Rusbridger The Worst Editor in the World Part 97 200


One war criminal writing about another. Nice chums you have, Rusbridger*.

For once there was something worth reading in the Guardian, an article by my friend Coleen Rowley. But the Guardian cut out the most important paragraph in the article. As Coleen put it in an email:

Unfortunately, the paper edited out the politically incorrect paragraph pointing out that the British Parliament committee inquiry totally ignored why Islamic terrorist recruitment is rising exponentially. So an even more important opinion piece needs to be written as to the factor swelling the numbers joining and affiliating with “terrorist” groups. Although the two issues are related as people’s naïve belief in the national security complex’s magical data-mining serves as cover to keep the more important debate from happening. Similar to Helen Thomas’ politically incorrect question: “why do they hate us?” or put more gently: “why can’t our bombs and exceptionalism win hearts and minds?” No longer will anyone in mainstream even ask if the US-NATO-Israel’s reliance on perpetual war, drone assassination and regime changes is working to reduce terrorism. I fear the Guardian would be unlikely to publish such an op-ed but it needs to be attempted nonetheless.

*By appointment to Her Majesty the Queen, smasher of hard drives


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200 thoughts on “Rusbridger The Worst Editor in the World Part 97

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  • nevermind

    As I said, contrary to Craig’s musing on the issue of Ukraine joining the EU, there is no reason for another cold war move, no reason to support an increasingly rogue NATO’s expansionary drive into eastern Europe, so seemingly a republican goal of the century.

    Right wing chickenhawk politicians have taken over NATO’s puppets, generals have got jack shit to say in what’s happening at present, they are told that unless NATO expands they’ll be out of a job.

    NATO is becoming the problem not the solution to Ukraine, their forward postings should be retrieved and negotiations opened between Russia, Ukraine and the autonomous regions. If Poland wants to take part, fine, they are neighbours, but its non of our business in Europe, however much we need Russian gas and however much they need our markets.

    http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/commentary-on-debtate-over-nato-membership-for-ukraine-a-1006138.html

    not satire

  • Herbie

    Horrifying stuff Pete, and unfortunately par for the course in conflicts large and small throughout human history. Such savagery often accompanies economic empire building as well.

    I’m sure they’re related.

    But we’re the good guys, eh.

    John Pilger, who’s studied this phenomenon over many years, gives an interesting account of the rise of Pol Pot, the Killing Fields bloke, comparing the rise of his Khmer Rouge with that of ISIS today:

    “According to Pol Pot, his movement had consisted of “fewer than 5,000 poorly armed guerrillas uncertain about their strategy, tactics, loyalty and leaders”. Once Nixon’s and Kissinger’s B52 bombers had gone to work as part of “Operation Menu”, the west’s ultimate demon could not believe his luck.

    Under their bombs, the Khmer Rouge grew to a formidable army of 200,000.”

    http://johnpilger.com/articles/from-pol-pot-to-isis-anything-that-flies-on-everything-that-moves

    I’m sure many people will be unaware that the US funded this mass murderer:

    “In fact, the US had been secretly funding Pol Pot in exile since January 1980. The extent of this support – $85m from 1980 to 1986 – was revealed in correspondence to a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee”

    pressurised The World Food Programme to feed his killers:

    “The US government insisted that the Khmer Rouge be fed . . . the US preferred that the Khmer Rouge operation benefit from the credibility of an internationally known relief operation.”

    and the British SAS provided training:

    “Jane’s Defence Weekly reported that the British training for the “non-communist” members of the “coalition” had been going on “at secret bases in Thailand for more than four years”. The instructors were from the SAS, “all serving military personnel, all veterans of the Falklands conflict, led by a captain”.”

    “The Foreign Office response was to lie.”

    “On 25 June 1991, after two years of denials, the government finally admitted that the SAS had been secretly training the “resistance” since 1983. A report by Asia Watch filled in the detail: the SAS had taught “the use of improvised explosive devices, booby traps and the manufacture and use of time-delay devices”. The author of the report, Rae McGrath (who shared a joint Nobel Peace Prize for the international campaign on landmines), wrote in the Guardian that “the SAS training was a criminally irresponsible and cynical policy”.”

    http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/politics/2014/04/how-thatcher-gave-pol-pot-hand

    I take your point Giyane. Those who can easily fund £1500 bottles of plonk are probably up to something dodgy.

  • Reluctant Observer

    [This comment seems to be from a sock-puppet]

    John Goss – Do you feel your credibility is improved by linking to that nonsense about Diana’s supposedly “Unlawful Killing” (your words, capitalised for some reason) ?

    I see that reknowned revealer of ultimate truths David Ike is among those in your camp. Do you share Ike’s suspicions over the Royals of being lizard people and the like too ? Does travelling at very high speed, with her Arabic playboy in a powerful car, driven by a drunk chauffeur, not count as risky behaviour to you ? Or is the case such a slam-dunk, you are willing to bet your reputation on it.

  • Giyane

    “Nevermind:

    George Osbornes has the same problem, he’s trying to bamboozle us making out that we can pay back 1.5 trillion, no problems at all.
    A system that has not got a sustainable financial systems based on actual assets at its core, can not have a sustainable society, ever.”

    How much I agree with you here. If Gordon Brown had retained this much commonsense from his upbringing and education he could have stopped the neo-cons stealing our assets through the mist of leverage, and they would not have been able to wage endless war.

    I often ask myself how much of the Arab Spring has been funded from our banksters and how much from Muslim oil. I believe that the Zio-banksters threatened the Sheikhs to destroy the world as we know it if they didn’t re-fill the interest based banking coffers. I believe also that the interest-free oil loans came with conditions to change the balance between Sunni and Shia power.

    These agreements have been renagued on continuously since then. The war in Ukraine and MH17 are a camouflage for NATO backing Assad by the back door through Russia. Wot? We on Russia’s side?
    All posturing and wind-bag diplomacy to cover up the West’s secret support for the Shi’a. Darling Craig is still acting as Gatekeeper for USUKIS double-dealing with the Muslim sheikhs and maybe he wants to hold onto his credibility ( ie subterfuge ) at the FCO for future use in Scotland.

    The truth and the reality is that Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been wooed with lies into bankrolling the failed capitalist system which allowed the Zionist bankers to collude with USUKIS governments to rob us of our capital to spend on their neo-con wars.

    If you are a jihadi on $200 a week from the NATO/USUKIS bank heist in 2008, does it really matter if your wages come from UK citizens stolen capital or Saudi interest-free loans where the conditions of the loan have been secretly broken by diplomatic lies? Both have been stolen by deception in order to fund the war against Islam, the millions of homeless refugees facing another winter.

    Islam should finally have the humility to listen to the Qur’an not to take the enemies of Islam as confidants and friends.

  • Apostoli

    Rusbridger The Worst Editor in the World Part 97

    Extract from Jacob Applebaum’s interview with the exberliner (30Sep14):

    Were you ever tempted to join Glenn Greenwald and The Guardian?
    Well, I was working with Glenn, and I asked The Guardian for a letter to be covered under their editorial secrecy privileges, and they declined. I think it’s because they’re a petty, shitty newspaper with people at the helm like Luke Harding, Alan Rusbridger and David Leigh who have an axe to grind about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, and they decided that that was more important than anything else including protecting me. When, in September 2013, Leigh and Harding were here at Hundt Hammer Stein bookstore for a reading of their book on WikiLeaks, they lied about Julian endlessly. Do you know that when Julian first went to the [Ecuadorian] embassy, The Guardian sent him a basket with clean socks and soap in it? That is the attitude that The Guardian has towards serious journalists!

    Don’t you think they did a good job with the Snowden leaks? They broke the story despite considerable pressure…

    Until you consider the fact that they said they wouldn’t even touch anything related to Afghanistan or Iraq, for example. I mean, that’s unbelievable… They have done a good job in some of this reporting, but to me it is very sad that they view this as a competition between news organisations or egos as opposed to understanding the importance overall. You see this with Harding’s book about the Snowden files.

    What does he know about Snowden? He has no contact to Snowden, no idea about any of this stuff, and he writes this totally exploitative book to try and present to us the full history and it is completely preposterous – this is The Guardian. The fact that they have all these documents but they are basically done reporting on them – to me that’s another example of how unbelievably irresponsible they are as a publication. We don’t need organisations like these who serve the state, we have enough of those. We need organisations who serve the public interest, and this is what the press is supposed to do

    Source

  • Giyane

    Herbie

    Horrifying that the bombing strategy for raising support for Pol Pot is being used again for ISIS.

    I have heard sympathy for IS even amongst Kurdish brothers. The strategy is working. The goal is genocide. Cameron is at the wheel.

    But no point dwelling here when a new diversion has been posted by Craig. The discussion sometimes gets so hot it should melt through the blog floor.

  • Herbie

    Even the Daily Mail. Of course The Daily Mail supported Hitler, as did most of the rest of the British elite.

    This article is about Hess’s flight to Britain to make a peace offer, based on a book by historian Peter Hadfield:

    “historian Peter Padfield has discovered evidence he claims proves that the deputy Fuhrer held a detailed peace treaty” (with Hitler’s approval).

    It proposed that the Nazis would withdraw from western Europe, in exchange for British neutrality over a planned attack on Russia, the Daily Telegraph reported.”

    Churchill of course rejected it and kept it secret from all, including those western countries occupied by the Germans.

    “He (Churchill) refused to allow the Third Reich a clear path to attack the Eastern Front – because he did not trust Hitler’s promises and it would have jeopardised his efforts to involve the U.S in the raging war, Mr Padfield says.

    The author claims the Prime Minister was determined to beat Hitler and he did not want to destroy a coalition of European governments, so the offer was not made public.”

    Had Hitler been given a clear run, the Soviets would have been defeated and the occupied western countries freed, all without a war on the western front.

    Poland and the rest of eastern Europe wouldn’t have been imprisoned for 40 years. There’d have been no Iron Curtain speech.

    Looks like those who were instructing Churchill (US most likely) wanted the Soviets to survive as a useful frenemy (pretend enemy/bogeyman) for their own future purposes.

    And that’s how it works folks.

    Millions upon millions slaughtered, all to provide pretend enemies that we need to heavily arm ourselves against, making big bucks for the corps, and keeping the homies in order.

    When the Soviets collapsed, they invented a new frenemy, Islam.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2433733/How-Nazis-offered-peace-treaty-World-War-II-meant-selling-Russians.html

  • Ben the Inquisitor

    Apostoli;

    “It tells me that apparently it’s not possible.
    That is the answer to the question then. What is possible for The Intercept, The Washington Post or The Guardian? There are all different things in terms of possibilities. Could The Intercept publish anything they want? Potentially, but there are consequences that come with it. Political, legal and maybe even technical consequences. The reality of the situation is that there is a reason why WikiLeaks exists. WikiLeaks is a publisher of the last resort.”

    – See more at: http://www.exberliner.com/features/people/jacob-appelbaum-on-the-usa-and-nsa/#sthash.0Qhvusdy.dpuf

    It seems Adam Sutler has us by the throat. ‘V’, Wo bist du?

  • guano

    Mods. Thanks for eradicating the equal opportunities breaches on this thread by myself and other nameless persons.

  • Apostoli

    @ Ben the Inquisitor

    Adam Sutler had his comeuppance. Only “revolution” will opportune the current Corpocracy theirs…..

  • Ben the Inquisitor

    “Only “revolution” will opportune the current Corpocracy theirs…..”

    Certainly a ‘re-boot’ is called for. But I regret the consequences of violent revolution eg French and American where something worse appears, or ‘false-flag’ democratic republic with all the appearances of their forebears. If the People don’t arise with a vision that is sustaniable and supportable with regard to genuine respect for their elected representatives, the Hegemonists will regain control.

  • Habbabkuk (la vita è bella)

    Leon Friederichs

    No problem – Schwamm drueber!

    Look forward to seeing more posts from you.

  • Reluctant Observer

    [craigmurray.org.uk – Reluctant Observer appears to be a sockpuppet. The comment was suspended for that reason, and will now be restored.]

    My comments were deleted by mods also, even though they merely questioned the assertions of others.

    I take it asserting Diana was murdered by the state is absolutely fine, questioning that “fact” gets the post deleted.

  • Habbabkuk (la vita è bella)

    [craigmurray.org.uk – the comment was removed because Reluctant Observer seems to be a sockpuppet.]

    Reluctant Observer

    “My comments were deleted by mods also, even though they merely questioned the assertions of others.

    I take it asserting Diana was murdered by the state is absolutely fine, questioning that “fact” gets the post deleted.”
    _____________________

    I’m sorry to hear that and perhaps you should take it up with Craig directly.

    If you do, perhaps you’d be kind enough to ask him on my behalf why every single one of my posts is flagged with a “Your comment is awaiting moderation” and whether that phenomenon is a not very subtle way of indicating to the reading public that the Mods, while unable to find a valid reason fir deleting my posts, nevertheless disapprove of me.

    Thanks.

  • pete fairhurst

    Herbie 2.02pm

    “Looks like those who were instructing Churchill (US most likely) wanted the Soviets to survive as a useful frenemy (pretend enemy/bogeyman) for their own future purposes.

    And that’s how it works folks.

    Millions upon millions slaughtered, all to provide pretend enemies that we need to heavily arm ourselves against, making big bucks for the corps, and keeping the homies in order.

    When the Soviets collapsed, they invented a new frenemy, Islam.”

    That is how it works, I agree. My feeling is that Winnie was a puppet of the money power, rather than the US, they are primarily European based I think. But that is a minor quibble.

    An excellent link thank you. Yet more evidence that the official story of WW2 is partial, the victors history. I always knew that the official Hess story was a load of baloney. Why else would the files be locked up for so long? They still are I think.

  • John Goss

    This article is very good but the timing bad.

    http://www.globalresearch.ca/mh17-what-is-the-joint-investigation-team-what-is-it-for-whos-leading-it-and-why-is-malaysia-excluded/5417589

    It was published 3rd December. But apparently Malaysia is now part of the JIT investigation body and was invited to join on 28 November. It was announced rather quietly but this is almost certainly due to important people and journalists putting the pressure on those running the show. Keep up the good work everyone.

    http://english.astroawani.com/news/show/mh17-malaysia-accepted-full-and-equal-member-joint-investigation-team-49518

  • Herbie

    “My feeling is that Winnie was a puppet of the money power”

    You’re feeling well.

    To which other power did that most sublime British aristocracy, upon whose Empire the Sun itself feared to set, bend its indebted knee.

    Banks.

    Gambling debts mostly. The usual wining, whoring and over-indulgence upon the public purse. Immunity from prosecution etc.

    Same as today, in fact.

    But, never forget. We’re the Good guys.

  • Mary

    How I was censored by The Guardian for writing about Israel’s war for Gaza’s gas

    ‘Palestine is not an environment story’
    https://medium.com/@NafeezAhmed/palestine-is-not-an-environment-story-921d9167ddef

    After writing for The Guardian for over a year, my contract was unilaterally terminated because I wrote a piece on Gaza that was beyond the pale. In doing so, The Guardian breached the very editorial freedom the paper was obligated to protect under my contract. I’m speaking out because I believe it is in the public interest to know how a Pulitizer Prize-winning newspaper which styles itself as the world’s leading liberal voice, casually engaged in an act of censorship to shut down coverage of issues that undermined Israel’s publicised rationale for going to war.

    /..
    Nafeez Ahmed

  • Mary

    Freedland came back to Nafeez Ahmed and got his comeuppance.

    Jonathan Freedland responds to Nafeez Ahmed
    Posted by John Hilley on December 4, 2014, 10:44 am

    (Also sent in reply to my tweet to Freedland asking for his response.)
    https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/540283445671645184

    @NafeezAhmed Your piece for Medium implies I was involved in the end of your arrangement with the Guardian. I don’t wish to be rude, but I had literally not heard of you or your work till seeing that Medium piece, via Twitter, a few hours ago. (The Guardian environment website, where you wrote, is edited separately from the Guardian’s Comment is Free site, which I now oversee.) I had no idea you wrote for the Guardian, no idea that arrangement had been terminated and not the slightest knowledge of your piece on Gaza’s gas until a few hours ago. What’s more, I was abroad – on vacation – on the days in July you describe. To put it starkly, my involvement in your case was precisely zero. I hope that as a matter of your own journalistic integrity, you’ll want to alter the Medium piece to reflect these facts. Perhaps you’ll also share this on Twitter as widely as you shared the Medium piece yesterday.

    Re: Further response from Ahmed

    Posted by orville on December 4, 2014, 11:14 am, in reply to “Jonathan Freedland responds to Nafeez Ahmed”

    Your reading of my Medium piece is incorrect. I am not implying that you were involved in the end of my Guardian tenure. I have no clue about that, and to be sure, I did not make any such claim. My Medium piece has been amended to ensure that your response is mentioned in full, and to clarify that I am not implying your specific involvement in the termination of my contract – a matter about which I have no knowledge thanks to the abrupt, unethical and unlawful way in which I was dropped.

    What I did do is speak to several journalists about my experience who told me that it was not unprecedented, and mentioned you by name. According to these journalists, including a former Guardian ed who has spoken on the record, my experience of egregious Guardian censorship over the Gaza gas story  – which I’m sad to see doesn’t seem to bother you very much given your concerns about ‘journalistic integrity’ – has a long and little-known context, suggesting that rather than my experience being a mere bizarre and accidental aberration, it is part of an entrenched, wider culture across the paper. These journalists who spoke to me on condition of anonymity claim that you have played a key role in fostering this culture, and that you have quashed legitimate stories critical of Israel without meaningful journalistic justification. I have merely relayed their allegations.

    http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1417689895.html

  • Ba'al Zevul

    He (Churchill) refused to allow the Third Reich a clear path to attack the Eastern Front – because he did not trust Hitler’s promises and it would have jeopardised his efforts to involve the U.S in the raging war, Mr Padfield says.

    Just a fragment of the timeline here –
    Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact : mutual non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviets – 24 Aug 1939. This amicably divided up Europe between Russian and German spheres-of-influence.
    German–Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Demarcation signed 28 Sept 1939
    Hess flies to UK – 10 May 1941
    Germany attacks Soviet Union – 22 June 41

    On the basis of this alone, no sane person would have understood Hitler’s (alleged) offer to have been anything other than an arse-covering exercise in order to leave his forces free to break a prior treaty. Why should his undertaking to withdraw from the West have been given any more credence than his undertaking not to attack the East, which was in the process of being broken, as our intelligence would by May have clearly indicated?

    Quite apart from that, the entire, stated, basis of Hitler’s invasions in Europe was to create a Europe-wide Reich. How likely would it have been that he would have surrendered all his gains there to obtain a pre-emptive attack on the Soviets?

    Churchill was right to turn the offer down. If, indeed, it was made in those terms at all.

  • John Goss

    “Malaysia is now part of the JIT investigation body ”

    It always was. Malaysia was never excluded or barred from the JIT.

    https://www.slachtofferhulp.nl/en/Corporate/Calamiteiten/IVC-Planecrash-Ukraine/Test/Press-release-Joint-investigation-into-Flight-MH17/
    ———————————————————————————–

    Absolute bollocks Kempe and you know it. They were going to invite Malaysia to present evidence but it was not part of the (JIT) because of the secret agreement that unless all four members could reach an agreement (one, Ukraine, being the main suspect). Stop supporting your Nazi friends in Kiev. It was because of articles like this that they have invited Malaysia to be a member of the JIT.

    http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/11/malaysia-becomes-angry-exclusion-mh17-investigation.html

  • YouKnowMyName

    @Nevermind 2 Dec, 2014 – 5:54 pm, from the “you won’t see this in the Grauniad” news department:

    whilst there has been some rapprochement in Eastern Ukraine there has also been the amazing co-incidence of a former State Department official, the US citizen Natalie Jaresko, having been appointed Finance Minister in Kiev – whilst the observing group Human Rights Watch’s Executive Director Kenneth Roth has just issued a statement on Wednesday that “one can definitely say that cluster bombs were used,”[in Donbas] he said. “We were able to demonstrate that these bombs came from an area, which, at any rate, was controlled by the [Ukrainian] government forces”

    Hopefully the IMF negotiators will return soon to Kiyiv, to release the nearly $3B promised for winter fuel, and hopefully the full & final cease-fire can be worked out so that Ukraine can start talking again about joining the EU/OTAN. Quite a bit of work for the Americans who now formally are part of the Kiyiv administration!

  • YouKnowMyName

    I noticed 177 comments on this thread on a desktop PC, whilst I’m seeing 178 comments on a mobile device. No-end of ctrl+R is changing this, so by trying this post I might get a clue which count is right

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