This may be the most important article I ever post, because it reveals perfectly how the Establishment works and how the Red Tories and Blue Tories contrive to give a false impression of democracy. It is information I can only give you because of my experience as an insider.
It is a definitive proof of the validity of the Chomskian propaganda model. It needs a fair bit of detail to do this, but please try and read through it because it really is very, very important. After you have finished, if you agree with me about the significance, please repost, (you are free to copy), retweet, add to news aggregators (Reddit etc) and do anything you can to get other people to pay attention.
The government based its decision to execute by drone two British men in Syria on “Legal Opinion” from the Attorney-General for England and Wales, Jeremy Wright, a politician, MP and Cabinet Minister. But Wright’s legal knowledge comes from an undistinguished first degree from Exeter and a short career as a criminal defence barrister in Birmingham. His knowledge of public international law is virtually nil.
I pause briefly to note that there is no pretence of consulting the Scottish legal system. The only legal opinion is from the Attorney General for England and Wales who is also Honorary Advocate General for Northern Ireland.
So Jeremy Wright’s role is as a cypher. He performs a charade. The government employs in the FCO a dozen of the most distinguished public international lawyers in the world. When the Attorney-General’s office needs an Opinion on public international law, they ask the FCO to provide it for him to sign.
The only known occasion when this did not happen was the Iraq War. Then the FCO Legal Advisers – unanimously – advised the Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, that to invade Iraq was illegal. Jack Straw asked the Attorney General to dismiss the FCO chief Legal Adviser, Sir Michael Wood (Goldsmith refused). Blair sent Goldsmith to Washington where the Opinion was written for him to sign by George Bush’s lawyers. [I know this sounds incredible, but it is absolutely true]. Sir Michael Wood’s deputy, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, resigned in protest.
In consequence Blair and Straw decided that, again for the first time ever, the FCO’s chief legal adviser had to be appointed not from within the FCO legal advisers, who had all declared the war on Iraq to be illegal, but from outside. They had to find a distinguished public international lawyer who was prepared to argue that the war on Iraq had been legal. That was a very small field. Blair and Straw thus turned to Benjamin Netanyahu’s favourite lawyer, Daniel Bethlehem.
Daniel Bethlehem had represented Israel before the Mitchell Inquiry into violence against the people of Gaza, arguing that it was all legitimate self-defence. He had also supplied the Government of Israel with a Legal Opinion that the vast Wall they were building in illegally occupied land, surrounding and isolating all the major Palestinian communities and turning them into large prisons, was also legal. Daniel Bethlehem is an extreme Zionist militarist of the most aggressive kind, and close to Mark Regev, Israel’s new Ambassador to the UK.
Daniel Bethlehem had developed, in his work for Israel, an extremist doctrine of the right of States to use pre-emptive self-defence – a doctrine which would not be accepted by the vast majority of public international lawyers. He clinched his appointment by Blair as the FCO chief legal adviser by presenting a memorandum to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee in 2004 outlining this doctrine, and thus de facto defending the attack on Iraq and the Bush/Blair doctrine.
A key sentence of Daniel Bethlehem’s memorandum is this
“It must be right that states are able to act in self-defence in circumstances where there is evidence of further imminent attacks by terrorist groups, even if there is no specific evidence of where such an attack will take place or of the precise nature of the attack.”
There is a fundamental flaw in this argument. How can you be certain that an attack in “imminent”, if you are not certain where or what it is? Even if we can wildly imagine a scenario where the government know of an “imminent” attack, but not where or what it is, how could killing someone in Syria stop the attack in the UK? If a team were active, armed and in course of operation in the UK – which is needed for “imminent” – how would killing an individual in Syria prevent them from going through with it? It simply does not add up as a practical scenario.
Interestingly, Daniel Bethlehem does not pretend this is accepted international law, but specifically states that
“The concept of what constitutes an “imminent” armed attack will develop to meet new circumstances and new threats”
Bethlehem is attempting to develop the concept of “imminent” beyond any natural interpretation of the word “imminent”.
Daniel Bethlehem left the FCO in 2011. But he had firmly set the British government doctrine on this issue, while all FCO legal advisers know not to follow it gets you sacked. I can guarantee you that Wright’s Legal Opinion states precisely the same argument that David Bethlehem stated in his 2004 memorandum. Knowing how these things work, I am prepared to wager every penny I own that much of the language is identical.
It was New Labour, the Red Tories, who appointed Daniel Bethlehem, and they appointed him precisely in order to establish this doctrine. It is therefore a stunning illustration of how the system works, that the only response of the official “opposition” to these extrajudicial executions is to demand to see the Legal Opinion, when it comes from the man they themselves appointed. The Red Tories appointed him precisely because they knew what Legal Opinion would be given on this specific subject. They can read it in Hansard.
So it is all a charade.
Jeremy Wright pretends to give a Legal Opinion, actually from FCO legal advisers based on the “Bethlehem Doctrine”. The Labour Party pretends, very unconvincingly, to be an opposition. The Guardian, apparently the leading “opposition” intellectual paper, publishes articles by its staff neo-con propagandists Joshua Rozenberg (married to Melanie Phillips) and Rafael Behr strongly supporting the government’s new powers of extrajudicial execution. In summer 2012 Joshua Rozenberg presented a programme on BBC Radio 4 entitled “Secret courts, drones and international law” which consisted mostly of a fawning interview with … Daniel Bethlehem. The BBC and Sky News give us wall to wall justification of the killings.
So the state, with its neo-con “opposition” and media closely in step with its neo-con government, seamlessly adopts a new power to kill its own subjects based on secret intelligence and secret legal advice, and a very weird definition of “imminent” that even its author admits to be outside current legal understanding.
That is how the state works. I do hope you find that helpful.
This article has been updated to reflect the fact the Daniel Bethlehem is now retired from the FCO.
An excellent article, Craig. It describes a system of government and idividuals who seem half-lobotomised. Notice that Bethlehem, in the passage quoted by Craig, doesn’t call pre-emptive extra-judicial executions, legal or lawful, but uses the word ‘right’, which would appear to mean something else entirely.
Corbyn recently referred to Blair’s actions in relation to the invasion of Iraq, as having questionable legality and that they could constitute a warcrime. What about Cameron’s attack on Syria? Officially the UK isn’t at war with Syria. The UK’s parliament has specifically not authorised the PM to order attacks on Syria. The UK has no UN mandate or a resolution by the Security Council mandating an attack on Syria. So, doesn’t this event also amount to a warcrime committed by Cameron, or at the least a conspiracy to murder UK citizens abroad?
Re Murdoch and all this, HOW SIGNIFICANT IS THE CONNECTION WITH THE SUN NEWSPAPER???
http://dronewars.net/2015/09/08/british-drones-and-targeted-killing-uk-follows-the-lead-of-the-us-and-israel/
Is the ‘evidence’ an alleged ‘conversation’ with a Sun undercover ‘reporter’?
We have the ghastly and bizarre situation, where a national newspaper, the Sun, seemingly ‘sets up’ a couple of people, or traps them into ‘actions’ and statements, that lead to their executions. Isn’t this the kind of ‘journalism’ and behaviour that one normally associtates with a fascist state? Is that what we’ve become, a fascist state? Recently the Guardian has been publishing articles, by Rosenberg and Behr, which I would call fascist propaganda, justifying the state’s use of murder, because it’s ‘right’. Who would have imagined a few years ago, that this kind of dreadful propaganda would appear in the liberal/leftie Guardian?
Writeon
9 Sep, 2015 – 7:35 pm
“Notice that Bethlehem, in the passage quoted by Craig, doesn’t call pre-emptive extra-judicial executions, legal or lawful, but uses the word ‘right’”
Dishonesty, intellectual and moral, has been elevated to an ontological principle and foundation of modern western political thought and culture. Not only are “right and wrong” gone in a moral sense, they are now also gone in a logical sense. Something both deeply immoral and completely absurd can now be elevated to an axiomatic status and then be used as “the measure of all things”.
Wow, it does lay things bare. And it seems like so few people who have massive leverage.
As seems fitting to point out now, I think our biggest problem is obedience to ‘order’ or authority in this country. How can everyone just go along? it’s like we are a society of simple sheep who will bow to any ‘betters’.
If those within the system do not seek justice also I imagine this could get much more ugly very quickly. The scraps of legitimacy don’t lie in protecting all to keep the state looking clean, they are just people. This image of other worldly leaders of our ‘great country’ needs to end.
Stop the brainwashing. Stop North Koran levels of surveillance. We don’t need to go down this path. Your really debasing yourself.
David Bethlehem’s argument includes the following test (from http://www.iiss.org/en/iiss%20voices/blogsections/iiss-voices-2013-1e35/january-2013-fac9/legalities-al-qaeda-448b) :
: ‘Whether an armed attack may be regarded as “imminent” will fall to be assessed by reference to all relevant circumstances, including (
a) the nature and immediacy of the threat,
(b) the probability of an attack,
(c) whether the anticipated attack is part of a concerted pattern of continuing armed activity,
(d) the likely scale of the attack and the injury, loss, or damage likely to result therefrom in the absence of mitigating action, and
(e) the likelihood that there will be other opportunities to undertake effective action in self-defence that may be expected to cause less serious collateral injury, loss, or damage.
To what extent did the facts / relevant circumstances address the above test? I suppose Gov might try to argue that its largely justified by (c ). It didn’t sound like it was a)
I suppose given that the deceased was a Brit his family may bring a case, which may flush out and review the test/s, the law and the facts and circumstances in this case.
This reminds me that if the UK thinks its a good idea to open its boundaries to many people from different countries and cultures then it has to accept that whilst not everyone will accept all of our norms and culture (if we still have these ?) they are nonetheless still able to take the benefit of the UK legal system. Therefore, they should be treated with some sort of legal respect. Isn’t a non-political serial killer also a terrorist; why allow a non political serial killer the right to a trial and not a political terrorist.
I suppose the gov are essentially saying that just as the police may sometimes shoot Brits here in the UK in circumstances in which they think there is an immediate threat (eg Mark Saunders in Markham Square?!?) the politicised Brit abroad who is an imminent threat is also at risk of being shot and in a civil was and with politicised terrorists the test gets looser and looser. What was the test applied in the Mark Saunders case? How and why is Syria different to Markham Square (in quite a few ways obviously) but in the future could a non politicised Brit said to be an imminent risk in Markham Square be taken out by a drone? What is the difference between a marksman with a gun and a drone?
Writeon 7.48pm
Very well said.
I have shared this post with 40 groups and others are starting to share it too. It is very important that elected representatives are answerable to the electorate.
Can anybody find out how the ICC can best be petitioned to arrest David Cameron and charge him with war-crimes?
I’m busy at the moment.
It is interesting that a posting on the original subject of this blog – the corruption of the British foreign policy establishment – brings the original “old guard” of commenters very much to the fore. Good to see you all again.
Great Stuff! I was always doubtful about the principle of ‘imminent threat’ in a British context, and it’s good to see it defined.
I thought the mistake Cameron made was to announce it publicly. He should have kept it quiet (from his point of view). In announcing the act publicly, he has exposed himself to all sorts of legal tangles. And particularly to a legal test of what ‘imminent threat’ means. This could go on for years. In the meantime the ‘imminent threat’ justification will remain in doubt, and the future operations will remain of questionable legality.
In the interests of honesty and confession, I think it is only fair to copy and paste what I wrote on Chris Spivey’s website a few moments ago..Yes I know all about Chris Spivey – but the Judge didn’t actually jail him – He just gave him a 6 months suspended jail sentence if he ever wrote anything again on his own website..which I personally thought was a pretty good result…
http://chrisspivey.org/the-shoreham-airshow-crash-part-1/
My comment…Blimey – Its already been approved…
Tony
Bethlehem used the word preemptive in his memorandum as one of the reasons a state could use armed force against another state, here is what Chomsky said on this matter.. “The grand strategy authorizes Washington to carry out “preventive war”: Preventive, not pre-emptive. Whatever the justifications for pre-emptive war might be, they do not hold for preventive war, particularly as that concept is interpreted by its current enthusiasts: the use of military force to eliminate an invented or imagined threat, so that even the term “preventive” is too charitable. Preventive war is, very simply, the “supreme crime” condemned at Nuremberg”.
In my opinion armed action outside a unanimous vote of all 5 members of the UNSC would be in breach of the UN charter, unfortunately all 5 veto wielding members of the Security Council very cleverly placed themselves above International law for all time when they created the architecture for the United Nations, Dr David Morrison outlines here why the Attorney Generals advice on the legality of the Iraq war was correct. http://www.david-morrison.org.uk/iraq/ags-legal-advice.pdf
Great and Brave post Craig.
I was thinking that the next Step is Drone Murders on uk soil… And that makes your Post a more Brave Thing. will share this
Nice slur calling Labour Red Tories – slightly tedious but whatever. Not being a lawyer myself but I hardly think widening the scope of ‘imminent’ to include intercept evidence is too novel an approach to bringing the law up to date with technology. But I guess that’s by the by, as you were.
Not a single comment though observing that these scoundrels who were killed were themselves illegitimate (rapists and murderers).
I know nothing about their gory background and i’m sure there is plenty about them in the MSM, though have not followed it. I understand that they have bragged about their ‘achievements’ and their awful objectives. If so, they have incriminated themselves. It would be tough to go into a war zone and arrest them?
Btw, can someone name one declaredly Islamic country where the “Establishment” would be rated as being more civilised than here?
I am not forgiving Iraq or Libya, which adventures were downright foolish; nor am I making a case for intervention in Syria.
Thank you Craig for this timely and important essay.
Thank you Fred for pitching for the killers. Someone has to do it, or at least try. You ask: “There is an armed conflict in the region in which Britain is participating as ally of the Iraqi and Kurdish people, how can it be illegal to kill members of the opposing army?”
To answer this requires a full analysis. At the domestic level, what are the British conventions governing the hostile use of British armed forces on foreign sovereign soil? Have the conventions been observed? What is the role of Parliament? Does the Prime Minister have unilateral powers of Commander in Chief absent a state of emergency or declaration of war against another state?
On the international level, what status do British forces have in Syria? Are they there by invitation or agreement of the sovereign state? If and to the extent they are operating with the consent (express or tacit) of that sovereign state, what is their permitted role? Assuming there is licence to kill, what agreement is there on the identity or status of legitimate targets? Assuming there is no carte blanche or free roving mission, what is the agreed modus operandi? Were the killings within these parameters?
There is also a broader question. Do these killings amount to state assassination by executive fiat and if so, is this now to to be accepted as official state policy of the United Kingdom?
There is a final question. Does the premeditated killing by a state of its nationals on foreign soil when they are not engaged in combat against the state itself constitute a legitimate use of the armed forces of that state?
Interestingly Bethlehem advised the Israeli government that the wall Israel is building around the illegal Israeli settlements, is in fact perfectly legal.
Unfortunately the World Court [International Court of Justice] disagreed. In its opinion delivered in 2004 the court decided by 14 judges to 1 that the wall was illegal. In coming to its opinion it had to decide on the legality of the settlements, since the wall was designed to take a circuitous route to encompass them. The court decided unanimously 15 judges to 0 including the US Judge Buergenthal, that all the settlements in occupied territory were in breach of paragraph 6 Article 49of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. That’s some advice Bethlehem gave.
All hands at the pump even the late villager banned and come back reincarnated chipping in!
Craig I am busy writing my own article weaving yours into it, and sourcing it back to you, thanks for the very brave and selfless stand.
PS I don’t mean brave in the Whitehall tense, I mean brave as in BrianFujisan sense.
Thank you Craig Murray,for this indispensable post.You are a credit to the human species.Keep up the good work!
Interesting shilling by DtP. You didn’t have to tell us you weren’t a lawyer DtP, the content makes clear you’re just a helpless ignoramus hoping to get by on breezy condescension. But the preoccupation with selected words pulled out of context is pure US government doctrine – in this case, ‘imminence.’
So here is a primer for all you government hacks trying to justify British murder:
“The most immediate protection for the right to life is provided by the international human rights law framework. This is the default legal regime from which deviations are permissible only when, and for as long as, those who justify the more permissive use of force under international humanitarian law can show that the requisite conditions have been fulfilled. 23. An outer layer of protection for the right to life is the prohibition on the resort to force by one State against another, again subject to a narrowly construed set of exceptions. The protection of State sovereignty and of territorial integrity, which on occasion presents a barrier to the protection of human rights, here can constitute an important component of the protection of people against deadly force, especially with the advent of armed drones. 24. … For a particular drone strike to be lawful under international law it must satisfy the legal requirements under all applicable international legal regimes. Although a particular drone strike may satisfy the requirements for the use of inter-State force, it may nevertheless be inconsistent with applicable rules of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, or vice versa, and thus unlawful under international law. The right to life can be adequately secured only if all the distinct requirements posed by the various constitutive parts of international law are met.”
https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/UN-Special-Rapporteur-Extrajudicial-Christof-Heyns-Report-Drones.pdf
Read it all very hard, DtP, several times, let your lips move if they have to, and you’ll begin to see how your government-issue slogans make you sound stupid. As an exercise, why don’t you report back to us on the importance of imminence in HRC General Comment 36 paragraph 2?
On topic partly as this concerns the Red Tories and the working of the Establishment.
Labour leadership: ‘Concerns’ over ballot, says Andy Burnham
2 hours ago
Labour leadership hopeful Andy Burnham has told the BBC there are “concerns” about the party’s voting system after reports many people had not yet received their ballots.
He said his team had passed on people’s details to the party, although he does not want the voting deadline extended.
/..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34196290
I am recording this next partly as an act of defiance and partly in case I am found suddenly to have decided to commit suicide or have a heart attack on a mountain.
We live on Holyrood Road in Edinburgh in a very secure private apartment block with electronic exterior doors, CCTV and 24 hour concierge/security. On return from Asda, Nadira and I (Cameron was in school) found very distinct muddy footprints leading from the lift directly right to the door of our flat, and back again to the lift. There are only three flats on this floor on our stair, and the landing is kept shining clean and had just been cleaned this morning. On opening the door, the mud seemed to continue into the hall of our flat, although the footprints were less distinct.
By chance the flat was thoroughly cleaned yesterday. There was no reason for any mud to be inside the flat. Indeed the footprints are of a boot with a very heavily ridged sole. You could not have left clearer and muddier prints on the landing if you tried, although indoors they were indistinct probably as a result of passing over the coconut matting at the entrance.
It is a mystery why anybody would be wearing heavy boots in central Edinburgh and how they could have got them so muddy right in the centre of town, especially as it has been dry for several days. I strongly suspect this is a “frighteners” exercise and the prints are deliberately left. Murder in Samarkand recounts the occasion when I came back to the Docklands flat I was then inhabiting and found every single electrical appliance – TV, Radio, hoover, microwave etc – had been switched on.
For a few years the security services appeared to be leaving me alone. Perhaps they changed their mind.
Foolish bragging by the young is one thing, actual threat to Britain is another.
Earlier in this thread I was banging on about the total UK media collusion with the government. Out of that comes the fact that it’s very difficult to find any sane media reports about UK assassinations by drones. Thus I have to dip into the alternative media, in this instance the Richie Allen Show, which usually deals with conspiracy theory-type stuff (Richie is associated with the nemesis of the lizard creatures). Richie Allen is quite sane, and on his show last night he had David Swanson, an anti-war activist. It’s a 30 minute audio piece that covers everything that’s not being covered right now by the mainstream media. Of particular interest to me was the fact that we never get any real reporting about what’s actually going on in Syria…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyiqlgwmFko
A comment on the Medialens Message Board
Re: C. Murray:Exclusive:I Can Reveal the Legal Advice on Drone Strikes,and How the Establishment Works
September 9, 2015, 9:56 pm
Posted the majority of this as a comment under the Seamus Milne article in The Guardian.
Deleted after about 20 mins.
~~~~~~
Says it all about the state of things in this increasingly fascist country.
I should imagine that this is the article.
‘Western bombs won’t defeat Isis. Only a wider peace deal can draw its poison
Seumas Milne
9 September 2015
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/09/west-isis-peace-military-action-syria-war-refugee
Milne is the only journalist remaining at the Guardian with gravitas and who speaks some truths.
Craig
I have Said Before..i Know wee nooks n Secret places.
And Fedup is Corect.. Non Westminster …Thank you for that Fedup
Craig, do you think it’s likely that Bethlehem lifted the basic premise upon which the memorandum is based from the Caroline principle?
It most certainly seems to be the case, although you are not alone, and there are plenty of others who are getting the treatment. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
I guess knowledge imparts responsibility. Feel like I should support this blog more..Get less carried away with myself etc. Focus, for what it’s worth.
It also brings up other ideas though, Ie on definitions, Like evil. If the press are going to amplify this term used by OFFICIALS to justify actions i’d like links to clear legal definitions…
Of course also contrasting that with what is not evil. Somehow I think what governments do to people inside boarders is not a very sound basis for judging where that line falls.
Where treated like children aren’t we ? Yet children probably don’t fall for this stuff…
Daniel
He starts his memorandum with the Caroline principle and then goes on to “develop” it.