UK = Rogue State [Archive] - The Project Avalon Community Forum

Ewan

12th April 2018, 13:30

http://markcurtis.info/2018/04/06/when-it-comes-to-middle-east-policy-the-uk-is-nothing-but-a-rogue-state/

When it comes to Middle East policy, the UK is nothing but a rogue state
April 6, 2018

by Mark Curtis

In the current crisis with Moscow, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has written that “Russia cannot break international rules with impunity”. Britain, along with Russia, has a particular obligation to uphold international law since it is one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Last year, Attorney General Jeremy Wright said the UK was “a world leader in promoting, defending and shaping international law”. Yet the reality is different: Britain has been promoting at least seven foreign policies that can be strongly argued to be violating international law, and which make a mockery of its current demonisation of Russia.
Israeli goods and Gaza blockade

The first two concern Israel. Although Britain regards Israeli settlements in the occupied territories as illegal, in line with international law, it permits trade with “Israeli” goods from those illegal settlements and does not even keep a record of imports into the UK from them.

Yet UN Security Council resolutions require all states to “distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967”.

Israel’s blockade of Gaza is widely regarded as illegal, including by senior UN officials, a UN independent panel of experts, Amnesty International and the Red Cross, partly since it inflicts “collective punishment” on an entire population. Through its naval blockade, the Israeli Navy restricts Palestinians’ fishing rights, even firing on local fishermen, and intercepts ships delivering humanitarian aid.

Yet Britain, failing to uphold its obligation “to ensure compliance by Israel with international humanitarian law”, regularly collaborates with the navy enforcing the illegal blockade. In December 2017 and November 2016, British warships held military exercises with their Israeli counterparts.

“We’ve operated with several Israel Navy ships, practising communications and manoeuvring” and have a “great relationship with the Israeli Navy”, UK naval commanders have said.
Wars in Yemen, Syria, Iraq

The war in Yemen is a further example. Ministers have consistently told Parliament that Britain is “not a party” to the conflict – presumably since this would formally implicate Britain in the violations of humanitarian law of which Saudi Arabia is accused.

London’s claim is nonsense: It is arming, advising and training the Saudis and maintaining their aircraft bombing Yemen, many of which have targeted civilians, as the British government has long known.

UN Security Council Resolution 2286 of 2016 also calls on all states to “end impunity and to ensure those responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law are held to account”. Yet Britain is doing the opposite – it ensures the Saudis remain unaccountable by allowing them to conduct their own investigations into alleged war crimes.

A fourth policy concerns the RAF’s secret drone war, which involves a fleet of “Reaper” drones operating since 2007 to strike targets in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The UK/US spy base at Menwith Hill in Yorkshire also facilitates US drone strikes in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia.

The targeted killing of terrorists (and the use of force generally) is only lawful in self–defence or following UN authorisation, and thus the drone programme is widely regarded as illegal.

When British drones killed two Britons in Syria in 2015, the government unconvincingly argued it was in “self-defence” to counter an “imminent attack”. Rather, as a House of Commons legal briefing argues, such strikes could set a dangerous precedent that other actors or organisations may follow.
Ministers remain unaccountable

There is a good reason why the UK never admits to undertaking covert action. As the same House of Commons briefing notes, “assistance to opposition forces is illegal”.

A precedent was set in the Nicaragua case in the 1980s, when US-backed covert forces tried to overthrow the Sandinista government. The International Court of Justice held that a third state may not forcibly help the opposition to overthrow a government because it would breach the principle of non-intervention and prohibition on the use of force.

This means that Britain has been acting illegally in its years-long covert operation in Syria, and anywhere else it deploys covert forces without agreement from the host state.

In the case of the Chagos islands, Britain has permanently violated international law since it expelled the inhabitants in the 1960s to make way for a US military base on Diego Garcia. Harold Wilson’s government separated the islands from Mauritius in 1965 in breach of UN Resolution 1514, which banned the breakup of colonies before independence. It formed a new colonial entity, the British Indian Ocean Territory.

Last June, the UK was defeated at the UN when a large majority of countries supported a Mauritius-backed resolution to seek an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on the legal status of the Chagos Islands.

In 2015, a UN Tribunal ruled that the UK’s proposed “marine protected area” around the islands – which was really a ruse to keep the islanders from returning – was illegal since it undermined the rights of Mauritius. The Chagos islands remain a UK-occupied territory.
Face facts: UK is a rogue state

Finally, there is the 2011 war in Libya, for which British ministers remain unaccountable. While Tony Blair is widely accused of acting illegally in invading Iraq, UK Prime Minister David Cameron often escapes condemnation for the UK/NATO military intervention that overthrew the Gaddafi regime.

Yet this war was surely a violation of UN Resolution 1973, which authorised member states to use “all necessary measures” to prevent attacks on civilians but did not authorise the use of ground troops – which Britain secretly deployed to Libya – or regime change.

Edit: For the visually impaired (cough, Hervé) :waving:

Cidersomerset

12th April 2018, 14:03

I agree Ewan the UK has been a rogue state for a very long time and financed much
of the Napoleonic wars for the various coalitions against Napoleon, using fledgling
'banksters' like the Rothchilds to finance the empire which is now under US management.

US/UK = Rogue states and what do both countries have in common regarding the
middle east both have strong Israeli lobbies and strong ties to Saudi Arabia.

The globalist deepstate NWO has strong roots in London , Washington and elsewhere
and I think the UK arm has been brought in to help their US partners to curb Trump
especially in regards to Syria and the disruption of the plan set out for the region
and elsewhere by the neo - Con/dems and exposed by Gen Wesley Clark . Then
you have all the global organisations infiltrated by the various deepstate players
and it gets complicated and most people tune out which is what the elites hope
so they can continue there various agendas....

http://www.bollyn.com/public/Wesley_Clark_on_seven_countries.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/uUZSS-REaKY/hqdefault.jpg

Foxie Loxie

12th April 2018, 14:36

You might recall, Bob Dean talked about the UKUSA agreement which has been in force since after WWII. It was new to me to learn that two Aussie PM's were taken down to make sure Pine Gap would be set up! :doh:

Baby Steps

12th April 2018, 16:56

Well without being a historian , I can think of so many instances over recent History, where the UK has worked both covertly and overtly to control, manipulate, exploit and undermine various middle east states.

It has been old fashioned imperial tyranny, then transitioning to modern corporate tyranny, as we have now.This has mostly been about maintaining control of Oil assets , among others.

Issues that spring to mind:

- Under pressure from ever increasing war-time debt, the UK agreed in 1916 to support a Jewish homeland in Palestine (the Balfour declaration) which laid the foundations for the current horrors in Gaza etc
- UK/French illegal invasion of Egypt in 1956 to try to regain control of the Suez canal
- UK etc illegal bombing of Libya recently, to facilitate the end of Gadaffi's regime in service of oil and banking interests (the UN mandate allowed enforcement of a no fly zone ONLY)
- UK/US destruction of the democratic government in Iran, installation of the Shah, in order to recover oil assets
- UK etc illegal invasion or Iraq, for oil etc
- UK installation and support of the Al Saud family in Saudi Arabia as absolute rulers, subsequently arming them and sponsoring genocide in Yemen
- The Syrian war is as much a British project as it is anybody's. The crime in the UK is that people are mis-informed by the media and think it's another brutal dictator doing the usual.

It goes on and on, and I have probably missed some big ones. The problem with the security council is that permanent members can veto any resolution , so the illegal actions can continue.

The world now seems to be facing the prospect of war with Iran, if we survive that long. This would be folly, the country is a natural fortress, populous, well armed, and a growing technological power(think drone swarms with a few nasty things hidden amongst them)

Good article (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10253384/British-diplomats-tried-to-suppress-details-of-MI6-role-in-Iran-coup.html) regarding the UK's perfidious role in Iran's history.

British diplomats tried to suppress details of MI6 role in Iran coup

British diplomats tried to convince their US counterparts to suppress “very embarrassing” details of MI6’s role in the 1953 coup in Iran, new documents reveal.

By Raf Sanchez, Washington
7:41PM BST 19 Aug 2013
Foreign Office records from 35 years ago show elaborate efforts by the British embassy in Washington to keep secret Britain’s part in the overthrow of Iran’s democratically-elected Mosaddegh government.
The US academic behind the disclosures told told The Daily Telegraph that even today, 60 years after the coup, Britain may still be working behind the scenes to hide details of the secret mission known as “Operation Boot”.
Malcolm Byrne, deputy director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, said he believed British diplomats were still working to conceal MI6’s activities from more than half a century ago.
“Sixty years after the coup we are still not able to get a full picture of the role played by British and American intelligence,” he said. “It appears the reason is that history and current politics are intersecting and the British are still reluctant to have their role acknowledged.”
The covert action in 1953 by MI6 and the CIA toppled Mohammad Mosaddegh, Iran’s prime minister, in retaliation for his decision to nationalize British oil assets in the country. Mr Mossaddegh was replaced by autocratic rule by the Shah of Iran.

But by 1978 the Shah’s government was tottering on the verge of collapse as Iranians protested on the streets. Watching from afar, the Foreign Office grew concerned that its own role in installing the Shah would become public and further inflame anti-Western sentiments.
Chief among their worries was a plan by historians at the US State Department to release documents related to the 1953 coup, according to records found by researchers at National Security Archive.
In a confidential memo (https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB435/docs/Doc%2023%20-%20October%2012.pdf)from October 1978, one diplomat wrote warned that “if released, there would be some very embarrassing things about the British in them”.
By December a second diplomat had written to London saying that a friendly State Department official had promised “to sit on the papers”. The document shows the embassy approached the historians’ office directly, inquiring how they could keep the files from being made public.
The embassy’s efforts appear to have succeeded because the documents were never officially released.
By the mid-1990s and with the end of the Cold War both the State Department and the CIA had committed to a new policy of openness about past US covert operations.
They agreed to issue revised versions of the Foreign Relations of the United States, an official government history text which was first started by Abraham Lincoln.
The State Department historians began work on a new volume on the 1953 coup, which was expected to acknowledge the role of Western spy agencies.
The revised volume was completed by 2006 but has still not been made public.
Mr Byrne said that even the secretive CIA agreed to release documents about their part in the operation, suggesting that resistance to the State Department’s revised history was coming from outside the US government.
State Department records show that US government historians “made at least two efforts to promote a joint US-British project on Iran, including one through the British Foreign Office,” but none came to fruition.
In a 2009 article (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9892742/Even-if-Iran-gets-the-Bomb-it-wont-be-worth-going-to-war.html) in The Daily Telegraph, Jack Straw, the former foreign secretary, made reference to MI6’s actions saying: “Our role has not been a pretty one”. It is believed to be the first time any senior British politician acknowledged the operation, although Mr Straw had already left government by that point.
A spokesman for the Foreign Office said it was department policy to neither confirm nor deny British involvement in the coup.
The State Department confirmed that it was working on a new volume "covering US relations with Iran from 1951-1954, to include the 1953 coup" and said it would include "include documents never before published".
A spokesman said the volume "is well along in production, but there are a series of complex processes still ahead of us, so we can’t project a publication date at this point". He declined to comment on claims that Britain was lobbying for some documents to be kept secret.

Baby Steps

12th April 2018, 17:21

One strategy seems to be to take a country with oil fields and split off the small oil areas, and install puppet regimes that are dominated by western powers, leaving the larger rump of land mass & population without their natural resource assets. This I think is part of the current strategy to partition Syria. It is by detaching the eastern oil fields near Raqqa from the main part of Syria- the coastal population centres that Assad controls.

Syria already lost it's southern oil potential (Golan hights) to Israel, who illegally occupies this area.

the SAME STRATEGY was used to create Kuwait, and Iraq DOES have grounds to claim that territory.....

Mechanisms of Western Domination: A Short History of Iraq and Kuwait

by David Klein
California State University, Northridge
January 2003

In the United States of America, it is almost beyond the bounds of acceptable discourse to address the question, why did Saddam Hussein invade Kuwait in 1990? Even to ask the question, one risks the appearance of supporting a repressive dictatorship, and to the extent that the question is entertained at all, the simplistic answer proffered by political leaders is that Saddam Hussein is an aggressive tyrant, bent on territorial acquisition and the subjugation of other nations. He is a modern day Hitler. The same answer is utilized to explain why Iraq invaded Iran in 1980. This standard answer is easy to accept, in part, because of the well-documented brutality of Saddam's regime, including human rights violations committed by his government against the Iraqi people, and especially the Kurds.

In spite of partial truths imbedded in this standard explanation, it smacks of propaganda. Much more needs to be understood by the American public before it allows its government to wage war against Iraq. The history of Iraq, Kuwait, Britain, and the United States reveals that the reasons for the Iraqi invasions of Kuwait and Iran are far more complex and interesting than the standard answer allows. Over a period of decades, and especially in recent years, Britain and the U.S. have consciously manipulated tensions in the region and have masterfully set into motion sequences of events leading to the Iraqi invasions. The purpose of these manipulations was to increase power and control over middle eastern governments and their oil resources by elite U.S. and British interests.

This short historical outline is far from comprehensive, and even the references are sketchy. The main purpose of this essay is to offer student peace activists, and others who might be unfamiliar with Middle Eastern history, a few key talking points and an historical context from which to support their efforts to block the drive toward war. This outline is organized by historical chronology into sections. Much of the beginning of this essay relies heavily on a single reference, Iraq and Kuwait: A History Suppressed, by Ralph Schoenman [1]. Relevant web site addresses are sprinkled throughout and are provided for readers who seek a greater depth of understanding than this short outline alone provides.

Early History

The ancient civilizations of Sumer and Babylon originated in Mesopotamia (the Greek word for "between rivers"), near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is now Iraq. Modern day Kuwait began in the eighteenth century as a small village on the Persian Gulf. "Kuwait," the word for "small human settlement," was so named by Iraqi rulers of that era. Throughout the nineteenth century and up to World War I, Kuwait was a "Qadha," a district within the Basra Province, and it was an integral part of Iraq under the administrative rule of the Ottoman Empire.

British Domination

As the victors of World War I, France and Britain dismantled the Ottoman Empire and the Arab nation for their own colonial purposes. The Iraq Petroleum Company was created in 1920 with 95% of the shares going to Britain, France, and the U.S. In order to weaken Arab nationalism, Britain blocked Iraqi access to the Persian Gulf by severing the territorial entity, "Kuwait" from the rest of Iraq in 1921 and 1922. This new British colony, Kuwait, was given artificial boundaries with no basis in history or geography. King Faisal I of the new Iraqi state ruled under British military oversight, but his administration never accepted the amputation of the Kuwait district and the denial of Iraqi access to the Persian Gulf. Attempts by Faisal to build a railway to Kuwait and port facilities on the Gulf were vetoed by Britain. These and other similar British colonial policies made Kuwait a focus of the Arab national movement in Iraq, and a symbol of Iraqi humiliation at the hands of the British.

Resistance to the British imposed separation of Kuwait from Iraq continued through the 1930s. In 1932, the British Agent in Baghdad forced the Iraqi leadership to enter into "correspondence" on the delimitation of boundaries for British Kuwait, but the Iraqi Chamber of Deputies repudiated these "correspondences." A mass movement of Kuwaiti youth called the "Free Kuwaiti Movement" defied British rule and submitted a petition requesting the Iraqi government to reunify Kuwait and Iraq. Fearing an uprising, the Kuwaiti Sheik agreed to the establishment of a legislative council to represent the "Free Kuwaitis." The first meeting of the council in 1938 resulted in an unanimous resolution demanding that Kuwait revert back to Iraq. That same year, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iraq informed the British Ambassador in Baghdad that:

"The Ottoman-British Agreement of 1913 recognizes Kuwait as a District under the jurisdiction of the Province of Basra. Since sovereignty over Basra has been transferred from the Ottoman state to the Iraqi state, that sovereignty has to include Kuwait under the terms of the 1913 Agreement. Iraq has not recognized any change in the status of Kuwait." (quoted in [1])
A popular uprising within Kuwait to reunify with Iraq erupted on March 10, 1939. The Kuwaiti Sheik, with British military support and "advisers," crushed the uprising, and killed or imprisoned its participants. King Ghazi of Iraq publicly demanded the release of the prisoners and warned the Sheik to end the repression of the Free Kuwaiti Movement. Ghazi ignored warnings by Britain to discontinue such public statements, and on April 5, 1939, he was found dead. It was widely assumed that he was assassinated by British agents. Faisal II was an infant at that time, and Nuri es-Said, a former officer of the Ottoman Army with British loyalties, became the de facto leader of Iraq.

U.S. Domination

Following World War II, British rule was gradually replaced by U.S. neo-colonial domination of the Middle East. The new state of Israel became an important instrument for U.S. control of Middle Eastern oil in the post war era. With the U.S./Israeli sponsored coup of 1953 that deposed Mossadegh, the popularly elected president of Iran, and installed the Shah in his place, the U.S. became the dominant imperial power in the region.

In 1955 the U.S. and Britain inaugurated the Baghdad Pact, an anti-Soviet security agreement for Middle Eastern nations, including Iraq. The Baghdad Pact was widely perceived in the Arab world as alliance of regimes subordinate to British and U.S. power, and it was greeted with popular protests and riots. Nuri es-Said responded to the protests by jailing opposition leaders who demanded that Iraq withdraw from the pact. However, he also began secret negotiations with the U.S. and Britain for the return of Kuwait to Iraq in order to placate Iraqi national sentiment.

For two years, appeals for the return of Kuwait to Iraq intensified. In January 1958, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri es-Said addressed a meeting of the Baghdad Pact and publicly urged the return of Kuwait to Iraq. All pact members agreed with the proposal, with the sole exception of Britain. Further diplomatic gestures from Iraq to Britain were rebuffed, and finally Iraq informed Britain that it was preparing documents and copies of secret understandings together with a formal memorandum, to be published before the world in July 1958. The British Ambassador responded to the Iraqi government that Great Britain had "approved in principle" the unification of Kuwait and Iraq, but requested a meeting in London with the Iraqi and British Prime Ministers and other government officials. But this meeting never took place, because the Iraqi monarchy was overthrown on July 14, 1958 in a revolution led by General Abdel Karim Qassim. King Faisal II and Nuri es-Said were executed, and Britain immediately thereafter abrogated the agreement to return Kuwait to Iraq.

News of the coup triggered an uprising of the poor and dispossessed in Baghdad. The crowds attacked the British embassy and other targets. The U.S. did not initially respond to the coup, but the political upheaval of the subsequent popular uprising pushed the new regime further to the left than it had originally intended. The new government lifted the ban on the Iraqi Communist Party, and that modest step toward democracy in turn mobilized the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. CIA director Alan Dulles assigned the job of incapacitating Qassim to the euphemistically named Technical Services Division (TDS) of the CIA. The head of the TDS in 1960, Stanley Gottlieb, initiated a program to assassinate Qassim. One failed assassination attempt in this context was made by Saddam Hussein.

Qassim continued to alienate the U.S. and Britain, and Britain further exacerbated relations by declaring its Kuwait colony free and independent in 1961. Qassim held a press conference on June 19, 1961 at which he declared that "Iraq regards Kuwait as an integral part of its territory." Following that press conference, Britain quickly massed troops in Kuwait with naval support in the Gulf. Kuwait gained admission to the United Nations in 1963, the same year that Qassim was killed and his government overthrown in a CIA supported coup led by the Baath Party.

Saddam Hussein's Rise to Power

By 1965, Saddam Hussein's cousin became Secretary General of the Baathist Party. In 1968 Saddam Hussein was made Deputy Secretary General and Saddam and his Baathist supporters succeeded in seizing state power, all with CIA backing. What followed was a slaughter of the left, including the murder and torture of Iraqi Communist Party members and trade unionists.

Throughout the 1970s, Iraq offered compromises to Kuwait's rulers that would enable Iraq to gain access to its former islands in the Gulf. But no agreements were reached, and the floating border separating the two countries crept northward.

In mid-July, 1979, Saddam replaced Al Bakr as president of Iraq. He reportedly uncovered a conspiracy against his government with the result that twenty-one high government and Baath Party officials were executed. The armed forces and the Baath Party were purged and there were widespread arrests. A short time later, in August 1979 a general amnesty was announced that resulted in the release of Kurdish prisoners, members of the Iraqi Communist Party, and others. However, Amnesty International reported continual human rights abuses from that period.

That same year, Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser, proposed to Saddam Hussein that he invade Iran and annex Khuzistan, thereby providing Iraq access to the Gulf through the narrow waterway, Shatt-al Arab. The U.S. hoped to use Iraq to counter the radicalism of the Khomeini regime in Iran from spreading to oppressed peoples of the Emirates and to Saudi Arabia. Saddam Hussein was guaranteed financial backing in the form of loans from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and other nations.

About half a million Iranians and Iraqis were killed in the Iran Iraq war, and unbeknownst to Hussein, the U.S. and Israel also secretly armed the Iranians so as to weaken both Iran and Iraq. President Ronald Reagan's special envoy, Donald Rumsfeld visited Saddam Hussein once in late December 1983 and again in March 1984. These visits paved the way for the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Iraq at a time when Saddam Hussein was using chemical weapons in his war against Iran. Iraq had been removed from the U.S. State Department's list of alleged sponsors of terrorism in 1982, and Iraq went on a buying spree to purchase weapons from U.S. and German companies. These weapons were used in 1988 for attacks against the Kurds. (see: http://commondreams.org/views02/0802-01.htm and the Democracy Now! piece at: http://www.webactive.com/pacifica/demnow/dn20021114.html)

Prelude to the 1991 Gulf War

The war with Iran left Iraq in ruins. When Saddam Hussein launched his eight year war against Iran, Iraq had $40 billion in hard currency reserves. But by the end of the war, his nation was $80 billion in debt. Iraq was pressed to repay the $80 billion to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, with interest. While Iraq was distracted by its war, Kuwait had accumulated 900 square miles of Iraqi territory by advancing its border with Iraq northward. This was presented to Iraq as a fait accompli and it gave Kuwait access to the Rumaila oil field. The Kuwaiti Sheik had purchased the Santa Fe Drilling Corporation of Alhambra, California, for $2.3 billion and proceeded to use its slant drilling equipment to gain access to the Iraqi oil field.

The main source of earnings for Iraq was petroleum whose price fluctuated depending on international production levels. By 1990, Kuwait, under U.S. tutelage had increased its oil production to undermine OPEC quotas thereby driving the price of Iraqi oil down from $28 per barrel to $11 per barrel and further ruining the Iraqi economy. Appeals from Iraq, Iran, Libya, and other countries to the Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Egypt to stick to OPEC production levels were met with increased naval activity in the Persian Gulf by the United States. In February 1990, Saddam Hussein spoke at the Amman summit on the relationship between oil production and the U.S. navy buildup and warned that the Gulf people and the rest of the Arabs faced subordination to American interests.

Following this speech the Western press carried stories of Saddam's missiles, chemical weapons and nuclear potential. The Israeli press speculated about pre-emptive strikes such as the Israeli attack on Iraq's nuclear power plant in 1981. In spite of Iraqi diplomatic appeals, Kuwait and the Emirates increased oil production, harming their own economic interests, but damaging Iraq's even more so. Kuwait refused to relinquish Iraqi territory it had acquired during the Iran Iraq war which Kuwait had helped finance. Kuwait also rejected production quotas and rejected appeals to cease pumping oil from Iraq's Rumaila oil reserve. It refused to forgo any of Iraq's debt.

On September 18, 1990, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry published verbatim the transcripts of meetings between Saddam Hussein and high level U.S. officials. Knight-Ridder columnist James McCartney acknowledged that the transcripts were not disputed by the U.S. State Department. U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie informed Hussein that, "We have no opinion on...conflicts like your border disagreement with Kuwait." She reiterated this position several times, and added, "Secretary of State James Baker has directed our official spokesman to emphasize this instruction." A week before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, Baker's spokesperson, Margaret Tutwiler and Assistant Secretary of State John Kelly both stated publicly that "the United States was not obligated to come to Kuwait's aid if it were attacked." (Santa Barbara News-Press September 24, 1990 cited in [1]).

Two days before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Assistant Secretary of State John Kelly testified before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee that the United States has no defense treaty relationship with any Gulf country." The New York Daily News editorialized on September 29, 1990, "Small wonder Saddam concluded he could overrun Kuwait. Bush and Co. gave him no reason to believe otherwise." (quoted in [1]).

The 1991 Gulf War

On August 2, 1990, Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait and quickly gained control of the country. The United States, along with the United Nations, demanded the immediate withdrawal of Iraqi forces. Attempts by Iraq to negotiate withdrawal were rebuffed by the United States. U.S. military forces in the region had already rehearsed battle plans to repel an Iraqi invasion.

On January 16, 1991, U.S. and other allied forces launched a devastating attack of Iraq and its armed forces in Kuwait. The Allied bombing was intended to damage Iraq's infrastructure so as to hinder its ability to prosecute war by lowering both civilian and military morale. The United States led the allied forces, but 34 nations also provided troops and/or financial support for the military operations. Among these are: Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Britain, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Honduras, Italy, Kuwait, Morocco, The Netherlands, Niger, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Korea, Spain, Syria, Turkey, and The United Arab Emirates. (See: http://www.historyguy.com/GulfWar.html#gulfwardates or http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/gulf.war/facts/gulfwar/)

U.S. media portrayed the Iraqi military as a global threat and as a formidable military opponent to the United States. Nevertheless, the military outcome of the war was one-sided in the extreme. Of the more than 500,000 U.S. troops engaged in the war, 148 died in battle, many from "friendly fire." Total allied losses were minimal. By contrast, in June 1991, the U.S. military reported more than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers killed, 300,000 wounded. Some human rights groups claimed a higher number of Iraqis killed in battle. According to Baghdad, civilian casualties numbered more than 35,000. However, after the war, some scholars report that the number of Iraqi soldiers killed was significantly less than 100,000. Whatever the numbers, the Iraqi army was completely routed, and all surviving Iraqi military units withdrew to Iraq. "Desert Storm," as the war was called, destroyed 80% of Iraq's weaponry, and the international monitoring and inspections that followed the war (see the next section), resulted in at least 90% of Iraq's pre-invasion weaponry eliminated.

Former U.S. Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, and International Action Center have reported devastating effects of the U.S. and British bombing on the Iraqi civilian population, including the use of depleted uranium from U.S. bombs that have led to cancer and unprecedented levels of birth defects in Iraq. More than 600,000 pounds of depleted uranium was left in Iraq after the war (See the International Action Center web site: http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/du.htm).

The war also had negative repercussions for U.S. soldiers. Some have reported the effects "Gulf War Syndrome" and other debilitating health consequences from exposure to harmful chemical and/or biological agents (see e.g. http://mediafilter.org/MFF/CAQ/caq53.gws.html)

U.S. Disinformation Campaigns

It is difficult to document or even estimate the extent of psychological operations, propaganda projects, and disinformation propagated by the U.S. government to enlist public support for military campaigns against Iraq. However, two examples have been documented and are well known: false reports of an Iraqi troop buildup threatening Saudi Arabia, and a manufactured story recited in congressional hearings about Iraqi soldiers killing newborn babies in a Kuwaiti hospital. The film "Hidden Wars" [2] and Pacifica National Radio have presented coverage of these stories.

Fabricated Report of Iraqi Troop buildup

The following description is taken from http://www.swans.com/library/art8/ga138.html

The U.S. administration made the claim that the Iraqis had amassed troops and tanks along the Saudi border and were poised to invade the kingdom. This claim was widely relayed by the main media. The only problem with these allegations was that they were utterly false. The former Soviet Union had provided satellite pictures, taken on September 11 and 13, 1990, of the border (actually, they were selling the pictures for $1,500 each) that clearly indicated that no concentration of Iraqi troops and equipment was in sight. Major news organizations like ABC News (Sam Donaldson) or The Washington Post (Bob Woodward) sat on the pictures and never used them. The only U.S. news organization that indeed published them was a regional paper, The St. Petersburg Times (Florida). Those pictures clearly showed, however, the concentration of U.S. troops on the Saudi side of the border! John R. MacArthur (and Ben Haig Bagdikian) documented this falsity in their book, "Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War," University of California Press; reprint edition 1993; ISBN: 0520083989. MacArthur also cited these facts in his above-mentioned speech, http://www.independent.org/tii/content/events/f_macarth.html. Brian Becker debunked this claim in detail in his report. Jean Heller, the Editor of The St. Petersburg Times hired a U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in the Reagan Administration, and a former image specialist for the Defense Intelligence Agency, Peter Zimmerman, to analyze the satellite photographs, to no avail. There simply were no Iraqi troops poised to invade Saudi Arabia.
The "Incubator Story"
The following description is taken from http://www.swans.com/library/art8/ga138.html

"The readers may recall the testimony before Congress on October 10, 1990 of a 15-year old Kuwaiti woman, Nayirah (her last name was kept confidential). She had witnessed a terrifying deed by the Iraqi invaders of Kuwait. In her own words: 'I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital. While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where . . . babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die.' The story about the 312 babies made the news with a vengeance. President Bush (that would be George I) repeated it. The line in the sand was drawn. Like Racak, it turned public opinion and Congress on the path of war. Months later we learned that Nayirah was the daughter of a Kuwaiti prince, Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait's Ambassador to the U.S. She had left Kuwait before the Iraqi invasion. The story had been entirely fabricated by the PR firm Hill & Knowlton. Tom Lantos, the California Democrat who chaired the hearing was co-chair (with Republican Rep. John Porter) of the Congressional Human Rights Foundation that occupied free office space in Hill & Knowlton's Washington, DC office." One of the best documentation of this hoax can be found in a fascinating book, "Toxic Sludge Is Good for You, Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry" by John C. Stauber, Sheldon Rampton, 1995; (Common Courage Press; ISBN: 1-56751-060-4). Stauber and Rampton are Executive Director and Editor, respectively, of PR Watch, a newsletter published by the Center for Media and Democracy. An excerpt of the book on this PR issue was published in June 1996 by Claire W. Gilbert in her fine publication Blazing Tattles and can be read on line at http://www.blazingtattles.com/info/mother1.htm and http://www.blazingtattles.com/info/mother2.htm. It's an extraordinary read. PR Watch also recently posted these excerpts on their Web site, at http://www.prwatch.org/books/tsigfy10.html. Last May 2002, the former Hill & Knowlton staffer who was handling Nayirah made the claim that the story was true in O'Dwyer's PR Daily, an online access to the inside news of Public Relations but was forcefully rebuked by PR Watch Editor, Sheldon Rampton. See http://www.odwyerpr.com/archived_stories_2002/may/0528pegado.htm."
The Devastating Effects of Sanctions
Four days after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, on August 6, 1990, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 661, imposing comprehensive sanctions on Iraq and creating a committee to monitor them.

The U.S. agreed to a cease fire with Iraq in February 1991. The cease-fire agreement required Iraq to eliminate its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and missiles with a range over 150 kilometers. Set forth in U.N. security resolution 687, the agreement tied the lifting of U.N. sanctions to the destruction of Iraq's "Weapons of Mass Destruction" arsenal. The no-fly zones over two-thirds of Iraq (north and south) were imposed by the U.S., France, and Britain a year and a half after the Gulf War. The United Nations never sanctioned them, and France has since withdrawn from participation. The no-fly zones violate international law. According to Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, Iraq has the right to defend itself, including from U.S. and British overflights of the no-fly zones.

The United Nations "Oil for Food" program became operational in 1996 and was instituted by the Iraq Sanctions Committee. All contracts for aid (emergency supplies as well as infrastructure equipment) requested by Iraq had to be approved by the Sanctions Committee. Each member country could place a hold on any contract it considered to have "dual use," that is, both civilian and military use. The U.S. repeatedly exercised its prerogative to withhold supplies to Iraq, vital to the civilian population.

In an article, "Throttling Iraq," published in the Sept-Oct 2000 New Left Review, Tariq Ali described the circumstances confronting the civilian population of Iraq as follows:

A land that once had high levels of literacy and an advanced system of health-care has been devastated by the West. Its social structure is in ruins, its people are denied the basic necessities of existence, its soil is polluted by uranium-tipped warheads. According to UN figures of last year, some 60 per cent of the population have no regular access to clean water, and over 80 per cent of schools need substantial repairs. In 1997 the FAO reckoned that 27 percent of Iraqis were suffering from chronic malnutrition, and 70 percent of all women were anaemic. UNICEF reports that in the southern and central regions which contain 85 percent of the country's population, infant mortality has doubled compared to the pre-Gulf war period. The death-toll caused by deliberate strangulation of economic life cannot yet be estimated with full accuracy--that will be a task for historians. According to the most careful authority, Richard Garfield, 'a conservative estimate of "excess deaths" among under five-year-olds since 1991 would be 300,000', while UNICEF--reporting in 1997 that '4,500 children under the age of five are dying each month from hunger and disease'- reckons the number of small children killed by the blockade at 500,000. Other deaths are more difficult to quantify, but as Garfield points out, 'UNICEF's mortality rates represent only the tip of the iceberg as to the enormous damage done to the four out of five Iraqis who do survive beyond their fifth birthday'. In late 1998 the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, former Assistant Secretary General Denis Halliday, an Irishman, resigned from his post in protest against the blockade, declaring that total deaths that it had caused could be upwards of a million. When his successor Hans von Sponeck had the temerity to include civilian casualties from Anglo-American bombing raids in his brief, the Clinton and Blair regimes demanded his dismissal. He too resigned, in late 1999, explaining that his duty had been to the people of Iraq, and that 'every month Iraq's social fabric shows bigger holes'. These holes have continued to tear under the Oil-For-Food sanctions in place since 1996, which allow Iraq $4 billion of petroleum exports a year, when a minimum of $7 billion is needed even for greatly reduced services. After a decade, the throttling of Iraq by the US and UK has achieved a result without parallel in modern history. This is now a country that, in Garfield's words, 'is the only instance of a sustained, large increase in mortality in a stable population of more than two million in the last two hundred years'. (http://www.zmag.org/aliiraq.htm)

In an interview for Zmagazine, Phyliss Bennis similarly explained the U.S. sanctions strategy as follows (http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/barsamian.htm):
"...the targets included water treatment plants, sewage treatment plants, electrical generating plants, communications centers, on the theory, I suppose, of dual use, that the Iraqi military also needs clean water, sewage treatment, communications, etc. and therefore the fact that the 23 million people of Iraq might be denied clean water was considered an acceptable consequence of that. So there were very direct efforts made by the U.S., and they were very successful efforts, to destroy these kinds of infrastructure centers. The result has been absolute devastation for the civilian population at enormous cost in the future to be repaired. As they erode further, the cost of rebuilding them of course will climb even higher. During this last set of military strikes, Operation Desert Fox, last December, at least one oil refinery was deliberately targeted on the grounds that that particular refinery's output was being used for smuggling. Whether it was or not, I don't know. But whether it was or not, it is a violation of international law to deliberately target an economic target, as was chosen here, meaning that everyone in the Pentagon involved in that decision is guilty of a war crime. The inability of Iraq to make those repairs means that the continuation of malnutrition, of inadequate water supplies, and most importantly, perhaps, the largest number of casualties today, is the result of dirty, contaminated water because of inadequate sewage treatment and water treatment facilities. What that means is that children are dying in Iraq of eminently treatable diseases: diarrhea, typhoid, and other contaminated-water-borne diseases, in a country whose advanced health care system was so developed before the sanctions regime and before the bombings that the most important problem faced by Iraqi pediatricians was childhood obesity."
That the U.S. intentionally targeted civilian infrastructure, including water treatment plants and that this would result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (mostly children under the age of five), is not in dispute.
"Several United States Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) documents clearly and thoroughly prove, in the words of one author, "beyond a doubt that, contrary to the Geneva Convention, the U.S. government intentionally used sanctions against Iraq to degrade the country's water supply after the Gulf War. The United States knew the cost that civilian Iraqis, mostly children, would pay, and it went ahead anyway" (The Progressive, August 2001)."
(http://www.geocities.com/iraqinfo/sanctions/sarticles9/mandf.htm)
High ranking U.S. Government officials were openly sanguine about the deaths of Iraqi children resulting from U.S. bombings and sanctions, as in this excerpt from an interview
by Leslie Stahl of Madeleine Albright, broadcast on 60 Minutes on 5/12/96 (http://www.fair.org/extra/0111/iraq.html):
Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?"
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it."

The inescapable lesson is that a United States Secretary of State, on the one hand, and some groups that the U.S. government condemns as terrorist, on the other hand, share a common rationale--a belief that the death of innocents, even children, is an acceptable price to pay for one's political goals. Reporters and editors for the mainstream media are well trained not to make such elementary observations, and as an exercise in patriotism find them inconceivable.
United Nations weapons inspectors were ordered out of Iraq in 1998, not by the Iraqi government, but by the United States. In the words of Scott Ritter, a former U.N. Chief Weapons Inspector in Iraq:

"The U.S. ordered the inspectors out 48 hours before they initiated Operation Desert Fox military action that didn't have the support of the U.N. Security Council and which used information gathered by the inspectors, to target Iraq."
http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/07/17/saddam.ritter.cnna/

U.S. Foreign Policy Objectives

A Los Angeles Times article dated October 27 2002 appearing on the first page of the Business Section provided a possible agenda for the Bush administration for the Middle East. The article, "Iraq Regime Change Could Weaken OPEC" included the byline, "Restoring the country's oil production capacity might be enough to break the cartel's grip on world markets," and included this explanation:

Some industry analysts say the restoration of Iraq's production capability over the next decade might be enough to break OPEC's grip on world oil markets, even if Iraq remained a nominal member.
"It's tough to see Iraq under any circumstances really participating closely with OPEC in the next five years," said analyst Raad Alkadiri of Petroleum Finance Co. in Washington. "If you have a government in Iraq that is closely tied to the United States and dependent on the United States for its continued power, it is conceivable that it will feel pressure to leave OPEC."

U.S. Undersecretary of State Grant Aldonas cited the potential economic payoff during a recent trip to Poland. A regime change, he said in Warsaw, would "open up the spigot on Iraqi oil, which would have a profound effect in terms of the performance of the world economy."

The Washington Post offered a similar analysis in its September 15th, 2002 article entitled, "In Iraqi War Scenario, Oil Is Key Issue" [16] (http://www.targetoil.com/article.php?id=6). The lead paragraph explains that:
A U.S.-led ouster of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could open a bonanza for American oil companies long banished from Iraq, scuttling oil deals between Baghdad and Russia, France and other countries, and reshuffling world petroleum markets, according to industry officials and leaders of the Iraqi opposition.
The article also includes some insights into the mechanisms employed by the Bush Administration to leverage international support for an invasion of Iraq:
The importance of Iraq's oil has made it potentially one of the administration's biggest bargaining chips in negotiations to win backing from the U.N. Security Council and Western allies for President Bush's call for tough international action against Hussein. All five permanent members of the Security Council -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China -- have international oil companies with major stakes in a change of leadership in Baghdad.
"It's pretty straightforward," said former CIA director R. James Woolsey, who has been one of the leading advocates of forcing Hussein from power. "France and Russia have oil companies and interests in Iraq. They should be told that if they are of assistance in moving Iraq toward decent government, we'll do the best we can to ensure that the new government and American companies work closely with them."

But he added: "If they throw in their lot with Saddam, it will be difficult to the point of impossible to persuade the new Iraqi government to work with them."

Concluding Remarks

Saddam Hussein does not deserve support from the progressive community, but Saddam Hussein is not Iraq. It is the people of Iraq who will do most of the dying when and if the U.S. attacks them, and the people of Iraq deserve our support.

The claim that Iraq poses a grave danger to the rest of the world, and to the United States in particular, is so ridiculous that it would not even merit the attention of a rebuttal except for the fact that U.S. government propaganda has been so successful in fabricating that threat. Part of the propaganda success stems from completely unsupported claims that Saddam Hussein is in league with al Qaeda. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has found no credible connection between Saddam Hussein and bin Laden and/or al Qaeda. Moreover, such an alliance is implausible. Iraq is a secular state whereas al Qaeda is fundamentalist, and the two do not mix well.

Militarily, Iraq is far weaker in 2003 than it was in 1990 when the United States defeated Iraq's armies in a matter of hours. With at least 90% of its pre-Gulf War weaponry destroyed, Iraq is completely vulnerable to outside attack and poses no realistic threat to the United States, or to other countries. The U.S. accusation that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction (whether they actually exist or not) is subterfuge for the Bush administration's real agenda: control of the oil resources of the Middle East.

The hypocrisy of U.S. policy toward Iraq may be seen by comparing it to U.S. policy toward other countries. For example, Israel possesses nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Israel has violated United Nations resolutions; it has threatened and attacked neighboring countries; and Israel is guilty of extensive human rights violations. Yet, there is no talk from Washington of weapons inspections in Israel, much less of an invasion of that country. Indeed, the U.S. arms Israel and provides it with massive economic and political support.

The ultimate hypocrisy in Washington's focus on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction is that the U.S. itself leads the world in the possession and production of weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. has weapons of every imaginable variety, including a nuclear arsenal sufficient to obliterate human life on this planet. If weapons of mass destruction were a real concern to Washington, weapons inspections and disarmament would begin at home.

References

[1] Ralph Schoenman, Iraq and Kuwait: A History Suppressed, Veritas Press, Copyright 1990

http://ez2www.com/go.php3?site=book&go=0929675053

[2] Hidden Wars of Desert Storm, Video narrated by Joel Hurt, Free-Will Productions.
www.hiddenwars.org

[3] International Action Center
http://www.iacenter.org/

[4] The Saddam in Rumsfeld's Closet, by Jeremy Scahill, Common Dreams web site
http://commondreams.org/views02/0802-01.htm

[5] Amnesty International Reports on Human Rights Abuses in Iraq
http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/countries/iraq?OpenView&Start=1&Count=30&Expandall
http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/Index/MDE140082001?OpenDocument&of=COUNTRIES\IRAQ

[6] The Avelon Project at the Yale Law School: The Baghdad Pact
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/baghdad.htm

[7] Shatt-al-arab A Survey Of Wars And Treaties
http://www.defencejournal.com/jul99/shatt-al-arab.htm

[8] British Empire: The Map Room: Middle East: Iraq
http://www.btinternet.com/~britishempire/empire/maproom/iraq.htm

[9] Interveiw with Scott Ritter
http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/07/17/saddam.ritter.cnna/

[10] Iraqi Sanctions: Myth Fact, contains attributions to DIA documents on U.S. destruction of water sanitation and sewage treatment plants in Iraq
http://www.geocities.com/iraqinfo/sanctions/sarticles9/mandf.htm

[11] Extra! "We Think the Price is Worth It"
http://www.fair.org/extra/0111/iraq.html

[12] Sources for Military history of Gulf War
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/gulf.war/facts/gulfwar/
http://www.historyguy.com/GulfWar.html#gulfwardates

[13] The 1991 Gulf War Rationale
http://www.swans.com/library/art8/ga138.html

[14] Sanctions from a Mennonite perspective
http://peace.mennolink.org/articles/iraqsancthist.html

[15] Common Dreams, UN Sanctions Against Iraq Only Serve US Ambition, by Denis J. Halliday, http://www.commondreams.org/views/081100-104.htm

[16] "Iraq Regime Change Could Weaken OPEC" By Warren Vieth, Los Angeles Times
October 27 2002; "In Iraqi War Scenario, Oil Is Key Issue," The Washington Post September 15th, 2002, http://www.targetoil.com/article.php?id=6

[17] Democracy Now!
Weapons inspections and U.S. government support of Saddam Hussein in the early 1980s
http://www.webactive.com/pacifica/demnow/dn20021114.html
Interview with Scott Ritter and Hans von Sponeck, Kathy Kelly
http://www.webactive.com/pacifica/demnow/dn20020729.html

Baby Steps

12th April 2018, 17:29

The UK dropped chemical weapons on civilians in Iraq (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/apr/19/iraq.arts) in 1920, but it was the UK that introduced the middle east to chemical warfare during world war 1 in Gaza (https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2013/sep/01/winston-churchill-shocking-use-chemical-weapons)

Churchill loved chemical weapons.

An uprising of more than 100,000 armed tribesmen against the British occupation swept through Iraq in the summer of 1920. In went the RAF. It flew missions totalling 4,008 hours, dropped 97 tons of bombs and fired 183,861 rounds for the loss of nine men killed, seven wounded and 11 aircraft destroyed behind rebel lines. The rebellion was thwarted, with nearly 9,000 Iraqis killed. Even so, concern was expressed in Westminster: the operation had cost more than the entire British-funded Arab rising against the Ottoman Empire in 1917-18.

The RAF was vindicated as British military expenditure in Iraq fell from £23m in 1921 to less than £4m five years later. This was despite the fact that the number of bombing raids increased after 1923 when Squadron Leader Arthur Harris - the future hammer of Hamburg and Dresden, whose statue stands in Fleet Street in London today - took command of 45 Squadron. Adding bomb-racks to Vickers Vernon troop carriers, Harris more or less invented the heavy bomber as well as night "terror" raids. Harris did not use gas himself - though the RAF had employed mustard gas against Bolshevik troops in 1919, while the army had gassed Iraqi rebels in 1920 "with excellent moral effect".

A Voice from the Mountains

13th April 2018, 05:05

Churchill and Lincoln are two historical leaders that I used to respect, but for whom I have lost that respect within the past year or so, from things I've learned. It's both disappointing and eye-opening to see what these men were capable of doing to innocent civilians during times of war.

It's hard for me to think of the UK as a "rogue state" simply because the UK has been directing so much internationally for so long. Something about the Queen, the royal family and secret societies. There has to be some hidden exertion of power similar to what the Vatican wields, because I can't otherwise understand how such a relatively small nation could have such an enormous influence upon so many other world leaders. I realize the financial connection, but what basis is that built upon? Not the UK's military strength. Not dominance of manufacturing. I suspect it comes down to blackmail and unspeakable evil behind closed doors, in halls of power. Same as with the Vatican historically. Then they project their worst sins onto others while putting on as if they are inscrutable.

yelik

13th April 2018, 09:23

Cidersomerset

13th April 2018, 10:26

I agree the UK, especially the City of London is a very dark cabal
controlled place where the New World Order agenda is well under way.

That's what I am really referring to not the people but the hidden hand that
goes back to Sumaria and beyond and came from off world or interdimensionally
and have influenced our development and probably created us. Then it gets
complicated as nothing is really what it seems and most of the threads we
discuss comes back to this and is why I think Leonardo had it right when he
says everything is connected...

I also think David and others who have researched this come to similar conclusions
and we are told that the entities/beings/people who run things behind the scenes
must put all this hidden in plain sight and is why we can connect dots but
find it difficult to create the right picture. David and others have written many
books and vids and its in the movies , he has many longer vids going into
detail and many have been posted on the forum which I sure you have seen
this is a brief example. I do not know whether he has interpreted his research
correctly or not ? but I think he is on the right track.

Three 10 min segments that explain a plausible/possible way they run the world
and where they came from through symbols and stories from different cultures
around the globe telling similar creation myths....

David Icke - The Reptilian Queen ( 10 mins )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pR5CKbJ4GI
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How The Different Bloodlines Got Here - David Icke ( 10 mins )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpw4Nu4RnJQ

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Origional Reptilians - David Icke ( 10 mins )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTRPSY4PFMA

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This maybe to long for some but this is a full segment from a relatively recent
presentation and he does modify his views with his on going research but the
basic message has been the same since he started in the early 1990's.....

He goes through it step by step connecting dots with slides to help visualise
what he is describing .....

This is a excellent segment if you are interested in this subject imo , and he
connects how the new world colonies were seeded by the old just like from
ancient Sumer- China- Babylon - Egypt -Greece- Rome to the age of empire to
be left embedded in the former colonies especially the United States which is
culturally to the UK and other anglo saxon/latin countries as Greece was to Rome.....

David Icke Exposes The Reptilian Satanists & Psycopathic Pedophiles That Run The World
2IPsMn5crB4
Published on 26 Aug 2016

Baby Steps

13th April 2018, 13:16

Interestingly , Churchill was a big driver behind this. It was he who converted the Royal Navy from Coal to Oil in the early 20th Century. John McCain is impressed.(source (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3671962/John-McCain-Extraordinary-foresight-made-Winston-Churchill-great.html))

But the ships would still not be able to reach the 25 knots that would give them superiority in battle. One remedy was evident to both Churchill and Fisher: oil. Oil was more combustible and burned hotter than coal and it produced steam faster, which in turn enabled a ship to accelerate more rapidly and to rely on fewer boilers.

What is more, oil-burning ships created less smoke, making them less visible to the enemy. They required less manpower and could remain at sea longer.
The decision to convert the fleet from coal to oil was the most controversial of Churchill's reforms. Britain produced no oil. It produced coal. The oil supplies of the world were under foreign control. Oil was flammable: a direct hit on a tank could set off an immediate inferno. Storage tanks ashore would be vulnerable to attack.

Churchill was not deterred. He argued that all new ships should be oil-powered, a n expensive and risky venture.
"If we overcame the difficulties and surmounted the risks," he said, "we should be able to raise the whole power and efficiency of the Navy: better ships, better crews, high economies, more intense forms of war power - mastery itself was the prize of the venture."
He asked Fisher to chair a royal commission on oil supply and within six months its case for conversion to oil won over Parliament and the admirals. In 1914, one month before the "guns of August" began their four-year cannonade of the First World War, Churchill secured for the British Crown a 51 per cent controlling interest in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company for £2.2 million.
His decisions were to assure British naval supremacy.

and now for some light entertainment:

https://i.imgur.com/Y8Gl24N.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/nKWpnqG.jpg

Ewan

13th April 2018, 15:11

yelik

13th April 2018, 16:14

Morbid

13th April 2018, 20:17

some argue that britain has been a rogue state since the times of john dee. then some "legalised" pirate activity as well as the crown's fleet protection that came with it for a bit of gold.. racket all the way from the moment "the crown" went into the sea big time. all the while pretending to act as gentlemen & making others play by the book.

A Voice from the Mountains

13th April 2018, 20:23

After Russia specifically named the British as being behind the alleged chemical attack in Syria today, I went and read the comments section of a Sun article about it, and was amazed. Either the paid shills are out in full force or the British are thoroughly brainwashed to the point of WANTING to rush head-long into WW3. I have trouble believing there are actually that many people pushing for war so insanely but in a country that has so many people cheering on mass Islamic migration, and talking about banning kitchen knives, it's hard for me to wrap my head around what has happened to the place anyway.

Sky News also interviewed a British general who began questioning why Assad would gas his own people when even the US had admitted he had already won the war against the rebels... And as he said these things, Sky turned his volume down, cut him off, and quickly moved on to something else.

This is insanity. You can watch the video here: https://www.citizenfreepress.com/breaking/must-watch-former-head-of-british-armed-forces-gets-cut-off-by-sky-when-he-goes-off-script-on-syria/

I have to admit this phenomenon isn't isolated to Britain. American leftists are blowing up Twitter calling anyone who opposes war a Trump/Putin agent. Since when did the Democrats become the party of war in the Middle East? What was all that stuff they were saying during the Bush administration again?

A Voice from the Mountains

16th April 2018, 06:24

Perhaps relevant, prehaps not:

https://kek.gg/i/Xq-_4.jpg

Also:

http://www.rivagedeboheme.fr/medias/images/pisanello..portrait.d.une.jeune.princesse.-v..1435-40-.jpg

http://nationalufocenter.com/artman/uploads/16egyptianprincess.jpg

Not fully "human" as we think of it?

Tintin

16th April 2018, 10:49

Slightly off topic but since we mentioned Winston Churchill it shows what rogues the Britih Royals are:-Numerous researchers have confirmed that.....

"Jack the Ripper" was Winston Churchill's Father

http://www.educate-yourself.org/cn/jacktheripperchurchill21jul11.shtml

According to John Hamer, the Masonic ritual murder of four prostitutes was carried out by Winston Churchill's father, Lord Randolph Spencer Churchill, 1849-1895 (left.) The prostitutes were blackmailing the royal family.

"Churchill was not only the 'brains' behind the entire operation, but he was also personally responsible for the cutting of Masonic emblems and symbols into the bodies of the victims, whilst William Gull's surgeon's hands performed the organ removals."

I'll remain on the fence with who it really was that was responsible, but, and I think, this may be an interesting side note:

A woman who lives locally and with whom I am quite chatty shared with me a month or so ago that she is directly related to William Gull, and her family is in possession of documents that will attest to that.

The link to JtR and some involvement there is a commonly well known piece of history within her family.

:focus:

Tintin

16th April 2018, 11:06

I agree the UK, especially the City of London is a very dark cabal controlled place where the New World Order agenda is well under way.

From what I know the main power players pushing for the New World Order / Agenda 21 / 2030

1.City of London & British Bavarian Royal Family (huge wealth accumulated over many centuries)
2.The Vatican (Tax free wealth from 1 billion Catholics)
3.Zionist (Banking, Oil & Media, TV & Movies)
4. USA / Washington - Fights proxy wars on behalf of 1,2 & 3
5. Russia – Romonov family still influential - related to and report to British Royalty
6. China – Becoming an increasing economic and military threat unlikely to be tolerated

Various secret societies and their think tanks influence Government decisions through the control of information, bribes and threats if necessary.

To me it looks like a lot of the turmoil we see around the world is when these various power players clash over who controls what. Whether it is Russia, China, Cuba backing the Madura regime in Venezuela or The Western agenda to destabilise and take over land and resources in the Middle East.

These clashes also serve the Main Agenda:-
• Phasing in the New World Order
• Distracting Government & public attention & resources whilst stripping wealth
• Divide and conquer through race, religion and class
• Opportunity for staged / real false flag terror attacks
• Justification for increased security, mass spying, loss of basic freedoms and censorship
Use of State Military to serve commercial interests of Elite Corporations

Yes, and there are some threads here on Avalon that will provide some background. In fact one of our members, I think, authored one or two of these as well.

• http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?98272-The-Crown-A-brief-overview -

"When we speak of 'The City' we are in fact referring to a privately owned Corporation - or Sovereign State - occupying an irregular rectangle of 677 acres and located right in the heart of the 610 square mile 'Greater London' area. The population of 'The City' is listed at just over four thousand, whereas the population of 'Greater London' (32 boroughs) is approximately seven and a half million.

The 'Crown' is a committee of twelve to fourteen men who rule the independent sovereign state known as London or 'The City.' 'The City' is not part of England. It is not subject to the Sovereign. It is not under the rule of the British parliament. Like the Vatican in Rome, it is a separate, independent state."

• http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?18664-City-of-London-is-legally-seperate-from-the-UK
• http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?33749-Article-on-what-the-Corporation-of-the-City-of-London-really-is-...
• http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?52306-Secret-City-the-Corporation-of-the-City-of-London

And just as importantly, and relevant, completely, to what is most certainly going on at the moment, this thread from Bill:

• http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?355-The-Anglo-Saxon-Mission

This from Craig Murray's blog and a statement with which I fully concur: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/04/just-whos-pulling-the-strings/

"I have always denied the UK’s claim that only Russia had a motive to attack the Skripals. To denigrate Russia internationally by a false flag attack pinning the blame on Russia, always seemed to me more likely than for the Russians to do that to themselves. And from the start I pointed to the conflict in Syria as a likely motive. That puts Saudi Arabia (and its client jihadists), Saudi Arabia’s close ally Israel, the UK and the USA all in the frame in having a powerful motive in inculcating anti-Russian sentiment prior to planned conflict with Russia in Syria. Any of them could have attacked the Skripals."

Tintin

16th April 2018, 13:27

Ewan

16th April 2018, 20:43

Thanks for all the contributions. When I started the thread I felt it was one which could be continually added to as time passes.
England, (because it is not really the UK), has been playing Machiavellian games since before the man was born.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/Portrait_of_Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli_by_Santi_di_Tito.jpg/220px-Portrait_of_Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli_by_Santi_di_Tito.jpg
Niccolò Machiavelli

:thumbsup: It's a very interesting thread Ewan, and thanks for initiating it.

It is a thread that's on my list of 'things to do', there really is a wealth of information that can be added, but I am currently working full-time and am probably limited to weekend freedoms atm.
It's nearly 20 yrs since I last worked in the UK and going from total freedom, (relative term), to, sometimes, 12 hour days is leaving me a little fatigued. :)

Cara

17th April 2018, 13:03

Daniel Defoe wrote about the creation of the English... in not a very complimentary way.

Thus from a Mixture of all kinds began,
That Het'rogeneous Thing, An Englishman:
In eager Rapes, and furious Lust begot,
Betwixt a Painted Britton and a Scot:
Whose gend'ring Offspring quickly learnt to bow, And yoke their Heifers to the Roman Plough:
From whence a Mongrel half-bred Race there came, With neither Name nor Nation, Speech or Fame.
In whose hot Veins now Mixtures quickly ran, Infus'd betwixt a Saxon and a Dane.
While their Rank Daughters, to their Parents just, Receiv'd all Nations with Promiscuous Lust.
This Nauseous Brood directly did contain
The well-extracted Blood of Englishmen . . .
From Daniel Defoe, The True-Born Englishman

But I think most nations could probably painted in this way as a mixture of peoples by their critics and detractors.

Perhaps the UK state’s recent actions come about because of disagreements within and among its power establishment factions about how to respond to a changing world?

So maybe there’s a behind the scenes “War of the Roses” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_the_Roses) which occasionally spills over into the public eye and the tussle for supremacy is what is really going on. If the struggle is significant enough it may be existential for one or more party and presenting a consistent “face” to the outside world might be impossible in this case.

This internal war coupled with declining Western civilization coherence is bound to cause all sorts of desparate acts which we see displayed.

It also seems to be the case that there has been a slow but steady erosion of morals and ethical behaviour in the West as a whole, which has been covered over with platitudes and pretences. The hypocrisy is bound to affect the system as a whole eventually by undermining it.

shaberon

18th April 2018, 00:11

A Voice from the Mountains

18th April 2018, 02:10

Most countries have a checkered and bloody past. UK stands out for becoming the first superpower by defeating the Spanish Armada, and with Oliver Cromwell being the first head of state to use Jewish diaspora for hegemony--all British governments continuing this policy ever since. And in this regard, it was The World Order from those times until the U. S. replaced it. Since they have never stopped Zionism, Wahhabism, King George's Cavalry and all the other systems of moles and economic vampirism, we might observe this as being a bit of rogue behavior.

I started digging into this time period you are talking about lately and I've been finding some extremely interesting things. Many different factions at play and not all of them can be easily traced back historically. Even before the English Civil Wars, consider this as an example of the kind of bizarre intrigues that were going on. Remember John Smith, the famous early colonizer of Virginia? You should look at his biography. I'll give you a brief summary:

John Smith was born to commoner/peasant farmers in England, left England at a young age for continental Europe, ended up fighting the Turks on behalf of the Transylvanians, became known for his exploits against the Turks, was also sold into slavery for a time, and was eventually freed and returned to England. When he returned to England from Transylvania, he was immediately put in charge of the London Company which oversaw the colonization of Virginia. Remember, he was of common birth, and was given precedent over NOBILITY to lead this effort, straight out of the continent and not having even been in England for some time. Are we expected to believe that this is the full story of what was really going on?

The Transylvanian royal family (which includes Vlad the Impaler, the original "Dracula" among its ancestors) later moved to Germany and merged/became the Saxe-Coburg family from what I understand, which later moved to England and became English royalty.

John Smith seems to have originally had the title "Hungarianus" in the Latin, but this has been stripped from virtually every historical account. He may not have even been English at all, and had a forged birth story in England just to appear to give him some roots there.

Baby Steps

18th April 2018, 12:27

A slightly oblique tit-bit

COTTON

85% of raw cotton exported from the Southern States of the USA was shipped to the UK, and passed through Liverpool to the cotton mills in the North of England. At that time England built a pre-eminent cotton fabric and garment export trade, globally. The biggest export destination was India. The British, ruling India with an Iron grip, used whatever means necessary to prevent Indians from attaining any self reliance in any industry that would hurt British Industry (hence it was illegal in India to evaporate sea water and make salt).

The British killed off cotton farming and WEAVING in India - that is why a spinning wheel is on their flag. The way that they stopped it was to go to the weaver's house and cut off their thumbs so they could not spin. There are still people in Calcutta seeking compensation from Britain on behalf of ancestors who lost everything after these assaults.

https://i.imgur.com/FRKs1E6.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/RScotJF.jpg

Baby Steps

23rd July 2018, 13:49

'THE SPIDERS WEB' (http://spiderswebfilm.com/#about)

This has been recommended. It sets out how the UK retained power and influence via secret financial structures (offshore) after the end of its Empire.

The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire, is a documentary film that shows how Britain transformed from a colonial power into a global financial power. At the demise of empire, City of London financial interests created a web of offshore secrecy jurisdictions that captured wealth from across the globe and hid it behind obscure financial structures in a web of offshore islands. Today, up to half of global offshore wealth may be hidden in British offshore jurisdictions and Britain and its offshore jurisdictions are the largest global players in the world of international finance. How did this come about, and what impact does it have on the world today? This is what the Spider’s Web sets out to investigate.

With contributions from leading experts, academics, former insiders and campaigners for social justice, the use of stylized b-roll and archive footage, the Spider’s Web reveals how in the world of international finance, corruption and secrecy have prevailed over regulation and transparency, and the UK is right at the heart of this.

In 1956, with its Empire collapsing in the wake of the Suez crisis, Britain faced political and economic crisis. As Sterling came under intense pressure, the Bank of England took an extraordinary step; without fanfare or public scrutiny it allowed London-based banks to shift their international lending from pounds to dollars.

Importantly, the Bank chose to not regulate this new ‘offshore’ market since these transactions could be deemed to be happening ‘elsewhere’, even though in reality the trades occurred in British sovereign space. Quite where ‘elsewhere’ is was of no concern to the Bank; the important thing, from the point of view of London banks, was that no other regulatory authority – not even the U.S. Federal Reserve – had the power to regulate this new market, which became known as the Eurodollar market.

I was born in 1956 and grew up in the British Channel Island of Jersey. As a teenager I witnessed Jersey’s transformation into an offshore satellite of the City of London. In the 1960s, as the Eurodollar market exploded in scale, British banks (not to mention banks from Canada, France, Germany, India, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States), rushed to take part in this unregulated bonanza, and then established offshore subsidiaries and branches in Saint Helier where they could book their profitable trades without paying UK taxes.

Business boomed. And not only in Jersey. With support from British government departments, other British dependencies vied for a slice of the action. Bermuda chased the offshore reinsurance market. The British

Cayman Islands chased business from North America. Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, Gibraltar, the Turks & Caicos islands, and others, also piled in to offshore financial services.

By the mid-1970s, as I left school, the Eurodollar market had grown so big that it was larger than the global stock of foreign exchange reserves. And with wealth pouring in from across the planet, London and its offshore satellites were booming. For the City bankers and their colleagues in Cayman and the Channel Islands it seemed you truly could have your cake and eat it.

But not everyone was convinced about the merits of this exercise in unregulated financial markets. In February 1978 I joined a working group of Oxfam policy wonks in London. They were discussing the roots of poverty in resource-rich countries African and Latin American countries, and had noticed huge unaccounted outflows of wealth from these continents, almost all of which appeared to head northwards to Europe and North America via offshore secrecy jurisdictions.

While we didn’t fully understand the mechanisms that enabled these outflows, we had no doubt that the scale of capital flight was so enormous that it was thwarting the development of entire nations. We also had no doubt that the City of London was a major player in this process of looting poorer countries of their wealth and in protecting Britain’s secrecy jurisdiction satellites from political attempts – at the United Nations, for example – to rectify the policy and regulatory flaws that enabled capital flight and tax dodging on such an immense scale.

In 1979, after finishing my professional training as a forensic investigator, I decided to make tax havens the focus of my research, first at university and subsequently as an offshore practitioner. That explains why, in 1985, I headed south from London on my motorcycle to Portsmouth and then on by ferry to Jersey, where I worked undercover as an insider for almost thirteen years.

This was the start of a journey into the dark heart of tax havenry, taking me from working for one of the global Big Four accounting firms to being appointed economic adviser to the government of Jersey. Along the way I spoke with hundreds of bankers, lawyers, accountants, officials from the senior Whitehall departments, at the OECD in Paris, and the IMF in Washington, seeing at first hand the downright criminality of the pinstripe infrastructure of professionals who operate from secrecy jurisdictions like Jersey.

I also discovered that secrecy jurisdictions had moved from being minor players on the economic periphery to becoming the beating core of financial capitalism, with London as its epicentre.

Baby Steps

22nd September 2018, 20:42

shaberon

23rd September 2018, 01:49

The Transylvanian royal family (which includes Vlad the Impaler, the original "Dracula" among its ancestors) later moved to Germany and merged/became the Saxe-Coburg family from what I understand, which later moved to England and became English royalty.

Hadn't looked into that, but Vlad (Serbian I believe) was a Christian knight largely responsible for repelling Islamic invasions.

The Romans called the Hungarian plain Pannonia; right offhand, I'm not sure where the term Hungarian comes from.

Smith and Pocahantas have definitely been fantasized over; the real Mrs. Smith used to entertain by performing cartwheels in the nude. I'm not familiar with the overseers of London, Virginia Companies etc.; I don't think they are too far from East India Co. Early American flag designs seem to be close copies of the East Indian flag.

Queen Victoria said "I don't think we should have done some of the things we did to the Indians", so, she either didn't know about what was going on, or was unable to control it.

Foxie Loxie

23rd September 2018, 18:42

How about a round of applause for Annie Besant, the lady who inspired Ghandi?!! :clapping::clapping:

onawah

23rd September 2018, 19:35

She's been getting lots of credit on Dark Journalist's fascinating "X" series.
Starting here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m2Qvh85QBY&list=PLNfJkzByQRux01gvudalzEGUgoH496qay

How about a round of applause for Annie Besant, the lady who inspired Ghandi?!! :clapping::clapping:

shaberon

24th September 2018, 00:12

How about a round of applause for Annie Besant, the lady who inspired Ghandi?!! :clapping::clapping:

She was impressive for being one of the first powerful female public speakers, but was also a bandwagon-jumper. She was strongly influenced by powerful figures around her, particularly C. W. Ledbeater and a Mr. Chakravarti (Indian). Gandhi utterly rebuked Ledbeater and we have spent a long time picking out the lice that Ms. Besant inserted into the books. She moved from staunch atheism to them and what Gandhi called diabolical necromancy.

In her early days of socialism, she was a Fabian...I don't think she adhered to the machinations of this group, but if you look at it, the Fabians, roughly put, came from nowhere without a plan, but managed to start selling their ideas--and this is largely what led to One World Government/U. N. So they played a massive role in crafting the modern "system" and themselves shortly after World War II faded away. I doubt Ms. Besant understood it as anything but social reform with consideration towards Labor, as both were very young when starting and she moved on in three or four years before they started getting powerful.

Foxie Loxie

24th September 2018, 21:39

Thanks, shaberon.....we can count on you to give the correct picture...much appreciated! :bowing:

shaberon

28th September 2018, 07:58

I would think that Fabian is the most accurate term for the western soft-kill branch, the Rothschild-Rockefeller apparatus, CFR, Anglo-American Zionism and so on; why it's not used eludes me. They are still around but not parading the name.

Much like the Jesuits, they, themselves are not all that old, but in both cases, they came from nowhere but were able to win a vast pool of resources by selling their ideas. And ever since doing so, they have remained in place until today.

Morbid

28th September 2018, 08:45

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