President Trump turns on a dime and bombs Syria: deep state regains control

Obama era anti-war protesters  

Lemme see ... in the week when Steve Bannon is finally ousted from the National Security Council (NSC) with nary a murmer from Trump who suddenly does a dramatic reverse on Syria in the very moments when Chinese President Xi Jinping is at Mar-a-Lago ... Phew! All the behind-the-scenes action finally manifesting in the public sphere with the first direct U.S. airstrike on a Syrian airbase.

Let's unpack this with what little info we have. Assad is winning the civil war but, just at the moment the rebels and their backers want the US smashing them into regime change, he handily provides the event most likely to bring it on and uses the banned chemical weapon sarin on his citizens leaving some 80 dead and many more horribly injured. And only weeks after 30 Yemeni civilians including "beautiful babies" and an American Navy Seal were killed in allied airstrikes in concert with those noble defenders of democracy, Saudi Arabia, and closely following over a hundred killed in Mosul.

Out of 59 U.S. Tomahawk Cruise missiles aimed at the Syrian airforce in a "precision strike", 24 hit their target resulting in around seven deaths but with many more lined up if events escalate.

No evidence has been presented so far to justify this unholy rush to military conflict. Check out Trump's efforts to keep Syrian refugees out of the US (and ours to keep them out of the UK). What of the depleted uranium and cluster bombs used by the US and Brits which continue to do their damage in Iraq? Will the US allow the Syrian rebels to continue using chemical warfare? Guess who sold Syria the chemical components for sarin only last year? BRITAIN! Commiting, facilitating and using atrocities to further your political agenda is WRONG no matter who is doing it.

We are run by monsters who care nothing about the general population — not you, not me, not "beautiful babies" — only the retention of power.

Still, it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Reuters report that shares of Raytheon, the makers of the Tomahawk Cruise missile, soared 2.1 per cent immediately after the attack while you'll be relieved to know that US stock futures recovered from a drop after the airstrike on Syria.

This is doing the rounds on Twitter:

What was Trump's reverse-ferret REALLY about? Why is Tillerson now pivoting towards dislodging Assad when all Trump's election rhetoric expressly rejected that particular neo-liberal policy? Is this a diversion from his myriad domestic problems? Had Trump just seen the figures showing U.S. job growth screeching to a halt, and the unemployment rate up at 4.5 per cent signalling the end of the Trump reflation rally? Or has Deep State been digging into the murky oubliettes of Trump and his team, applied the thumbscrews and now produced something solid on him? 'Ey, wanna be impeached? Your businesses trashed? Or would you like us to present you as the best. Pres. Evah? Gotta sell your mate Putin down the river. Gotta let Bannon sink. But you are our President now.

What did they tell Xi at Mar-a-Lago? (Apart from, here's a nice bit of fugu fish that President Abe left for you the other week.) Don't interfere in our plans for Syria if you don't want an unpleasant trade war or worse? It must have been like the Godfather at the southern White House with Don Corleone letting everyone know who's boss, but we don't yet know if the actual Don is the Donald or Deep State, the US political and economic establishment. ('Dis is wha' happen when a guy don't do what a guy is told, capeesh?')

There are parallels with Iraq and look how well that turned out. Let's hope they don't turn Syria into radioactive rubble as well. Meanwhile, we continue to suck up to Saudi, Duterte, the Stans ...

Trump's protectionism could be midwife to prosperous Asian region — if he doesn't nuke it first

London, New York and Shanghai — more alike than different 

New Beijing-backed RCEP trade treaty offers hope to emerging markets in Asia

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has just had a grovelling meeting with President-Elect Donald Trump. My guess is that Abe offered Trump unconditional support in the South China Sea and Pacific. (There are moves to allow Japan to have an army and nuclear weapons which, considering the history of Nanjing and concerns about rising Japanese fascism, is alarming.)

As Europe implodes and the US goes into protectionist lock-down, the strongest potential area of growth is the Asian region (including Australasia) due to powerful demographics. Christine Lagarde of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts Asia to drive nearly two-thirds of global growth over 4 years. But that was BT (before Trump).

President Barak Obama saw China as an economic rival and tried to strangle it by creating the Tran-Pacific Parternership (TPP) consisting of 12 South American and Pacific nations and the US but EXCLUDING China in its own backyard. Poking the sleeping dragon with a sharp stick, Obama also transferred military from the Middle East to the Pacific Rim and the South China Sea.

Whether you like it or not, China saw what was coming down the pike and asserted its presence by building those islands.

Trump is throwing out TPP but his protectionist policies as trumpeted have already hit emerging markets just as they they were about to bloom (and boom!). EM stocks are falling off a cliff. Peaceful prosperity for nations such as Vietnam, which has suffered horribly, has been snatched away at the very moment of its flowering in 2016. Its markets are sharply down since the US election and bouncing around like an ECG chart.

It's the same for all of the EM. The stable economic conditions that would have seen the growth and expansion of a new middle-class as great slices of the population were raised out of poverty – and probably would have brought with it more stable, democratic governments – have been torpedoed.

It's little wonder that China proposes a new trade deal that Australia is supporting in a significant pivot away from the US.

Reuters reports Xinhua News Agency as saying:

China's Xi is selling an alternate vision for regional trade by promoting the Beijing-backed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which as it stands excludes the Americas.

Chinese state media has warned Trump against isolationism and interventionism, calling instead for the United States to actively work with China to maintain the international status quo.

"The billionaire-turned-politician needs to prove that derailing the global economy has not been one of the reasons why he ran for U.S. president," Xinhua said.

So a region that was set to be a new area of hope in the world, now that western leaders have screwed our economics, our politics and our principles, could very well find itself a war zone if the new administration follows through. War is, after all, only economics by other means and investments in defence stocks are on the up. I wonder if one of the things Obama is drilling into Trump in his presidential tuition sessions is continuing US ambition in the very, very wealthy Asia.

If the US doesn't engineer a war, then Trump's protectionism is the very mechanism that could give China and the region the chance to break out as world economic leaders while the US self-destructs and developed Europe splinters — under hard conditions in the short term but clear winners in the long.

Of course, the alternative would be a world revolution in favour of all humanity but how likely do you think that is given the current circumstances?

My dream is that the Asian region will enjoy the springtime that the West had after World War II, complete with its own equivalent of the 1960s (ours, not theirs when the Allies bombed the hell out of Indo-China). And that they won't make the same mistakes.

My dread is that the West will spend those decades choking on our own fossil-fuel pollution under the draconian rule of the Trump era and jealously stamp out all sparks of life elsewhere.

I am my brothers' keeper and I am my sisters' keeper. Love is the glue that holds us together. Without that we are nothing.

EDIT: More information.

THE DIPLOMAT: Should America Fear China’s Alternative to the TPP? "RCEP is unlikely to include any provisions on issues such as labor, food safety, and the environment, or on sensitive political areas like government procurement. ... the U.S. should practice more restraint in framing the TPP as a counterweight to the Chinese-led RCEP. ... Finally, the U.S. should pressure its TPP partners which are also negotiating the RCEP (there are seven: Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Myanmar, Brunei) to press for standards and regulations in the RCEP that can be consolidated with the TPP."

CNBC: A likely beneficiary of Trump’s tough talk on trade: China

CHINA DAILY: Both the US and China deserve better than TPP

THE TELEGRAPH: China will struggle to fill vacuum in Asian trade after US's ill-judged exit

Blood money: the new £2 coin celebrates Kitchener and World War 1

The new £2 coin — such an ugly thing in so many ways. This government glorifies something recognised as a catastrophe, an unprecedented horror where millions of men (lions led by donkeys) died at the Front. World War I wasn't the war to end all wars (otherwise it would just be "the World War") but led to World War II where tens of millions more died.

Lord Herbert Kitchener — whose visage graces the new coin — was an Empire administrator, overseeing the crushing of nations for Britain's wealth, and was in charge while the first concentration camps were used against Boer civilians in southern Africa. (Jamie at Blood & Treasure says second, the first being in Cuba.)

From Wiki:

Court martial of Breaker Morant
In the Breaker Morant case several soldiers from Australia were arrested and court-martialled for summarily executing Boer prisoners, and also for the murder of a German missionary believed to be a Boer sympathiser, all allegedly under unwritten orders approved by Kitchener. The celebrated horseman and bush poet Lt. Harry "Breaker" Morant and Lt. Peter Handcock were found guilty, sentenced to death, and shot by firing squad at Pietersburg on 27 February 1902. Their death warrants were personally signed by Kitchener. He reprieved a third soldier, Lt. George Witton, who served 28 months before being released.

Lovely man. Yes, let's have this hero on our cash. Sort of fitting, really.

"Legalised mass murder", said Harry Patch, the last surviving British soldier from WWI. A savage imperial bloodbath, says Seumas Milne:

But it does no service to the memory of the victims to prettify the horrific reality. The war was a vast depraved undertaking of unprecedented savagery, in which the ruling classes of Europe dispatched their people to a senseless slaughter in the struggle for imperial supremacy. As Lenin summed it up to the Romanian poet Valeriu Marcu in early 1917: "One slaveowner, Germany, is fighting another slaveowner, England, for a fairer distribution of the slaves".

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen.

Let Blackadder have the last word.

World War III averted: Ed Miliband finally does his job

Yesterday, Ed Miliband pulled his big-boy underpants over his trousers and rose to new adequacies by actually doing what the electorate has been yelling for loud and clear all along: NO WAR WITH SYRIA. He slew the Cameron lizards in the parliamentary vote and carved out a space for the pursuit of a peaceful solution.

There is no proof that hereditary despot Basher Assad used chemical weapons on his own people, killing hundreds of men women and lots of children. It would be suicidal (and nuts) if he did this just as inspectors arrive and Obama warms up for war. I would have to see the polaroids to believe he did it, and not the opposition fundies who'd stop at nothing to repeat NATO operations in Iraq and Libya, dislodging secular tyrants only to be replaced by mayhem with no end in sight. After all, UN reports say the Syrian rebels carried out a Sarin nerve gas attack earlier this year, only revealed at the 11th hour when we were tooling up for conflict. Even weirder that Al Qaeda nemesis Israel stepped in to do the job right this time by claiming the government carried out recent poison attack.

Let's suppose it does emerge that Cameron's "likelihood" is a dead cert and Assad did indeed do it. What good is bombing? "Hulk smash!" mode is for ten-year olds, not world leaders. Turning a disastrous situation into a calamity and piling atrocity on atrocity in a geopolitical layer cake of horrors is not the way to solve anything. How would we like it if a bigger power bombed, say, Westminster? OK, fantasies about Guy Fawkes notwithstanding, the reality would be horrific. Killing civilians and traumatising the rest is a war crime that only adds to these people's misery. There has to be another way with Russia, China and the Arab League doing something useful. There are other pressures that can be brought to bear through economic, trade and cultural means.

If we were serious about chemical warfare, we'd stop selling nerve gas components such as sodium fluoride, not only an innocent toothpaste ingredient. And how about America compensating the people of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia who are still dying decades after the US drenched their forests with Agent Orange herbicides? Or Bhopal where Dow Chemicals refuses to clear up the mess made by Union Carbide Corp — the parent company of Union Carbide India at the time of the disaster — which Dow bought with all the benefits and none of the responsibilities? The CIA helped Saddam Hussein use mustard gas and sarin on Iranians in 1988 when he was our boy. America's depleted uranium used in the Gulf and Iraq wars is still killing but nothing is being done about it. Then there are the cluster bombs and phosphorous and the nuclear ...

The hypocrisy is amazing. This time the British public has seen through the NATO agenda of cutting a swathe through the world and reshaping it into a New World Order of their liking.

Apart from the big question — who used chemical warfare against Syrian civilians? — there are two more I'd like answered:

1) Who were the 30 Labour MPs who stayed away from last night's vote?

2) Remembering the parliamentary vote that effectively privatised the NHS, plus Halliburton and J P Morgan's profits from the Iraq war, how many of the war cheerleaders have investments in arms companies?

Ed may have fudged too many issues, but today there is palpable relief that we aren't repeating Tony Blair's war crimes. Is this is how our forebears felt after the Bay of Pigs Crisis? The world did not end. For now.

EDIT: When you play "Risk", the board game, you reach a stage where several players have a ton of armies. No-one want to take on the one with the most armies so you work round it, picking off their weaker territories and allies. Robert Fisk points out that the US's real target in the region is Iran before it stabilises under the promising new president. To do that it has to exhaust the munitions of their chief supporter — Syria. (Assad seems to be winning its fight against the rebels.) Hence the rush to war.

Basher in The Onion telling it like it is.

Not about oil, then. Transnational energy corporations represented as Saudis join Israel, France and US in Syria clusterfuck.

Even the US army "in doubt" about an attack.

An interesting gender take at Open Democracy on weaponry and patriarchy.


Ministry: New World Order

Iraq war 10 years on: betrayal of a generation's political beliefs

Tony and Cherie celebrate the Year of the Snake

Last night's Iraq War debate at Goldsmith's — sponsored by Huffington Post and featuring Claire Short, Owen Jones, Mehdi Hassan and David Aaronovitch among others — asked "Was it worth it"", generating many outraged tweets and some interesting debate.

Tweeted quotes include:

Mehdi Hassan — "I approached 60 well known hawks and invited them to participate and a lot of hair was being washed tonight. They've worked out that here is not much to defend in the bloody war." and "What we are directly responsible for is the hundreds of thousands of people that have lost their lives."

Shiraz Maher says
"Yes human rights abuses still exist and yes the infrastructure is devastated, and if it means I don't have electricity 24 hours a day to replace Saddam, I think it's a small price to pay."

20:40 – 7/02/2013
Owen Jones closes to loud applause
"Iraq is 150th in the world freedom index and one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists.

"They were wrong about the WMDs, they were wrong about the human cost. And they were wrong about Iraq becoming a flourishing democracy

"Only 30% of Iraqis say they're better off.

"Tens of thousands of Iraqis died, 4,500 US soldiers - for what, to disarm a country that had already been disarmed?

"Ten years on I will say this: We have to learn the lessons and we have to make sure this will never happen again."

20:25 – 7/02/2013
Aaronovitch is quoting the late Dr David Kelly about his comments on weapons on mass destruction in Iraq.

He's interjected by Mehdi Hasan who goes back to a quote Aaronovitch said at the time: "If nothing is eventually found, I... will never believe another thing that I am told by our government"

David says he later admitted that wasn't the right thing to say.

Today, Sam Parker writes at the Huffpo "How Tony Blair and Iraq robbed a generation of their faith in politics":

Up until 2001, I think most of my generation still believed, in an abstract way, that Tony Blair was a decent man. ... But now suddenly, Blair was siding with Bush at every turn. When the president launched his War On Terror, Blair said he'd back it. When the president said he believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, Blair said he believed it too. The press presented him as Bush's poodle, and we winced in acknowledgement.

Then came Resolution 1441 and Hans Blix. Blix swept into the darkening saga like a comforting beam from a lighthouse. The arrival of the peaceful Swede, with his glasses and nervous smile, seemed to my young mind like democracy at work. All Iraq had to do was open to doors to the weapon inspectors, show they had nothing to hide and war would be avoided. Like Piggy from Lord Of The Flies, Blix was supposed to be the rational voice of intelligence. But like Piggy he was taken out of action by an unstoppable boulder: an American government that had made its mind up to go to war long ago.

Blix didn't find a thing, because there were no WMDs to find. By 31 December 2002, his team had reached the same conclusion as an Iraqi dossier presented to the UN during the same period: they were in the clear. It should have ended right there. Instead, two years later, Blix would tell the BBC what by then we all already knew - Bush and Blair ignored him and dramatised a threat in order to start a war. ...

... Guardian/ICM polls at the time put support for the war at just 29% of the public, with 52% opposing. But Blair heard about polls all day long. Naively, I thought a million people marching past his window would be impossible to ignore.

A little over a month later, at 9.34pm on Wednesday 19 March, we watched on television as the first bomb fell on Baghdad. 28 British soldiers would die before the month was out. ...

... The worst legacies of the Iraq War belong to the families of the soldiers and civilians from Iraq, Britain, America and everywhere else forced to make sacrifices for an illegal occupation. But another legacy, one harder to measure than body bags, is the way Tony Blair's hubris robbed a generation of their faith in politics.

In the latest New Statesman, Laurie Penny writes similarly of her generation's betrayal over the Iraq war, not only by Blair's government, but by infighting within the left leadership that squandered the chance to harness the energy of between 1 and 2 million people who attended the mega-march against the war in February 2003.

"It was the first time I remember being part of something larger than myself. It was ony later, after the war and the next six years of progressive assault on cilvil liberties had broken any faith I or my schoolmates might have had in the Labour Party, that I learned about the endless arguments that went on behind the scenes. At the time I had no idea of the factional squabbling that prevented the march from becoming the powerful people's movement it might have been. ... My generation's lack of faith in the political process has often been mistaken for apathy. It is only now, with ordinary people across the world putting their energies into movements that bypass mainstream politics, that the betrayal of Bush and Blair's war is beginning to be understood. We have kn own since we were at school that it's not enough simply to have our voices heard. We have to make sure that we are listened to — and we're still working out how to do that."

It is tragic and positively criminal to see what Bush and Blair did to our democracy and to this generation in particular. But the left's dereliction in abandoning them to a political vacuum while they play at toytown bolshevism is positively revolting and not in the desired meaning of the word.

The SWP (and this includes the leaders of the Counterfire splinter who were part of this themselves) and their dehumanising style of politics is doing more harm than good and is closer to the Morlocks in The Time Machine herding the Eloi underground to be eaten than any serious bid to make a better world. The world burns, the left fiddles and the rest is ashes.

How the left squanders its good will: A Bad Case of the Trots.

Obama in Yo Mama war with China: Pacific Rimmers look out!

"We never liked their noodles, anyway."

Is it my imagination or is cuddly President Barak Obama picking a fight with China?

No sooner has the world begun to heal after the Bush neocon excesses that led to such bloodshed in the Middle east, not to mention an enormous fillip to the arms industry, than Obama announces a tectonic shift in US imperialist policy.

Only a few weeks since Hillary Clinton announced that the new superpower was in the queue not so far along from Iraq, Afghanistan, Lybia, Syria, Iran and Korea for whipping into shape, I listened to Obama's speech to the Australian Parliament last night, struck by sabre-rattling out of a bygone age. "The United States is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay." Is he on something?

The Guardian said:

Obama's speech came the day after he announced he would send military aircraft and up to 2,500 marines to northern Australia for a training hub to help allies and protect American interests across Asia. He declared the US was not afraid of China, by far the biggest and most powerful country in the region.

China's sensitive about having gunboats up her Yangtse, and sending in the marines plus warships to the region is like poking a stick at a pitbull. Reminding China of her ignominious past being gang-banged by the West is not the best way to foster good relations, especially if you are seeking her dosh to get you out of our economic crisis. I would suggest less of the, "C'mon if you think you're 'ard enough", and more of the "Gosh, what big mountains of cash you have. May we have some? Please?"

Actually, Barak said: ""Let there be no doubt: in the Asia-Pacific in the 21st century, the United States of America is all in." Which is diplomat speak for: "You spilt my pint. Outside!"

He continued:

"With most of the world's nuclear powers and some half of humanity, Asia will largely define whether the century ahead will be marked by conflict or cooperation, needless suffering or human progress. We've seen that China can be a partner, from reducing tensions on the Korean peninsula to preventing proliferation. We'll seek more opportunities for cooperation with Beijing, including greater communication between our militaries to promote understanding and avoid miscalculation."

Obama held out the threat of the big stick and I understand several horses' heads are now winging their way to Hu, Wen, Hao and Wai.

The cheeky fucka told them: "We will do this, even as continue to speak candidly with Beijing about the importance of upholding international norms and respecting the universal human rights of the Chinese people."

Meanwhile, the US Occupy protesters are being given tea and cakes in the White House and treated to BBQs in New York's Zuccotti Park while sympathetic cops give them foot-massages.

I'm sure the Australian Aboriginal peoples will be most pleased to have the American's using their vast bombing ranges in the north of the continent as well as all the other excercises and "training". Wonder if the School of the Americas will have a chance to shine?

Could the shift in focus to the Pacific be anything to do with the large oil resources in the South China Sea? As George Orwell said, imperialism consists of the cop and the soldier holding down the native while the businessman goes through their pockets. Or as I see it, the school bully is mugging the other kids for their lunch-money. Unfortunately for America, this new kid does kung fu.

Expect proxy wars and monstering of China in the supine media as we all get programmed to cheer World War Three and a Half.

China says: Don't worry. It's not the foundations for a huge death machine or anything.

Obama in Yo Mama war with China: Pacific Rimmers look out!

"We never liked their noodles, anyway."

Is it my imagination or is cuddly President Barak Obama picking a fight with China?

No sooner has the world begun to heal after the Bush neocon excesses that led to such bloodshed in the Middle east, not to mention an enormous fillip to the arms industry, than Obama announces a tectonic shift in US imperialist policy.

Only a few weeks since Hillary Clinton announced that the new superpower was in the queue not so far along from Iraq, Afghanistan, Lybia, Syria, Iran and Korea for whipping into shape, I listened to Obama's speech to the Australian Parliament last night, struck by sabre-rattling out of a bygone age. "The United States is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay." Is he on something?

The Guardian said:

Obama's speech came the day after he announced he would send military aircraft and up to 2,500 marines to northern Australia for a training hub to help allies and protect American interests across Asia. He declared the US was not afraid of China, by far the biggest and most powerful country in the region.

China's sensitive about having gunboats up her Yangtse, and sending in the marines plus warships to the region is like poking a stick at a pitbull. Reminding China of her ignominious past being gang-banged by the West is not the best way to foster good relations, especially if you are seeking her dosh to get you out of our economic crisis. I would suggest less of the, "C'mon if you think you're 'ard enough", and more of the "Gosh, what big mountains of cash you have. May we have some? Please?"

Actually, Barak said: ""Let there be no doubt: in the Asia-Pacific in the 21st century, the United States of America is all in." Which is diplomat speak for: "You spilt my pint. Outside!"

He continued:

"With most of the world's nuclear powers and some half of humanity, Asia will largely define whether the century ahead will be marked by conflict or cooperation, needless suffering or human progress. We've seen that China can be a partner, from reducing tensions on the Korean peninsula to preventing proliferation. We'll seek more opportunities for cooperation with Beijing, including greater communication between our militaries to promote understanding and avoid miscalculation."

Obama held out the threat of the big stick and I understand several horses' heads are now winging their way to Hu, Wen, Hao and Wai.

The cheeky fucka told them: "We will do this, even as continue to speak candidly with Beijing about the importance of upholding international norms and respecting the universal human rights of the Chinese people."

Meanwhile, the US Occupy protesters are being given tea and cakes in the White House and treated to BBQs in New York's Zuccotti Park while sympathetic cops give them foot-massages.

I'm sure the Australian Aboriginal peoples will be most pleased to have the American's using their vast bombing ranges in the north of the continent as well as all the other excercises and "training". Wonder if the School of the Americas will have a chance to shine?

Could the shift in focus to the Pacific be anything to do with the large oil resources in the South China Sea? As George Orwell said, imperialism consists of the cop and the soldier holding down the native while the businessman goes through their pockets. Or as I see it, the school bully is mugging the other kids for their lunch-money. Unfortunately for America, this new kid does kung fu.

Expect proxy wars and monstering of China in the supine media as we all get programmed to cheer World War Three and a Half.

China says: Don't worry. It's not the foundations for a huge death machine or anything.

Libya: the hypocrisy of liberal intervention

Brilliant article by Johann Hari in the Independent yesterday on the real reasons behind the West's compulsion to stage "humanitarian" intervention with things that go bang in countries whose people we helped keep down with more things that go bang.

Take the present round of Middle Eastern revolutions rocking our oil-owning buddies including Libya, where the current NATO offensive is mashing up the rebel opposition in a series of friendly fire incidents:

"David Cameron's instinctive response to the Arab revolutions was to jump on a plane and tour the palaces of the region's dictators selling them the most hi-tech weapons of repression available. Nicolas Sarkozy's instinctive response to the Arab revolutions was to offer urgent aid to the Tunisian tyrant in crushing his people. Barack Obama's instinctive response to the Arab revolutions was to refuse to trim the billions in aid going to Hosni Mubarak and his murderous secret police, and for his Vice-President to declare: 'I would not refer to him as a dictator.'"

In Pakistan, the US has been sending in drones to kill those identified as Taliban. Glossed with a ludicrous concept of "precision bombing" straight out of the first Iraq War, this needle-in-a-haystack enterprise relies on dodgy information and, unsurprisingly, results in a kill ratio of 50 civilians for every alleged terrorist. Being this reckless with civilians' lives means that, for many potential recruits to the fundamentalist cause, it is the American government that is the terrorist.

Yet for other civilians for whom some can make a case for NATO protection:

" ... 'armies of business' had invaded Congo to pillage its resources and sell them to the knowing West. The most valuable loot is coltan, which is used to make the metal in our mobile phones and games consoles and laptops. The "armies of business" fought and killed to control the mines and send it to us. The UN listed some of the major Western corporations fuelling this trade, and said if they were stopped, it would largely end the war."

"By contrast, when the Congolese government recently nationalized a mine belonging to US and British corporations, there was a fire-burst of fury in the press. You can kill five million people and we'll politely look away; but take away the property of rich people, and we get really angry. ... We are almost never prompted to look at the equally real and equally huge abuses by our own country, its allies and its corporations – which we have much more control over – and ask the same question."

Had China done this we would, rightly, never hear the end of it. Every time I read the liberal press slamming China for using its purchasing power in Africa, I shall think of the damage we are still doing to people in Africa, the Middle East and Pakistan at the barrel of a gun, and reread this article. Ever wonder why we never hear about the African Debt any more? One thing we can surely thank China for is putting Bono's out of our misery and out of business.

As for any humanitarian advantage resulting from our attacks, Hari cuts to the likely outcome:

" ... any coincidental humanitarian gain in the short term will be eclipsed as soon as the local population clash with the real reason for the war. Then our governments will back their renewed vicious repression - just as the US and Britain did in Iraq, with a policy of effectively sanctioning the resumption of torture when the population became uppity and objected to the occupation. ... But if you are still convinced our governments are acting for humanitarian reasons, I've got a round-trip plane ticket for you to some rubble in Pakistan and Congo. The people there would love to hear your argument."

Keep your ears peeled for Johann Hari's programme for BBC Radio 4's 4Thought on this subject.

Libya: the hypocrisy of liberal intervention

Brilliant article by Johann Hari in the Independent yesterday on the real reasons behind the West's compulsion to stage "humanitarian" intervention with things that go bang in countries whose people we helped keep down with more things that go bang.

Take the present round of Middle Eastern revolutions rocking our oil-owning buddies including Libya, where the current NATO offensive is mashing up the rebel opposition in a series of friendly fire incidents:

"David Cameron's instinctive response to the Arab revolutions was to jump on a plane and tour the palaces of the region's dictators selling them the most hi-tech weapons of repression available. Nicolas Sarkozy's instinctive response to the Arab revolutions was to offer urgent aid to the Tunisian tyrant in crushing his people. Barack Obama's instinctive response to the Arab revolutions was to refuse to trim the billions in aid going to Hosni Mubarak and his murderous secret police, and for his Vice-President to declare: 'I would not refer to him as a dictator.'"

In Pakistan, the US has been sending in drones to kill those identified as Taliban. Glossed with a ludicrous concept of "precision bombing" straight out of the first Iraq War, this needle-in-a-haystack enterprise relies on dodgy information and, unsurprisingly, results in a kill ratio of 50 civilians for every alleged terrorist. Being this reckless with civilians' lives means that, for many potential recruits to the fundamentalist cause, it is the American government that is the terrorist.

Yet for other civilians for whom some can make a case for NATO protection:

" ... 'armies of business' had invaded Congo to pillage its resources and sell them to the knowing West. The most valuable loot is coltan, which is used to make the metal in our mobile phones and games consoles and laptops. The "armies of business" fought and killed to control the mines and send it to us. The UN listed some of the major Western corporations fuelling this trade, and said if they were stopped, it would largely end the war."

"By contrast, when the Congolese government recently nationalized a mine belonging to US and British corporations, there was a fire-burst of fury in the press. You can kill five million people and we'll politely look away; but take away the property of rich people, and we get really angry. ... We are almost never prompted to look at the equally real and equally huge abuses by our own country, its allies and its corporations – which we have much more control over – and ask the same question."

Had China done this we would, rightly, never hear the end of it. Every time I read the liberal press slamming China for using its purchasing power in Africa, I shall think of the damage we are still doing to people in Africa, the Middle East and Pakistan at the barrel of a gun, and reread this article. Ever wonder why we never hear about the African Debt any more? One thing we can surely thank China for is putting Bono's out of our misery and out of business.

As for any humanitarian advantage resulting from our attacks, Hari cuts to the likely outcome:

" ... any coincidental humanitarian gain in the short term will be eclipsed as soon as the local population clash with the real reason for the war. Then our governments will back their renewed vicious repression - just as the US and Britain did in Iraq, with a policy of effectively sanctioning the resumption of torture when the population became uppity and objected to the occupation. ... But if you are still convinced our governments are acting for humanitarian reasons, I've got a round-trip plane ticket for you to some rubble in Pakistan and Congo. The people there would love to hear your argument."

Keep your ears peeled for Johann Hari's programme for BBC Radio 4's 4Thought on this subject.

Now China blamed for BP oil spill. I mean: Hunh?

Pic from Don't Tea On Me

The latest in the Guardian's increasingly demented run of attempts to blame China for every disaster screeches out: "BP oil spill: failed safety device on Deepwater Horizon rig was modified in China". Tim Webb's article then goes on to admit:

There is no evidence that the significant modifications to the blowout preventer (BOP), which were carried out in China in 2005, caused the equipment to fail. But industry lawyers said BP could be made liable for any mistakes that a Chinese subcontractor made carrying out the work. It would be almost impossible to secure damages in China, where international law is barely recognised.

No evidence, but I guess the Guardian lives in hope.

In contrast, over at the Observer, their stablemate/rival, Tim Webb dispassionately reports the fact that there are moves afoot to "pass the buck" for responsibility away from BP's awful health and safety record, th'awl bidness's general screw-you to local communities, Halliburton's dodgy cement, and JR-style cronyism with ambitious/influential politicians, to China! When in doubt, blame the Chinese.

The Observer has learnt how Cameron [International, not Dave] will try to pin the blame on BP for the failure of the BOP: lawyers will claim that BP ordered Transocean to modify the BOP in China so significantly that the remodelled component no longer resembled what Cameron had originally manufactured.

A different emphasis entirely.

When the Western nations' duplicity over the secret Danish Text at the Copenhagen climate change summit was about to hit the headlines last December, The Guardian and Ed Milband led the field in switching attention (hey! Look over THERE!) to supposed machinations from China, in order to protect a deal that would have left the US still producing four times per capita the carbon emissions of the Chinese. My own attempts to join the debate and present an alternative argument at the Guardian's CiF (Comment Is Free, irony duly noted) resulted in my comments being deleted and my being banned.

In 2000, when the government's mishandling of the Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak in the UK resulted in pyres of culled livestock across this green and pleasant land, The Guardian was one of the loudest in suddenly accusing the UK Chinese of starting the outbreak (while the Independent was alone in maintaining a healthy scepticism). When this lunacy resulted in an apology and vindication from Nick Brown, minister at the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food, the story melted away, with the late Hugo Young conceding in an email exchange that there were wheels within wheels, and one Guardian reporter telling a UK Chinese defence campaigner that there had been a dressing-down at the very top with the instruction that this should never happen again. If only Young were still with us and on watch ...

Isn't it about time the Guardian acted like a newspaper and offered us unbiased news reporting so we can make up our own minds? What is their agenda? What are they warming us up for? With the US conducting military exercises in the Yellow Sea and Cameron's statement that nuclear war with China is an option during the General Election campaign, is the West seriously building up to a conflagration with its giant economic rival? Could China's relationship with Iran be a factor, perchance?

As if we haven't had enough wars started by the West. Still, no war news is bad news if you happen to have arms industry companies in your share portfolio.

UPDATE: Note that both articles were by Tim Webb but with a different emphasis. The Observer's homepage featured the more sober headline and standfirst: "What lurks below the surface for BP? Even amid the 'cowboy culture' of offshore drilling, BP's operational record raises concerns BP safety device was sent to China"

The Observer piece acknowledges the buck-passing strategy currently being employed and makes it clear that "BP ordered Transocean to modify the BOP in China so significantly that the remodelled component no longer resembled what Cameron had originally manufactured." The implication is that the Chinese subcontractor only worked to BP/Transocean's money-saving specs.

The Guardian's home page, however, had the headline: "BP oil spill: failed safety device on Deepwater Horizon rig was modified in China." The piece by the same journalist implies that any fault — which has yet to be determined forensically — was down to Chinese work alone despite there being "no evidence" that any modifications had anything to do with the BOP failure at all.

It would be interesting to to know if either of these versions represents the actual views of the credited journalist.

UPDATE 2: Monday 19th July. As both articles seem to be good examples of objective reportage, containing some interesting material and placing the blame for the oil spill firmly with BP/Transocean, I am left wondering why the Guardian Online chose to foreground the China angle even though the article itself makes it clear that, "... the modifications were carried out at BP's request and "under its direction" ... '. It looks as if both headlines and standfirsts were written by eds at the Observer. The Observer home page led with the "What lies beneath the surface" angle, focusing on BP, and which features China as only part of the equation. Take out China and replace it with anywhere else in the world (India and South Korea also get these jobs) and you are still left with a cost-cutting scandal that is the responsibility of the oil industry. But the majority of the subsequent blizzard of Tweets didn't reflect this, homing in instead on China.

The Observer newspaper published the China angle on page 7, and the "Beneath the surface" article on page 36. So what is going on?

Secret video of Iraq massacre released by Wikileaks

Welcome to the true face of war.

When you start something as nightmarish as war, you open up the inevitability of atrocities, dead on all sides, the murder of innocents and the death of the souls of the perpetrators.

Wikileaks has just released video of the massacre of a dozen Iraqi civilians that shows the US military shooting civilians as sport. It is truly horrific. What sort of people can carry out such an insane cowardly act from the safety of their little cockpit screens?

The murdered men in this case include two men working for Reuters: a talented young war photographer, Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his driver, Saeed Chmagh, 40. Two children were injured when rescuers tried to help the victims.

The Apache pilot's excuse is that the group were carrying weapons and were shooting. Yet Namir's bag, identified as weaponry, was actually his camera kit. Besides, possessing weapons is legal in Iraq. If you shot up all Americans with weapons in their home country you'd decimate the population.

The Pentagon fought to suppress the video but Wikileaks have now spread this far and wide.

The real criminals, of course, are the politicians, the arms industry and the banks that set this illegal war in motion and have made their money. It's no wonder that former Prime Minister Tony Blair tried to keep secret the fact that he's taken Iraqi oil money, and that's on top of the £2 million a year he's been given by the bank organising the pillaging of Iraq, J P Morgan. For me, this far exceeds the expenses scandal. Look on your handiwork and despair, Tony and Dubya.

For the media cheerleaders who supported the Iraq war, I'll let George Orwell have the last word:

Bullets hurt, corpses stink, men under fire are often so frightened that they wet their trousers ... A louse is a louse and a bomb is a bomb, even though the cause you are fighting for happens to be just ... If there was one thing that the British intelligentsia were committed to, it was the debunking version of war; the theory that war is all corpses and latrines and never leads to any good result. Well, the same people who in 1933 sniggered pityingly if you said that in certain circumstances you would fight for your country, in 1937 were denouncing you as a Trotsky-Fascist if you suggested that the stories in New Masses about freshly wounded men clamouring to get hack into the fighting might he exaggerated. And the Left intelligentsia made their swing over from "War is hell" to "War is glorious" not only with no sense of incongruity but almost without any intervening stage.

More at the Guardian and Independent. Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com (hat tip Nevin for the Greenwald link).

Secret video of Iraq massacre released by Wikileaks

Welcome to the true face of war.

When you start something as nightmarish as war, you open up the inevitability of atrocities, dead on all sides, the murder of innocents and the death of the souls of the perpetrators.

Wikileaks has just released video of the massacre of a dozen Iraqi civilians that shows the US military shooting civilians as sport. It is truly horrific. What sort of people can carry out such an insane cowardly act from the safety of their little cockpit screens?

The murdered men in this case include two men working for Reuters: a talented young war photographer, Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his driver, Saeed Chmagh, 40. Two children were injured when rescuers tried to help the victims.

The Apache pilot's excuse is that the group were carrying weapons and were shooting. Yet Namir's bag, identified as weaponry, was actually his camera kit. Besides, possessing weapons is legal in Iraq. If you shot up all Americans with weapons in their home country you'd decimate the population.

The Pentagon fought to suppress the video but Wikileaks have now spread this far and wide.

The real criminals, of course, are the politicians, the arms industry and the banks that set this illegal war in motion and have made their money. It's no wonder that former Prime Minister Tony Blair tried to keep secret the fact that he's taken Iraqi oil money, and that's on top of the £2 million a year he's been given by the bank organising the pillaging of Iraq, J P Morgan. For me, this far exceeds the expenses scandal. Look on your handiwork and despair, Tony and Dubya.

For the media cheerleaders who supported the Iraq war, I'll let George Orwell have the last word:

Bullets hurt, corpses stink, men under fire are often so frightened that they wet their trousers ... A louse is a louse and a bomb is a bomb, even though the cause you are fighting for happens to be just ... If there was one thing that the British intelligentsia were committed to, it was the debunking version of war; the theory that war is all corpses and latrines and never leads to any good result. Well, the same people who in 1933 sniggered pityingly if you said that in certain circumstances you would fight for your country, in 1937 were denouncing you as a Trotsky-Fascist if you suggested that the stories in New Masses about freshly wounded men clamouring to get hack into the fighting might he exaggerated. And the Left intelligentsia made their swing over from "War is hell" to "War is glorious" not only with no sense of incongruity but almost without any intervening stage.

More at the Guardian and Independent. Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com (hat tip Nevin for the Greenwald link).

Tony Blair's secret Iraq oil cash deal

Has this man no shame? Yeah, stupid question. What price human lives lost on all sides in an illegal war in Iraq? About £20 million since Tony Blair left office.

The Daily Mail reports:

Tony Blair waged an extraordinary two-year battle to keep secret a lucrative deal with a multinational oil giant which has extensive interests in Iraq. ... also went to great efforts to keep hidden a £1million deal advising the ruling royal family in Iraq's neighbour Kuwait. ... They will increase concerns that Mr Blair is using his role as the West's Middle East envoy for personal gain. ... Critics also point out that a large proportion of his earnings comes from patrons in America and the Middle East - a clear benefit from forging a close alliance with George Bush during his invasion of Iraq. ... Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker said: 'These revelations show that our former Prime Minister is for sale - he is driven by making as much money as possible."

We haven't forgotten, though, that David Cameron's Tories voted for this war. And John Major isn't exactly poor off the back of his Middle East skirmishes as Prime Minister.

How about Inspector Knacker whisking Blair off to the Hague for war crimes? And make sure he has to spend his blood money on his defence.

Tony Blair's secret Iraq oil cash deal

Has this man no shame? Yeah, stupid question. What price human lives lost on all sides in an illegal war in Iraq? About £20 million since Tony Blair left office.

The Daily Mail reports:

Tony Blair waged an extraordinary two-year battle to keep secret a lucrative deal with a multinational oil giant which has extensive interests in Iraq. ... also went to great efforts to keep hidden a £1million deal advising the ruling royal family in Iraq's neighbour Kuwait. ... They will increase concerns that Mr Blair is using his role as the West's Middle East envoy for personal gain. ... Critics also point out that a large proportion of his earnings comes from patrons in America and the Middle East - a clear benefit from forging a close alliance with George Bush during his invasion of Iraq. ... Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker said: 'These revelations show that our former Prime Minister is for sale - he is driven by making as much money as possible."

We haven't forgotten, though, that David Cameron's Tories voted for this war. And John Major isn't exactly poor off the back of his Middle East skirmishes as Prime Minister.

How about Inspector Knacker whisking Blair off to the Hague for war crimes? And make sure he has to spend his blood money on his defence.

Cannibal robots in the US army could eat human flesh

Is it my imagination or did I just hear Stephen Sackur on BBC Radio 4 asking a rather furtive American scientist about the new "organic matter-eating" combat robot now being developed by the arms corporations?

"Did this mean it could end up eating the flesh of dead (or live!) soldiers in the battlefield?", he asked. "No," came the shaky and utterly unconvincing reply. "That wouldn't be allowed by the Geneva Convention."

Oh, how I laffed. "Be All You Can Be" is now "Eat All You Can Eat".

Remember, boys and gals, the choice is socialism or barbarism. Civilised pundits are already making the arguments for the latter.

All of which reminds me that Caprica, the prequel series to the magnificent Battlestar Galactica, has hit UK TV screens. Episode four next on Sky 1. It all kicks off with a ruthless scientist whose genius daughter has been killed in a terrorist attack. Typical of the creators who enjoy twisting our melons, this is far from your average mawkish tale of grief-stricken loving father. Oh, yes. Review to come later.

Minority Report: Tony Blair at the Chilcot Iraq Inquiry Pt I

Lunchtime. A slippery and unapologetic Tony Blair defended his right to smite at the Iraq Inquiry this morning with his well-rehearsed Minority Report line: we knew Saddam was a bad man and would have done bad things. So you can now be done for pre-crime and Blair is the man to decide.

"It was all about risk" and not an actual threat, he smarmed. "I made the decision based on RISK of renewed WMDs." You may do well in a poker game, Tony, but as a Prime Minister your JUDGEMENT (a word he kept repeating ad nauseam) sucked. He couldn't even extract anything from the Americans in exchange for services rendered (not including whatever it is that Blair may have gained personally). Lyne asked why he couldn't get Bush to give him a reach-around and offer anything on the Middle East and Israel. Oh, that's because Bush didn't think Israel was a fundamental issue.

The biggest stunna of the morning was his insistence on linking 911 with Iraq. Even Fox News no longer returns to this bowl of sick. But Blair kept pressing this as if it was possessed of magic properties and, because there is no lawyer on the panel, he was never pressed to justify and present evidence. It was a point left dangling like a bloody great big elephant on a string.. "The calculus of risk had changed." Force was always an option because he said so. It was his personal JUDGEMENT and he had to make that decision.

Blair didn't want his Amurkin buddies, who had officially been seeking regime change since 1998, to be alone. Ah! Murderous foreign policy determined by an act of chivalry.

Blair also humbly claimed to have been the party to persuade President Clinton to put Serbia under heavy manners over Kosovo and get mediaeval on their behinds. In the same way, he said he was telling Bush to go for it in Iraq. I'd always pictured this as a runt egging on the schoolyard bully. But my father had always maintained that people have it wrong: that because British imperialism is the oldest in the world and they are very good at this, it's not America manipulating us; it's the British Foreign Office dog wagging the US tail. And from Blair's account, Dad was right.

The word "oil" finally surfaced with another Mystic Meg moment. Let's not think about what actually happened in 2003, let's think ahead to 2010 with oil "no longer $25 per barrel, but $100 per barrel". Uh, I think oil had occurred to us at the time.

He weaseled out of the infamous BBC Fern Brittan interview where spoke of "removing" Saddam Hussein but now asserts that because he didn't use the actual words "regime change" he's home and dry.

What we do know is that the UN's Article Two states that you can't use military action to effect a regime change, and there's also a matter or proportionality which Shock And Awe most certainly was not. Resolution 1441 was only about disarmament and any action would have had to have been proportionate to that end. But in order to use military action, the phrase "by all necessary means" (diplomacy-speak for war) would have had to have been included. Which it wasn't.

Hah! 14:45 Blair just lied about 1441. He says "It's pretty obvious ... in spirit" it gave us the right to say, "that's it. This Saddam's last chance. For our armed forces that was sufficient". Smite, smite! Not that he uses words to specifically mean violence. He's very carfeful to let the casual listener draw that conclusion. So next time you're up in front of the law, plead "in spirit". His questioner knows no detail of 1441 and can't challenge him.

The panel were helpful, with Sir Rodders Lyne helping out at a weak moment in the performance with the cue, "So you were pressing for the UN route". An OK amdram actor, Blair picked up the cue which I was beginning to wish was a sawn-off snooker cue and that someone would whack him round his big arrogant homicidal head with it.

Sadly, the protest was a washout with STW leadership managing to mass-mobilise only about 250 people. Timed to start at 8am, Honest Tone had slipped into a back door half an hour earlier and caught the organisers napping.

Depressing to see the line-up of commentators in the media consisting of Westminster Village hawks and lackeys. The strongest detractor was Sir Menzies Campbell on BBC R4 lunchtime news. Where's George Galloway, Bob Marshall Andrews and Craig Murray, f'rinstance? Sharp accounts from Craig Murray here and here

Je ne regrette rien Tony Blair Part Deux

Minority Report: Tony Blair at the Chilcot Iraq Inquiry Pt I

Lunchtime. A slippery and unapologetic Tony Blair defended his right to smite at the Iraq Inquiry this morning with his well-rehearsed Minority Report line: we knew Saddam was a bad man and would have done bad things. So you can now be done for pre-crime and Blair is the man to decide.

"It was all about risk" and not an actual threat, he smarmed. "I made the decision based on RISK of renewed WMDs." You may do well in a poker game, Tony, but as a Prime Minister your JUDGEMENT (a word he kept repeating ad nauseam) sucked. He couldn't even extract anything from the Americans in exchange for services rendered (not including whatever it is that Blair may have gained personally). Lyne asked why he couldn't get Bush to give him a reach-around and offer anything on the Middle East and Israel. Oh, that's because Bush didn't think Israel was a fundamental issue.

The biggest stunna of the morning was his insistence on linking 911 with Iraq. Even Fox News no longer returns to this bowl of sick. But Blair kept pressing this as if it was possessed of magic properties and, because there is no lawyer on the panel, he was never pressed to justify and present evidence. It was a point left dangling like a bloody great big elephant on a string.. "The calculus of risk had changed." Force was always an option because he said so. It was his personal JUDGEMENT and he had to make that decision.

Blair didn't want his Amurkin buddies, who had officially been seeking regime change since 1998, to be alone. Ah! Murderous foreign policy determined by an act of chivalry.

Blair also humbly claimed to have been the party to persuade President Clinton to put Serbia under heavy manners over Kosovo and get mediaeval on their behinds. In the same way, he said he was telling Bush to go for it in Iraq. I'd always pictured this as a runt egging on the schoolyard bully. But my father had always maintained that people have it wrong: that because British imperialism is the oldest in the world and they are very good at this, it's not America manipulating us; it's the British Foreign Office dog wagging the US tail. And from Blair's account, Dad was right.

The word "oil" finally surfaced with another Mystic Meg moment. Let's not think about what actually happened in 2003, let's think ahead to 2010 with oil "no longer $25 per barrel, but $100 per barrel". Uh, I think oil had occurred to us at the time.

He weaseled out of the infamous BBC Fern Brittan interview where spoke of "removing" Saddam Hussein but now asserts that because he didn't use the actual words "regime change" he's home and dry.

What we do know is that the UN's Article Two states that you can't use military action to effect a regime change, and there's also a matter or proportionality which Shock And Awe most certainly was not. Resolution 1441 was only about disarmament and any action would have had to have been proportionate to that end. But in order to use military action, the phrase "by all necessary means" (diplomacy-speak for war) would have had to have been included. Which it wasn't.

Hah! 14:45 Blair just lied about 1441. He says "It's pretty obvious ... in spirit" it gave us the right to say, "that's it. This Saddam's last chance. For our armed forces that was sufficient". Smite, smite! Not that he uses words to specifically mean violence. He's very carfeful to let the casual listener draw that conclusion. So next time you're up in front of the law, plead "in spirit". His questioner knows no detail of 1441 and can't challenge him.

The panel were helpful, with Sir Rodders Lyne helping out at a weak moment in the performance with the cue, "So you were pressing for the UN route". An OK amdram actor, Blair picked up the cue which I was beginning to wish was a sawn-off snooker cue and that someone would whack him round his big arrogant homicidal head with it.

Sadly, the protest was a washout with STW leadership managing to mass-mobilise only about 250 people. Timed to start at 8am, Honest Tone had slipped into a back door half an hour earlier and caught the organisers napping.

Depressing to see the line-up of commentators in the media consisting of Westminster Village hawks and lackeys. The strongest detractor was Sir Menzies Campbell on BBC R4 lunchtime news. Where's George Galloway, Bob Marshall Andrews and Craig Murray, f'rinstance? Sharp accounts from Craig Murray here and here

Je ne regrette rien Tony Blair Part Deux

Chilcot chums: who are the inquisitors?

What's the chance of the Chilcott Iraq Inquiry arriving at a satisfactory objective conclusion?

Andy Beckett asks in The Guardian if the inquiry can do a better job than past whitewashes.

Then there are the inquisitors themselves. None of them is a lawyer, despite the Iraq war being a minefield of legal issues. All are peers, and four out of the five are men; the sole woman is Baroness Usha Prashar. What is more, all four men seem to have pro-government elements in their biographies.

The chairman, Sir John Chilcot, a former senior civil servant, was part of the Butler inquiry panel which, in the eyes of most observers, was robust in its detailed judgments but too charitable in its conclusions. Sir Martin Gilbert is the official biographer of Winston Churchill; in 2004 he wrote in the Observer, "George W Bush and Tony Blair . . . may well, with the passage of time . . . join the ranks of [Franklin] Roosevelt and Churchill [as war leaders] when Iraq has a stable democracy."

Sir Lawrence Freedman is another grand British historian – professor of war studies at King's College London since 1982 – with less than neutral past views on Iraq. In the lead-up to war, he repeatedly wrote hawkish articles for British newspapers about the strategic threat allegedly posed by Saddam Hussein. In 1999, he contributed heavily to a famous Blair speech in Chicago that set out the arguments for military action against repressive and dangerous regimes.

Finally there is Sir Roderic Lyne, a former British ambassador to Russia. In Alastair Campbell's diaries he is referred to fondly as "Rod". In June 2003, a few weeks after the invasion of Iraq, the Times reported that during an international summit in St Petersburg, "Campbell took time out to race Sir Roderic Lyne through six miles of city streets. This was the third in a series of three races that the pair have run."

Watch Blair's testimony live on Friday at the Chilcot Iraq Inquiry website.

UPDATE: Applause for Flying Rodent's splendid rant, Lefties – stop chasing the Chilcot farce at Liberal Conspiracy on what the real narrative actually is and why everything else is smoke and mirrors. Good comment at No 9, as well.

Chilcot chums: who are the inquisitors?

What's the chance of the Chilcott Iraq Inquiry arriving at a satisfactory objective conclusion?

Andy Beckett asks in The Guardian if the inquiry can do a better job than past whitewashes.

Then there are the inquisitors themselves. None of them is a lawyer, despite the Iraq war being a minefield of legal issues. All are peers, and four out of the five are men; the sole woman is Baroness Usha Prashar. What is more, all four men seem to have pro-government elements in their biographies.

The chairman, Sir John Chilcot, a former senior civil servant, was part of the Butler inquiry panel which, in the eyes of most observers, was robust in its detailed judgments but too charitable in its conclusions. Sir Martin Gilbert is the official biographer of Winston Churchill; in 2004 he wrote in the Observer, "George W Bush and Tony Blair . . . may well, with the passage of time . . . join the ranks of [Franklin] Roosevelt and Churchill [as war leaders] when Iraq has a stable democracy."

Sir Lawrence Freedman is another grand British historian – professor of war studies at King's College London since 1982 – with less than neutral past views on Iraq. In the lead-up to war, he repeatedly wrote hawkish articles for British newspapers about the strategic threat allegedly posed by Saddam Hussein. In 1999, he contributed heavily to a famous Blair speech in Chicago that set out the arguments for military action against repressive and dangerous regimes.

Finally there is Sir Roderic Lyne, a former British ambassador to Russia. In Alastair Campbell's diaries he is referred to fondly as "Rod". In June 2003, a few weeks after the invasion of Iraq, the Times reported that during an international summit in St Petersburg, "Campbell took time out to race Sir Roderic Lyne through six miles of city streets. This was the third in a series of three races that the pair have run."

Watch Blair's testimony live on Friday at the Chilcot Iraq Inquiry website.

UPDATE: Applause for Flying Rodent's splendid rant, Lefties – stop chasing the Chilcot farce at Liberal Conspiracy on what the real narrative actually is and why everything else is smoke and mirrors. Good comment at No 9, as well.

Tony Blair admits Iraq war lies: what happens at Chilcot?

What sort of madness is it that makes a person insist in the face of facts, principles and public opposition, that they alone are right in taking an action that results in over a million civilian deaths, impoverishes us as a nation and rips up our moral fabric?

What sort of moral bankruptcy allows that person to take money from the very companies that made a fortune from the war they started?

What sort of society allows this to happen with no constraints or consequences?

Tony Blair has now admitted in the softest of interviews with BBC's Fern Britton — not Jeremy Paxman or any of the other heavyweights, note —that his decision to go to war in Iraq was nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), and everything to do with regime change.

Isn't this illegal under international law? How many service men and women died because of his faked-up reasons? I'm far from being alone in believing that Blair should now be tried as a war criminal. Blair did what he wanted like he was some third world potentate with divine right to rule with hardly any opposition from his own party to their eternal shame. (Honours, of course, to those few lone voices within the party who did put up a fight and deserve better company than the sheep.)

I never believed him for one moment about WMDs. To me and millions of others who opposed the war, it was a far-fetched cold-war paranoia about moustache-twirling, cat-stroking villains that served the neo-con agenda to grab oil and open up the nation's finance to foreign banks; banks such as JP Morgan charged with co-ordinating the plundering of Iraq and now paying Blair $2 million a year for services rendered.

He said in his typically self-pitying way: "There is no point in going in to a situation of conflict and not understanding there is going to be a price paid."

The trouble is, it's not you paying the price, is it, Tony? It's Iraqi civilians, British soldiers and our national finances. You, Tony, are very far from paying any price, having pocketed your loot.

His change of tack would indicate that the revelations heard so far in the Chilcot inquiry have had an effect on his morale and he's desperately slipping and sliding around to avoid being exposed as a lying, self-serving war criminal bereft of any moral compass save some cartoon Ivanhoe self-image in which he saves the world (TM Gordon Brown) and earns the undying gratitude of powerful men.

What happened to democracy? To British fair play? To the rule of law? For people like Blair, it's no longer about serving your country — it's how can your country serve you and devil take the hindmost.

UPDATE: A FEW FACTS
The Iraq war has cost the UK £6.5 billion.
"Secret MoD documents leaked to the Press now confirm that preparations for the war began as early as February 2002." Paul Routlege in The Mirror.
179 British service men and women have died in the conflict.
Over a million Iraqis have been killed.
"Tony Blair is paid $2 million a year by JP Morgan, the bank at the centre of Iraq "restructuring".
"Total spending for both wars will reach 4.37 billion pounds ($7.15 billion) in the current fiscal year, which ends in March 2010, compared with 1.56 in the year ended March 2006, according to Ministry of Defense figures published by the House of Commons Defense Committee."