION ON PRINCIPLES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW CONCERNING FRIENDLY RELATIONS AND
CO-OPERATION AMONG STATES IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS

This Declaration is one of the most important legal documents the world has ever produced; yet few if any public office holders in Britain or America have seen it or read it.   It includes these rules: 

Every State has the duty to refrain in its international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.  Such a threat or use of force constitutes a violation of international law and the Charter of the United Nations and shall never be employed as a means of settling international issues.

No State or group of States has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State. Consequently, armed intervention and all other forms of interference or attempted threats against the personality of the State or against its political, economic and cultural elements are in violation of international law.

The principles of the Charter which are embodied in this Declaration constitute basic principles of international law, and consequently [the UN General Assembly] appeals to all States to be guided by these principles in their international conduct and to develop their mutual relations on the basis of the strict observance of these principles.

These laws are crystal clear.  The use of force is prohibited.  The use of armed force to attack other nations is a crime.  No state or group of States such as NATO, ISAF[1] or the EU, may intervene in another State’s affairs and every State must obey, uphold and enforce these rules.   

The crimes associated with waging aggressive war, laid down in the Nuremburg Principles and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, are also clear.  If any person, in furtherance of a state policy, orders the use of force to attack members of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, that person and everyone who takes part in the attack is responsible for the consequences, breaks international law and, if it results in the deaths of innocent people, commits the universal crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, aggression or conduct ancillary to such crimes.   

So why do British and NATO politicians, lawyers and civil servants interpret phrases such as all necessary measures, humanitarian intervention, and not involving the use of armed force to mean using weapons of mass destruction such as cruise missiles, rockets, drones, bombs and radioactive munitions to invade and occupy Afghanistan and Iraq or to attack Libya?   Could the real reason for these heinous decisions to kill innocent civilians and destroy weaker nations be a psychopathic lack of conscience and moral values, or is it perhaps because they know that they control the law enforcement processes and can ensure that they will never be arrested, prosecuted or convicted for their war crimes, for the suffering inflicted on their victims or the horrific consequences of their decisions.

For more than sixty years UK Government Ministers, officers and lawyers have deceived everyone over the illegality of war and armed conflict and have got away with it.   These massacres of Afghan, Iraqi and Libyan civilians in which at least 450,000 children have died and more than 1m have been injured and maimed since 2001 are the worst atrocities in British history.  Why is it then that not one member of the UK establishment is willing to call a halt to the killing or speak out against it?   Why is it that those with the power to stop the wars and enforce the laws repeatedly refuse to do so?  

It is time for law abiding citizens everywhere to take a stand against Britain’s political, civil, judicial and military leaders and institutions to ensure that the killing is stopped, the resort to war is ended and those responsible for the deaths of 1.5m civilians are arrested and prosecuted for their crimes.   

Chris Coverdale   The Peace Strike   August 2012


[1] the International Security Assistance Force for Afghanistan


The Law is the Law. Police and Judges are bound by position, duty and oath to uphold International and Domestic law. At present they are in breach.
Nuremberg principles
Principle III states, "The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law."
Principle IV
The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.
With immediate affect arrest of all of those whose unlawful actions have directly resulted in, genocide, war crimes, crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, abuse of Human and Civil rights and ecocide.
This is not a political issue, it is one of law.

Saturday 9 June 2012

DECLARATION ON PRINCIPLES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW


Moscow has it right when it says that the UN along with the UK were in breach of international laws that are put in place and agreed to in order to prevent armed conflict. If one looks at the U.N charter it is clear that there is no other interpretation for the phrase "Not involving the use of armed force"
Arms dealing must be outlawed internationally, as it is a direct contravention and is not compliant with International laws. Weapons manufacturer's and suppliers are responsible for crime's against peace, crimes against humanity, genocide, human right abuses and violations.
All governments must be brought to book by their people and the LAW for breaking International LAWS.

http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/chapter1.shtml

The Purposes of the United Nations are:
To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;

The wars with Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya are illegal because they violate the UN Charter, the Treaty for the Renunciation of War and the Rome Statute. Anyone who took part in actions in which civilians were killed is criminally liable for arrest and prosecution for war crimes under the International Criminal Court Act 2001.

The UN Charter

The United Nations is an organization of 193 independent nation states which have promised on behalf of their people to work together to maintain international peace and security and to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war. The UN Charter lays down the binding terms of this agreement in 111 Articles.

2.3 All members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace, security and justice are not endangered.

2.4 All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.  1 Chapters VI and VII of the UN Charter (articles 33 – 51) govern the operations of the UN Security Council.

41. The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force2 are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations.

42. Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.

UN General Assembly Resolution 2625

In the 1960s the United Nations, concerned that States were misinterpreting the UN Charter, asked the International Law Commission to tighten the rules so that all States would be clear on their meaning. In 1970 this work came to fruition when the UN General Assembly agreed and published in UNGA Resolution 2625 the Principles to be used in interpreting the Charter.

DECLARATION ON PRINCIPLES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW CONCERNING

FRIENDLY RELATIONS AND CO-OPERATION AMONG STATES

IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS

Amongst its many important principles are the following:

Every State has the duty to refrain in its international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations. Such a threat or use of force constitutes a violation of international law and the Charter of the United Nations and shall never be employed as a means of settling international issues.

No State or group of States has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State. Consequently, armed intervention and all other forms of interference or attempted threats against the personality of the State or against its political, economic and cultural elements are in violation of international law.

The principles of the Charter which are embodied in this Declaration constitute basic principles of international law, and consequently [the General Assembly] appeals to all States to be guided by these principles in their international conduct and to develop their mutual relations on the basis of the strict observance of these principles.

Monday 21 May 2012

The Queen and War Crimes




The Labour MP Ronnie Campbell is known as a plain speaker. He called the Queen a "fifth generation German" with no right to rule over him.
In this month's Total Politics magazine he said: "Why should we be ruled over by families descended from robber barons, bandits and illegitimate heirs?
"Or, in the case of the current lot, fifth-generation Germans who changed their name from Battenberg to Windsor during the First World War.
“Start Quote
Why should we be ruled over by families descended from robber barons, bandits and illegitimate heirs?”
Ronnie Campbell MPLabour, Blyth
"By what right do they lord it over us? Why should me and mine, who bend knees to no one, be regarded as 'subjects' rather than 'citizens'?"
He compounded that this week by also attacking the plan to rename the tower containing Big Ben as Elizabeth Tower to mark the Diamond Jubilee as "codswallop".




Police March May 10th
Duty of Care and Responsibility

The queen  of England; War Criminal responsible for the death's of millions of people, many of which are women and children.
The Laws Of War









Saturday 21 April 2012

Citizens of the world must unite


Citizens of the world must unite and stop their governments and leaders from waging war with each other, the people do not want the evil of war, the people must collectively arrest their evil leaders who defile life and humanity, this is the only way forward to peace and the protection of the children and the World.
Chris Coverdale is an expert in the Laws of war, this video is documentation of his submission of evidence to the High Court and the solicitors of the government.
The evidence lists in detail the UK governments direct involvement in breaking International laws, crimes against peace and crimes of genocide. Please get on your feet, out on the street and take your ears along to the case this Friday the 27th April, at the high Court in the Strand, London. 10am.
As yet the court number of the case is not yet know, you may have to ask at the front desk. Thanks for your interest, please share this event with your friends in London who you think may come along

Friday 13 April 2012

lack of transparency and accountability

There is definitely a clear lack of transparency and accountability regarding these illegal wars that are being waged by the West.
International laws are being broken; these laws are put in place to avoid genocide and crimes against peace.
It is high time that protocol, transparency and accountability were put back into place, and that all Western figureheads are brought to book and held responsible for their sanctioning of these acts of aggression and genocide.
Justice must be done, and seen to be done. These people must NOT be allowed to flout International laws; they must not be allowed to be beyond the law...
Those responsible for these evils must be seen for what and who they are, war mongers and war criminals.
International laws of war must be adhered to.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlVvIdHndeU
Weapons manufacturer’s and arms traders; these corporate companies are only interested in one thing, their continued growth and profits.
With their ongoing quest for the creation, sale, deployment and use of their weapons and munitions of destruction, these people, to date, have never been held to account for the hundreds of thousands that are killed or maimed as a direct result of their industry.
Let it be absolutely clear, that by the very purpose of these weapons they are directly responsible for war crimes, genocide and crimes against peace.
Many politician’s, corporate companies and investors are, by their actions, directly responsible for genocide and crimes against peace and humanity. These unscrupulous immoral perpetrators need to feel the full force of the law and the justice of the people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPvRURLJiEY

Thursday 23 February 2012

UK War Criminals guilty of crimes against peace due to selling arms

UK War Criminals guilty of crimes against peace due to selling arms to other countries.


Doesn't look right? View it online here
February 14, 2012
UN 'Travesty': Resolutions Of Mass Destruction - Part 1

It has been said that compassion is 'the only beauty that truly pleases' (Aryasura, The Marvelous Companion, Dharma Publishing, 1983, p.305). While beauty ordinarily provokes the fiery itch of desire or the sullen shadow of envy, compassion is cooling, blissful, inspiring awe and wonder. It implies an ability to stand outside our own needs as observers, to perceive the suffering of others as of equal or greater importance. But like all forms of beauty, compassion can be faked, exploited.
On February 4, Western politicians and journalists responded with outrage to the Russian and Chinese vetoing of a UN security council resolution calling for Syrian president Bashar Assad to step down as part of a ‘political transition’. UK foreign secretary, William Hague, said:
‘More than 2,000 people have died since Russia and China vetoed the last draft resolution in October 2011. How many more need to die before Russia and China allow the UN security council to act?
‘Those opposing UN security council action will have to account to the Syrian people for their actions, which do nothing to help bring an end to the violence that is ravaging the country. The United Kingdom will continue to support the people of Syria and the Arab League to find an end to the violence and allow a Syrian-led political transition.’
The corporate media took the same view. A leading article in the Independent commented:
‘Hillary Clinton described the vetoing of the UN resolution as a “travesty”. She is right. But this cannot be the international community's last word.’
Curiously, while Hague talked of the West’s determination ‘to find an end to the violence’, and the media railed against the Russians and Chinese for failing to seek the same, almost no-one noticed that the resolution had itself subordinated the possibility of a ceasefire to the demand for regime change.
The draft resolution did call ‘for an immediate end to all violence’. But it specifically demanded ‘that the Syrian government… withdraw all Syrian military and armed forces from cities and towns, and return them to their original home barracks’.
This one-sided demand that only Syrian government forces should withdraw from the streets closely resembled the Machiavellian device built into UN Resolution 1973 on Libya, passed on March 17, 2011.
This also called for ‘the immediate establishment of a cease-fire’ supported by ‘a ban on all flights’ in Libyan airspace. But crucially, the determination was added ‘to take all necessary measures… to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi…’
This clearly had nothing to do with the mere banning of flights. Indeed, the authorisation to protect civilians by ‘all necessary means’ transformed Nato planes from neutral monitors of Libyan airspace into a ground-attack air force for ‘rebel’ fighters.
Far from bringing an end to the violence, UN Resolution 1973 unleashed overwhelming Western force in pursuit of regime change, in a war that was fought to the bitter end. To ensure the right outcome, Western and other powers supplied special forces and weapons, simply ignoring the resolution's call for 'strict implementation of the arms embargo' and 'excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory'. In short, the resolution resulted in a massive escalation in violence. Seumas Milne noted in the Guardian last week:
‘When it began, the death toll was 1,000 to 2,000. By the time Muammar Gaddafi was captured and lynched seven months later, it was estimated at more than 10 times that figure. The legacy of foreign intervention in Libya has also been mass ethnic cleansing, torture and detention without trial, continuing armed conflict, and a western-orchestrated administration so unaccountable it resisted revealing its members' names.’
The New York Times also reported last week: ‘The country that witnessed the Arab world’s most sweeping revolution [sic] is foundering’ with a government ‘whose authority extends no further than its offices’ and where ‘militias are proving to be the scourge of the revolution’s aftermath’.
Militia violence is rife – Human Rights Watch (HRW) estimates 250 separate militias in the city of Misrata alone. Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director at HRW, said:
‘People are turning up dead in detention at an alarming rate. If this was happening under any Arab dictatorship, there would be an outcry.’
On January 26, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) announced its decision ‘to suspend its operations in detention centers in Misrata’. Detainees ‘are being tortured and denied urgent medical care’:
‘MSF doctors had been increasingly confronted with patients who suffered injuries caused by torture during interrogation sessions… In total, MSF treated 115 people who had torture-related wounds.... Since January, several of the patients returned to interrogation centers were again tortured.’
MSF general director Christopher Stokes commented:
‘Our role is to provide medical care to war casualties and sick detainees, not to repeatedly treat the same patients between torture sessions.’
As ever, violence for which the West shares responsibility has been met with indifference and quickly forgotten. According to the media database Lexis-Nexis, Stokes' comments were mentioned once in half a dozen newspapers on January 27, with no follow up. Ironically, Bouckaert's comments on the absent 'outcry' have themselves been ignored.
As a result, the post-war disaster in Libya has given journalists little pause for thought on the merits of the West's latest 'humanitarian intervention' in Syria. Facts have to be recognised as real and important to have an impact.
'Further Measures'
Returning to the vetoed UN resolution, the one-sided demand that Syrian government forces withdraw, but not anti-government fighters, was combined with the demand that the Syrian government ‘facilitate a Syrian-led political transition to a democratic, plural political system’ – regime change by any other name - ‘in an environment free from violence, fear, intimidation and extremism’. The draft text promised ‘to review implementation of this resolution within 21 days and, in the event of non-compliance, to consider further measures’.
The trap was clear enough – Syrian forces would have been ordered back to barracks. If the fighters had continued fighting and government forces had responded, this would have constituted ‘non-compliance’, opening the way for ‘further measures’, including foreign intervention leading to regime change. This would have given Syrian fighters every motivation to continue the violence in hopes of triggering the kind of Western intervention that destroyed Gaddafi and that they have been openly seeking.
None of this should come as a surprise. For the West, a peaceful solution in Libya (as in Iraq) was perceived as an obstacle to the actual goal, regime change. Milne observed last August: ‘If stopping the killing had been the real aim, Nato states would have backed a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement, rather than repeatedly vetoing both. Instead, UN Resolution 1973 ‘has since been used as Nato's fig leaf to justify the onslaught against Gaddafi and deliver regime change from the air’.
Consider, then, that we have strong evidence that the vetoed resolution on Syria would have escalated violence in pursuit of regime change (an illegal aspiration under international law). We have the clear example of Libya, from just last year, of very similar machinations producing regime change, a ten times increase in violence, and massive post-war chaos and violence.
If this isn’t enough to question the ‘black and white’ portrayal of the Russian and Chinese veto as a ‘travesty’, we can consider the filmed testimony of former Nato chief, General Wesley Clark, when he recalled a conversation with a Pentagon general in 2001, a few weeks after the September 11 attacks:
‘He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs” — meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office — “today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.”’
Clark added:
‘They wanted us to destabilize the Middle East, turn it upside down, make it under our control.’
He recounted a conversation he had had in 1991 with Paul Wolfowitz, then US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, who told Clark: ‘we’ve got about 5 or 10 years to clean up those old Soviet regimes – Syria, Iran, Iraq – before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us’.
In response, Clark said he asked himself: ‘the purpose of the military is to start wars and change governments? It’s not to deter conflicts?’
Clark’s conclusion will be blindingly obvious to future historians, if not to contemporary journalists:
‘[T]here are always interests. The truth about the Middle East is, had there been no oil there, it would be like Africa. Nobody is threatening to intervene in Africa. The problem is the opposite. We keep asking for people to intervene and stop [violence]. There’s no question that the presence of petroleum throughout the region has sparked great power involvement.’
It is hard to imagine Clark being dismissed as a crazed conspiracy theorist lacking 'insider' knowledge – he was Nato chief, after all. But his account has been ignored – talk of a hidden agenda of realpolitik challenges the Manichean view of the world that makes ‘humanitarian intervention’ possible. We can find only one mention of Clark's comments in all UK national newspapers – by Clark himself in an article for The Times in 2003 (Clark, ‘Iraq: Why it was the wrong war on the wrong enemy for the wrong reasons,’ The Times, October 23, 2003).
In light of the above facts and arguments, it is interesting to consider the comments of UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, who condemned the Russian and Chinese veto as ‘disastrous for the Syrian people’. The failure to agree on collective action, he said, had ‘encouraged the Syrian government to step up its war on its own people’.
But honest analysis suggests serious room for doubt - the vetoed resolution might itself have been disastrous for the Syrian people. With these words, the UN secretary-general told us much about his own position. Indeed, the near-unanimity in outrage that has characterised so much commentary, despite obvious holes in the reasoning, is symptomatic of a widespread conformity that defers to 'pragmatic' considerations rather than to common sense.
It is interesting, also, to consider in more detail the response of the corporate press.
Part 2 will follow shortly…


This Alert is Archived here:
UN 'Travesty': Resolutions Of Mass Destruction - Part 1
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February 16, 2012
UN 'Travesty': Resolutions Of Mass Destruction - Part 2

On February 6, a cry of moral outrage arose from that collection of selfless humanitarians otherwise known as The Times newspaper. Responding to fighting in the Syrian city of Homs, which has included government shelling of civilian areas variously reported to have claimed scores or hundreds of lives, a Times leading article observed:
‘Pensioners, the sick, women, children - none was spared as the military took revenge on the centre of opposition to the Assad dictatorship.’ (Leading article, ‘Moral Blindness; Russia and China acted for self-serving motives in vetoing the Security Council's condemnation of the bloodshed in Syria,’ The Times, February 6, 2012)
The leader pulled no punches in describing ‘the carnage the regime's minders have tried to hide: corpses with their eyes gouged out, their skulls crushed, their faces burnt off.’
The editors fumed:
‘Russia's moral bankruptcy and China's self-serving blindness have been denounced from the Gulf to Morocco...’
As we saw in Part 1, and as also in this case, the denunciations are mostly offered by people drowning in hypocrisy. The Times concluded that, ‘no veto can, in the end, save [the Syrian government] from the fury of a nation so humiliatingly brutalised’.
Syrian government violence is real and horrific, but not a word in the article commented on the armed fighters in Syria that are reported to have killed many hundreds of Syrian troops and police. Unable to perceive the Western interests described by former Nato chief Wesley Clark (See Part 1), The Times was able to identify cynical self-interest elsewhere:
‘Russia is determined, above all, to protect its naval presence in Syria, thwart Western interests in the region and shield a regime that now owes it an existential debt.’
Compare The Times’ response to Israel’s far more destructive Operation Cast Lead offensive in the Gaza strip between December 27, 2008 and January 18, 2009. The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem reported:
‘The magnitude of the harm to the population was unprecedented: 1,385 Palestinians were killed, 762 of whom did not take part in the hostilities. Of these, 318 were minors under age 18. More than 5,300 Palestinians were wounded, of them over 350 seriously so. Israel also caused enormous damage to residential dwellings, industrial buildings, agriculture and infrastructure for electricity, sanitation, water, and health, which was on the verge of collapse prior to the operation. According to UN figures, Israel destroyed more than 3,500 residential dwellings and 20,000 people were left homeless.’
Three Israeli civilians and six Israeli soldiers were killed by Palestinian fire.
In a leader, The Times sternly rejected the subsequent Goldstone Report – a mission established by the UN to investigate war crimes during the crisis. Goldstone found that crimes had been committed by both sides. Understandably, the report focused heavily on the ‘disproportionate use of force’ by the Israelis in its ‘deliberate targeting’ of Palestinian civilians. Despite the casualty figures, The Times found this absurd because ‘there is no equivalence between the actions of Israel in self-defence and those of Hamas in seeking to destroy it’.
Describing the offensive as merely an ‘incursion’ (the Syrian government’s attacks in Homs are a ‘massacre’ for The Times) the editors wrote of Israel:
‘It had no choice but to respond to [Palestinian] provocations.’ (Leading article, ‘The Gaza Trap; The Goldstone report is biased and Europeans on the UN Human Rights Council should reject it rather than abstaining,’ The Times, October 16, 2009)
Despite the obvious scale of the carnage, The Times claimed: ‘Israel adheres to standards higher than those of its enemies.’
A recent leader in the Independent expressed similar revulsion at Russia and China’s veto: ‘the violence in Homs in recent days – with fears of a full-scale military assault to come – is a direct result of their unforgivable self-interest’. It added:
‘Moscow has abandoned the Syrian people to the depredations of a regime that is daily becoming more murderous.’
As we have seen, the reality could be close to the reverse – the proposed resolution might have inflicted far worse violence on the Syrian people. It might have abandoned the Syrian people to the depredations of the West. As for the ‘unforgivable self-interest’ noted by the Independent, do we really believe – after Iraq and Libya – that US-UK interests are less self-centred?
Again, by contrast, two weeks into Israel’s Operation Cast Lead offensive, an Independent leader commented on January 10, 2009:
‘Israel's invasion of Gaza seemed depressingly far from an endgame last night, despite the encouraging signs from the UN Security Council. Although the Security Council produced a ceasefire resolution, it was fatally undermined by the American abstention.’
The US's undermining of UN action was not widely condemned as a ‘travesty’ at the time – how Hillary Clinton described the vetoing of the UN resolution on Syria, with the Independent’s approval. Instead, the Independent noted of Operation Cast Lead:
‘A good deal of nonsense has been spoken this past week regarding Israel's military operation. The most egregious contribution has come from a senior Catholic cardinal, who has compared the Gaza Strip to a "concentration camp". The comparison is entirely spurious…
‘Moreover, the idea being pushed by some propagandists in the West that the Israeli state is deliberately setting out to kill innocent Palestinians is just as offensive and wrong. The Israel administration's priority in this operation is to defend its citizens from rocket attacks by Hamas.’
Arming Bahrain - A William Hague Tragi-Comedy
Happily, not all of the Independent's coverage is as crass and biased as this. As discussed in Part 1, UK foreign secretary William Hague commented last week on the Russian and Chinese veto:
‘More than 2,000 people have died since Russia and China vetoed the last draft resolution in October 2011. How many more need to die before Russia and China allow the UN security council to act?’
Tragi-comically, two days later, the Independent reported:
‘Two Cabinet ministers will be challenged today over fears that British-made weapons have been used to suppress dissidents in Bahrain and Egypt.
‘Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, and William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, are to be tackled by MPs over arms sales worth more than £12m to Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Egypt in just three months.’
The article continued:
‘Between July and September 2011, Britain sold weapons worth £2.2m to Bahrain, of which £1.3m was specifically for military use. It included gun silencers, naval guns and weapons sights.
‘At least 35 people died as the Gulf state's monarchy crushed the so-called Pearl Revolution last year. It called in help from its ally, Saudi Arabia, which sent troops and armored vehicles across the causeway linking the countries.
‘Over the same period £8.9m-worth of arms were sold to Saudi Arabia, of which £4.5m was for military use. It included parts for combat aircraft, for army vehicles and for machine guns.
‘As well as the suspicion that the UK could have indirectly helped to put down the Bahraini uprising, MPs will also raise concerns over Saudi Arabia's human rights record.’
Unfortunately, US and UK journalists almost never join the evidential dots for and against Hague and Cable’s claimed enthusiasm for ‘humanitarian intervention’. Hence this comment in a Guardian leader last week:
‘Does Russia really want to be the global protector of tyrants who turn their guns on their own people simply in order to get one back against the west after the overthrow of a worthless leader like Gaddafi?... Russia has put itself on the wrong side of the argument.’
The West’s extraordinary history of supporting tyrants – including Suharto, Somoza, Trujillo, Armas, Pinochet, Diem, Amin, Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Saleh, Mubarak, and many others - makes this laughable. So, too, does the travesty of the US’s long history of vetoing UN resolutions intended to protect the Palestinians and others. The Guardian added:
‘There is a case, of an extremely limited sort, to be made for some of Russia's obstructionism over Syria. Moscow has decided it was misled by the west over Libya. It is therefore determined not to help sanction any sort of repetition over Syria (even though the vetoed UN motion explicitly renounced regime change and the use of force).’
Moscow has ‘decided’ nothing – it was misled over Libya. The UN did not authorise the regime change that the West achieved by transforming UN Resolution 1973 into a weapon of mass destruction.
Analysis of the wording of the failed UN resolution on Syria also makes a nonsense of the Guardian’s assurances on the West having ‘renounced regime change and the use of force’ – ‘further measures’ would have been sought after 21 days in the event of ‘non-compliance’.
The BBC’s Paul Wood, a safe pair of hands reporting from Homs, Syria, commented:
‘In the first hour or so, we heard a lot of gunfire from rebel fighters of the Free Syria Army. It was a futile gesture - Kalashnikovs against artillery.’
In October 2004, reporting from Iraq’s third city, Fallujah, the same Paul Wood referred to the ‘so-called “resistance fighters”’ of Fallujah. (Wood, BBC1, 13:00 News, October 22, 2004)
In 2004, Fallujah faced a rather more formidable foe than does Homs. It was subjected to all-out assault by 3rd Battalion/1st US Marines, 3rd Battalion/5th Marines, the US Army's 2nd Battalion/7th Cavalry, the 1st Battalion/8th Marines, 1st Battalion/3rd Marines, and the Army's 2nd Battalion/2nd Infantry, totalling 10,500 heavily armed troops. Some 2,000 Iraqi soldiers joined the attack. These were supported by massive air support, as well as Marine and Army artillery battalions. The 850-strong 1st battalion of the British Black Watch regiment was tasked to help encircle the city.
This was more than shelling; it was a major, World War II-style offensive on residential areas.
On November 30, 2004, the UN's Integrated Regional Information Network described the results:
‘Approximately 70 per cent of the houses and shops were destroyed in the city and those still standing are riddled with bullets.’ (‘Fallujah still needs more supplies despite aid arrival,’ www.irinnews.org, November 30, 2004)
In January 2005, an Iraqi doctor, Ali Fadhil, reported of the city:
‘It was completely devastated, destruction everywhere. It looked like a city of ghosts. Falluja used to be a modern city; now there was nothing. We spent the day going through the rubble that had been the centre of the city; I didn’t see a single building that was functioning.’
The Red Cross estimated 800 civilian deaths by November 16. Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia have also since been reported.
Paul Wood commented from Homs:
‘"The UN abandoned us," one Homs resident told me. "Who's going to help us now, who's going to help us now?"
‘People said that to me over and over; that they felt abandoned, alone.
‘After the failure of the vote in the UN Security Council at the weekend, they have lost hope that the outside world will help.
‘They expect the worst from a regime they fear can now act without restraint.’
We can recall nothing comparable from Wood in November 2004 as Fallujah was being devastated by the US-UK attack. Then, it would have been politically incorrect for a BBC journalist to suggest that Iraqi civilians ‘felt abandoned’, that they had ‘lost hope that the outside world will help’. After all, the BBC portrayed US and UK forces attacking Iraq as liberators. How could the people require saving from the troops sent to ‘save’ them? As Wood himself said in December 2005:
‘The coalition came to Iraq in the first place to bring democracy and human rights.’ (Paul Wood, BBC1, News at Ten, December 22, 2005)
Ironically, like other media that dismissed highly credible scientific analyses of the death toll in Iraq - published in one of the world's most respected medical journals, the Lancet - the BBC has been reporting hundreds of deaths in Homs based on anecdotal evidence and highly questionable sources. Robert Dreyfuss comments in The Nation:
‘The killings in Syria are ugly, but no doubt wildly exaggerated. Nearly all, repeat all, of the information about the violence in Syria is coming from a handful of exiled Syrian opposition groups backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and various Western powers. Did 200 people really die in Homs this past weekend, conveniently just on the eve of the UNSC debate [on the resolution]? Who knows? The only source for the fishy information, though ubiquitously quoted in the New York Times, the wire services, the network news and elsewhere, are the suspect Syrian opposition groups, who have axes galore to grind.’
A key source for BBC reporting has long been the British-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights. Aisling Byrne writes in the Asian Times:
‘Of the three main sources for all data on numbers of protesters killed and numbers of people attending demonstrations - the pillars of the narrative - all are part of the “regime change” alliance. The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, in particular, is reportedly funded through a Dubai-based fund with pooled (and therefore deniable) Western-Gulf money…. What appears to be a nondescript British-based organization, the Observatory has been pivotal in sustaining the narrative of the mass killing of thousands of peaceful protesters using inflated figures, “facts”, and often exaggerated claims of “massacres” and even recently “genocide”.’
In an interview with ABC News, the Syrian Observatory’s Dr Mousab Azzawi gave an idea of the dispassionate tone of the analysis: ‘In two words, this is a genocide.’
Just as deep media scepticism in response to the peer-reviewed Lancet studies on Iraq was near-universal, so blind faith in the claims of Syrian ‘activist groups’ has become the accepted norm. A Telegraph leader even combined the two biases to paint the preferred picture:
'Over the weekend, the Syrian government carried out the most savage reprisals against its opponents since the recent uprising began. More than 200 people are thought to have been killed by artillery, tanks and mortars in Homs. That figure compares with the worst daily spikes in violence in Iraq in 2006 and 2007. And the death total in Syria over the past 11 months – more than 5,600, according to UN estimates – is well above that over the same period for its still troubled eastern neighbour.'
That is true, if we accept unsubstantiated reports from ‘activists’ in Syria. And if we ignore the Lancet’s science in favour of figures supplied by the obviously flawed and incomplete Iraq Body Count.
On the BBC’s Newsnight programme, high-profile anchor Jeremy Paxman opened the programme with:
‘We don’t know precisely how many people have been killed by the Syrian army as President Assad tries to murder those who oppose his dictatorship. But we do know that they include children. All this while China and Russia provide a form of diplomatic protection.’ (Newsnight, February 6, 2012)
Has Paxman ever accused Bush, Blair, Obama, Cameron or their armies of trying ‘to murder’ their opponents?
And Paxman’s opening question to Alexander Nekrasov, former Kremlin advisor: ‘Are you comfortable having the blood of Syrians on your hands?’
Imagine Paxman asking something comparable of a high-ranking British or American politician. But in fact Paxman could pose a similar question to Hague, Cameron and Obama: Why did the West prioritise regime change over peace in Libya, at such horrific cost? And why is it doing so now in Syria?
Paxman’s Newsnight colleague, Mark Urban, commented helpfully: 'the US, UK, and France have emphasised that their approach on Syria has been motivated by humanitarian compassion and the desire to see a transition to democracy, rather than a desire to strike a blow against Iran by toppling its close friend President Assad’.
Wesley Clark’s revelations, the facts, and simple common sense, suggest that genuine answers will not be found in the ‘humanitarian compassion’ of a Western political system notoriously in thrall to corporate interests.

SUGGESTED ACTION
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UN 'Travesty': Resolutions Of Mass Destruction - Part 2
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Wednesday 11 January 2012

Lawful Tax Rebellion

Boris Johnson on video saying "We will Arrest UK war criminals"
Also included is a crime report update from Chris Coverdale
www.taxrebellion.org






http://www.taxrebellion.org/tr/Home.html

Kellogg--Briand Pact
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kellogg%E2%80%93Briand_Pact

Nuremberg Trials
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Trials

List of war crimes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_crimes

• The Genocide Convention, 1948.
• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948.
• The Nuremberg Principles, 1950.
• The Convention on the Abolition of the Statute of Limitations on War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, 1968.
• The Geneva Convention on the Laws and Customs of War, 1949; its supplementary protocols, 1977.

Your Country is being run by war criminals_War_Crimes Arrest UK war criminals NOW TIME


The Tribunal established by the Agreement referred to in Article 1 hereof for the trial and punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis countries shall have the power to try and punish persons who, acting in the interests of the European Axis countries, whether as individuals or as members of organizations, committed any of the following crimes.
The following acts, or any of them, are crimes coming within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal for which there shall be individual responsibility:

(a) Crimes against Peace: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a Common Plan or Conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing;
(b) War Crimes: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity;
(c) Crimes against Humanity: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war,14 or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of domestic law of the country where perpetrated.
Leaders, organizers, instigators, and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution
of a Common Plan or Conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan


War Crime Police Report Nov 28th 2011
submitted to Belgrave Police Station