Rusbridger’s Guardian has become an unrepentant unionist, zionist, and neo-con New Labour propaganda vehicle. Particularly deceitful is their attitude to the security services and the “war on terror”, where Rusbridger stands revealed as a handmaiden to power. He was, a very senior Guardian source told me, particularly upset when I described him as “Tony Blair’s catamite”. Let me say it again.
Let me give you a specific case to illustrate my point.
On 2 August the Guardian published a piece by Jamie Doward and Ian Cobain which, on the face of it, exposed the British Foreign Office for lobbying against the publication of the US Senate report on extraordinary rendition, lest details of British complicity become public.
On the face of it, a worthy piece of journalism exposing deeply shady government behaviour.
Except that I had published precisely the same story a full 15 weeks earlier, on April 14 2014, having been urgently contacted by a whistleblower.
What is more, immediately I heard from the whistleblower I made several urgent phone calls to Ian Cobain. He neither took nor returned my calls. I therefore left detailed messages, referring to the story which I had now published on my website.
In fact, the Guardian only published this story after William Hague had written to Reprieve to confirm that this lobbying had happened. In other words the Guardian published only after disclosure had been authorised by Government.
Furthermore, in publishing the government authorised story, the Guardian omitted the absolutely key point – that the purpose of the UK lobbying was to affect court cases under way and in prospect in the UK. Both in civil cases of compensation for victims, and in potential criminal cases for complicity in torture against Blair, Straw et al, British judges have (disgracefully) accepted the argument that evidence of the torture cannot be used because the American do not want it revealed, and may curtail future intelligence sharing. Obviously, if the Americans publish the material themselves, this defence falls.
As this defence is the major factor keeping Blair, Straw and numerous still senior civil servants out of the dock, this sparked the crucial British lobbying to suppress the Feinstein report – which has indeed succeeded in causing a huge amount of redaction by the White House.
My mole was absolutely adamant this was what was happening, and it is what I published. Yet Cobain in publishing the government authorised version does not refer to the impact on trials at all – despite the fact that this was 100% the subject of the letter from Reprieve to which Hague was replying, and that the letter from Reprieve mentioned me and my blog by name.
Instead of giving the true story, the government authorised version published by Cobain misdirects the entire subject towards Diego Garcia. The truth is that Diego Garcia is pretty incidental in the whole rendition story. On UK soil there was actually a great deal more done at Wick airport (yes, I do mean Wick, not Prestwick). That is something the government is still keeping tight closed, so don’t expect a mention from Cobain.
I was fooled by Cobain for a long time. What I now realise is that his role is to codify and render safe information which had already leaked. He packages it and sends it off in a useless direction – away from Blair and Straw in this instance. He rigorously excludes material which is too hot for the establishment to handle. The great trick is, that the Guardian persuades its loyal readers that it is keeping tabs on the security services when in fact it is sweeping up after them.
Which is a precise description of why the Guardian fell out with Assange and WikiLeaks.
I suppose I should expect no better of the newspaper which happily sent the extremely noble Sara Tisdall to prison, but we should have learnt a lot from Rusbridger’s agreement with the security services to smash the Snowden hard drives. The Guardian argues that other copies of the drives existed. That is scarcely the point. Would you participate in a book-burning because other copies of books exist? The Guardian never stands up to the security services or the establishment. It just wants you to believe that it does.
RIP Paul Foot.
Where are the Paul Foots of today? There are none I am afraid to say.
No they are not, they are the same miscreants stalking this blog engaged in zersetzung. Craig has patently kicked the right gonads and the resulting ouch is translated into the unconscious drivel splattered around as “comments”.
I really enjoyed the hearty insults, Craig must have kicked the gonads (I particularly enjoyed the catamite reference, thanks Craig) pretty hard there.
This is a given that the only “freedom” of the press prevailing in UKUS means you are free to own one, and the rest is just window dressing for the sake of those who really are not clever enough to get their own news and views from the internet.
Guardian and the other four that colluded and shoved poor starry eyed Assange into his current situation are in fact the hand reared pets of the SIS.
Anyone can recollect the last call doomed Kelly made form the telephone box? Evidently he talked to a reporter in US the afternoon before he going missing after which he was found dead.
That reporter taken into confidence by poor Kelly never published the living will of the desolate Kelly whom by then knew for certain he was a dead man walking.
Talking of SIS have you noticed iSIS is no longer getting used, and instead the new directive is to use “IS” (Islamic State) as er the latest stenographers dispatches? (this blog must be read by some of the boys).
“If Hamas is an Israeli puppet organisation, why’d the Palestinians vote for them in numbers”
I think what the Israelis did is assist in the creation of Hamas (more let it happen than make it happen) as a loopier (easier to deal with because you can always say they’re loopers the better to dismiss them) version of secular Palestinian resistance.
It don’t mean that Hamas are day and daily taking orders from Tel Aviv.
Having been created, they have their own ambitions too.
Elites always prefer to deal with what they can easily label Terrorist than your more rational western sounding chap.
See Norn Iron, from Civil Rights Movement to IRA.
Craig,
This is off topic – but I wondered what your views are as this situation in Iraq unfolds.
What are your thoughts on the bombing to protect the Christians in Iraq?
I am sympathetic about the innocent people not being slaughtered, yet I have some questions:-
1. Wasn’t it when the US invaded Iraq that the largest ever numbers of Iraqi Christians were attacked and killed? That is during the actual period of US occupation.
2. If the US bombs it will disperse and destroy some ISIS positions, but to be able to keep ISIS out it will need ground forces.
3. Isn’t it that the US is right back in Iraq ( have they really left?) and it is just a matter of time before the US public starts to see that this is a crawling peg re-engagement – while they are being told that US troops are now out of Iraq? What is the real reason behind the professed reason for the US operations?
Why would anyone be a loyal reader of the Guardian, in fact why would anyone be a loyal reader of any of the tabloids or broadsheets. Journalism, in the UK is dead, good journalism anyway, by that I mean truthful reporting. in most cases the press is just an extension of the ruling class and government, none more so than in the UK, and USA.
Even the tv channels are under the control of politically influential people, who’s interest are more often than not, outside of the UK. one measure of this is the BBC who are petrified to mention anything about Palestine or Gaza, without first getting permission from Israel.
As for rendition flights in the UK , I did read somewhere that over 300 of these covert flights landed in northern Scotland, on there way to other countries, no doubt to torture and extract info from illegally snatched persons. The USA can pick you up now from virtually anywhere in the world and unbelievable as it sounds, many countries have signed up to this practice and know fine well what they entail.
Blatant establishment newspapers, well ones I,ve found to act on the establishment behalf are the Telegraph, some say its the official MI5/MI6 mouthpiece, and of course who could forget Paul Dacre’s Daily Mail, who’s journalists seem to make it up as they go. It frightening to think that many people actually believe, the stories carried by these, well lets just call them interesting reading sheets, even more unsettling is the fact they have quite a large loyal readership.
@Mary: John Pilger, Tariq Ali, perhaps Robert Fisk… but it seems that there is no-one under 60… Why is that, I wonder?
Grauniad Facebook page is absolutely littered with comments decrying the despicable “Advert” if it could be called that. Looks like a massive faceplant to me.
The Guardian’s tipping point, from which there can be no return, was their survival instinct, Standing by while they destroyed the infamous harddrives, while GCHQ looked on approvingly, must have given them pause.
Now, they are ‘all in’, just like the former paper-of-record, NYT. Henceforth, their sourcing and attribution must be curry-combed for the lice thriving in dark conditions.
Incidentally, Wick was picked in the 1950’s by (AWE) the Atomic Weapons Establishment, the nuclear arm of the British government, to detonate a nuclear bomb, the exact place the weapon was to be exploded was Duncansby head. No thought was given to the nuclear fall-out nor the landscape, nor more importantly the local people.
So why didn’t they go ahead and detonate the nuclear device was it because, of the natural beauty of the area, or was it because of the concern of the locals, or did they have second thoughts because after all Scotland is part of the UK and the British establishment couldn’t possibly do that to UK nationals.
It turns out it was none of the above, no, the British government chose not explode a nuclear device in Scotland, at Duncansby head, because it was decided the area was to wet.
So, which newspaper would you recommend? Let me guess: none. Maybe you should start one. 🙂
“John Pilger, Tariq Ali, perhaps Robert Fisk… but it seems that there is no-one under 60… Why is that, I wonder?”
In the post war period you could make a career for yourself being bolshie about anything. Freedom of thought and expression was considered quite important, and there were some very brilliant people in politics, church and media.
Now you can only make a career being bolshie about elite targets, and of course these areas of life are not so attractive to brilliant people. They’re mostly filled with dimwits.
All the real journalists and critics are now on the dangerous interweb that really needs controlling to protect kids, and Hadley’s who find it all a bit too critical and not agreeing with them and stuff.
Re Craig’s Comment – “The Guardian never stands up to the security services or the establishment”
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/28/1182880/-The-Guardian-in-America-Icon-of-the-left-or-too-close-to-British-Intelligence#
OT:
The personal as politics: Hollywood heavy Brian Cox on why Scotland needs to vote Yes http://tinyurl.com/oujkjpy [audio]
The problem with Robert Fisk’s articles in the Independent (the rest of the paper being entirely ‘lifestyle’ and sleb tosh), seemed to me when last I looked a long time ago, is that he’s never given enough space, room to develop a theme, enough column inches to do anything more than deliver half a dozen or so staccato paragraphs. A dreamy travelogue from the edge of a war zone. Endearing local colour building you hope to a point and then he wanders off to look at the fruit on the market stall. It’s paper and ink, electrons if online, they’re not all that scarce commodities, it is almost as if he’s being paid inversely by the word, the more he has published, the less he will get. There is a sort of ‘Ah, Lebanon’ air of reminiscence to his reports on the present day. Pilger (go for the jugular) Multiplier 0.62.
William Hague, the blind supporter of the Zionist entity should not had pulled his dirty pants.
http://rehmat1.com/2010/05/13/hague-i-will-fight-iran-for-israel/
Yes Tony M – one wonder who is paying anti-Israel like Robert Fisk.
“Four million Canadians carrying this anti-Semite “disease”? We’ve heard this kind of despicable propaganda before. Does B’nai B’rith Canada not realize that these very same despicable lies were used by the Nazis in their hate propaganda against the Jews of Europe? In Hitler’s Germany, Jews were described as microbes. Jews, according to Julius Streicher, were “the carriers of disease and vermin among men”. In August 1941, Goebbels called Jews “the carriers of infectious diseases” and two weeks later referred to Jews as “parasites”. By November, he was calling them “lice”, Robert Fisk wrote recently.
http://rehmat1.com/2014/07/07/bnai-brith-canada-four-million-canadians-hate-jews/
Dan Huil
11 Aug, 2014 – 2:20 pm
“Boycott all newspapers – except the Sunday Herald.”
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…and the Beano.
Here we go….. again. It’s like a bad dream.
British To Use RAF Tornados In Iraq Mission
A British RAF Tornado GR4 ground attack
A “small number” of RAF Tornado fast jets will be deployed to improve UK surveillance and assist the humanitarian mission in Iraq.
http://news.sky.com/story/1316849/british-to-use-raf-tornados-in-iraq-mission
What aid can Tornado’s deliver? answer, they can pacify large amount of people with one foul swoop….
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/breaking_news_tornado_jets_from_raf_marham_set_to_fly_reconnaisance_missions_over_iraq_1_3722271
We have already dropped aid on Sinjar yesterday, did that fail to reach its recipients?
These Tornados will do reconnisance for future attacks and they have been in the air all day long, despite high columns of cumulonimbus.
…and the Beano.
and Classic Motorcycle, please…..;)
Guardian PR defending the indefensible.
Guardian issues a corporate PR bulletin defending decision to take money for toxic advert
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1407772731.html
“We have already dropped aid on Sinjar yesterday, did that fail to reach its recipients?”
Tons of food and some 15000 gallons of water air-dropped without chutes. So no, it didn’t have the desired effect.
Mary
11 Aug, 2014 – 3:57 pm
“Where are the Paul Foots of today?”
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Feet surely? (Ed)
Nevermind, it will happen anyway
11 Aug, 2014 – 6:15 pm
“…cumulonimbus.”
———————————–
Didn’t he discover America?
Tons of food and some 15000 gallons of water air-dropped without chutes. So no, it didn’t have the desired effect.
I thought the RAF failed to drop because of Health & Safety concerns – there were too many people on the dropsite waiting for the supplies. Some might have been killed – though of course many will have died today through thirst and hunger, waiting for tonight’s second attempt.
“However, Iraqi officials said that much of the US aid had been “useless” because it was dropped from 15,000ft without parachutes and exploded on impact.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/11024037/Iraq-crisis-It-is-death-valley.-Up-to-70-per-cent-of-them-are-dead.html
Doug, I’m sitting right underneath a turning point for them and have a visual of their flight manouvres, they have been at it most of the day.
You must feel lucky that they did not chose Lossiemouth as a future base and target…..;)
I was inclined to be forgiving to Rusbridger, until I saw that ad. No excuse. To the uttermost pit of journalist hell with him, where hacks are lashed to their desks under a rain of redhot type metal and repeatedly crushed in the Satanic litho presses, under the direction of Paul Dacre-alike demons. And for respite sprayed with flesh-eating bacteria.
The Times declined to print it. Say no more.
Last time I buy that rag, but I reserve the right to look at the cartoon online…
My comment is awaiting moderation. Was it the mention of Paul Dacre?
” On UK soil there was actually a great deal more done at Wick airport (yes, I do mean Wick, not Prestwick).”
I think when the John O’Groats Journal reported there had been some extraordinary renditions in Wick they were talking about the Karaoke Night in the Camps Bar.
However apart from that some private jets which have in the past been used by the CIA landed at Wick, refuelled and took off again, narrowly missing the sheep grazing on the runway.