Why Even Fucking Bother, Gordon?

And Chilcot, for fuck’s sake. Why not just have it chaired by Whitey McWhitewash. In a concrete box. At the bottom of the ocean. At least it will waste less of our money on further obscuring New Labour’s war crimes that way. Of course I know why you’re bothering, it is to rewrite history, sort of the British equivalent of the GW Bush Presidential library but with less literary merit (Chilcot will find a way to make that possible!). Oh fuck off Gordon, are you actually on the Elect Cameron committee? Go on, you are aren’t you? Can’t wait to see a NL cheerleader gold plate this steaming pile of shite. 

Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, has been accused of staging a cover-up after he ruled that an inquiry into the UK’s involvement in the US-led invasion of Iraq would be held in private. He also said it would would take a year to complete – taking it beyond the date the prime minister must hold a general election.

The investigation will be chaired by Sir John Chilcot, 70, a former permanent under-secretary of state at the Northern Ireland Office. Chilcot has been chairman of Britain’s Police Federation since 2001 and sat on the Butler inquiry, which reported into the intelligence which the UK government had about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction.

Brown, who cited national security issue for not holding the investigation in public, said: “The primary objective of the committee will be to identify lessons learned.

“The committee will not set out to apportion blame or consider issues of civil or criminal liability.

“It [the inquiry] will consider the period from summer 2001 before military operations began in March 2003 and our subsequent involvement in Iraq right until the end of July this year.”

Imperialism is Racist, Who’d A Thunk It?

Salon: Neo-Nazis are in the Army now
Why the U.S. military is ignoring its own regulations and permitting white supremacists to join its ranks.

Matt Kennard [excerpts]:-

For the next six years, Fogarty flitted from landscaping job to construction job, neither of which he’d ever wanted to do. “I was just drinking and fighting,” he says. He started his own Nazi rock group, Attack, and made friends in the National Alliance, at the time the biggest neo-Nazi group in the country. It has called for a “a long-term eugenics program involving at least the entire populations of Europe and America.”

 But the military ran in Fogarty’s family. His grandfather had served during World War II, Korea and Vietnam, and his dad had been a Marine in Vietnam. At 22, Fogarty resolved to follow in their footsteps. “I wanted to serve my country,” he says.

In 2003, Fogarty was sent to Iraq. For two years he served in the military police, escorting officers, including generals, around the hostile country. He says he was granted top-secret clearance and access to battle plans. Fogarty speaks with regret that he “never had any kill counts.” But he says his time in Iraq increased his racist resolve.

 “I hate Arabs more than anybody, for the simple fact I’ve served over there and seen how they live,” he tells me. “They’re just a backward people. Them and the Jews are just disgusting people as far as I’m concerned. Their customs, everything to do with the Middle East, is just repugnant to me.”

Rooting out extremists is difficult because racism pervades the military, according to soldiers. They say troops throughout the Middle East use derogatory terms like “hajji” or “sand nigger” to define Arab insurgents and often the Arab population itself.

“Racism was rampant,” recalls vet Michael Prysner, who served in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 as part of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. “All of command, everywhere, it was completely ingrained in the consciousness of every soldier. I’ve heard top generals refer to the Iraq people as ‘hajjis.’ The anti-Arab racism came from the brass. It came from the top. And everything was justified because they weren’t considered people.”

 Another vet, Michael Totten, who served in Iraq with the 101st Airborne in 2003 and 2004, says, “It wouldn’t stand out if you said ‘sand niggers,’ even if you aren’t a neo-Nazi.” Totten says his perspective has changed in the intervening years, but “at the time, I used the words ‘sand nigger.’ I didn’t consider ‘hajji’ to be derogatory.”

 Geoffrey Millard, an organizer for Iraq Veterans Against the War, served in Iraq for 13 months, beginning in 2004, as part of the 42nd Infantry Division. He recalls Gen. George Casey, who served as the commander in Iraq from 2004 to 2007, addressing a briefing he attended in the summer of 2005 at Forward Operating Base, outside Tikrit. “As he walked past, he was talking about some incident that had just happened, and he was talking about how ‘these stupid fucking hajjis couldn’t figure shit out.’ And I’m just like, Are you kidding me? This is Gen. Casey, the highest-ranking guy in Iraq, referring to the Iraqi people as ‘fucking hajjis.'” (A spokesperson for Casey, now the Army Chief of Staff, said the general “did not make this statement.”)

 “The military is attractive to white supremacists,” Millard says, “because the war itself is racist.”

UK Quietly Fiddles Agreement With Cayman Tax Haven

Everyone should read Richard Murphy!

Signed today – and slipped out on HMRC’s web site without a press release (I wonder why?) is a double tax agreement (yes, I mean that – a DTA, not a Tax Information Exchange Agreement) with the Cayman islands.

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The real question is – who asked for the downgrade on this point – the UK or Cayman? The former will have at least as many problems as the latter in complying. Either way this is a massive embarrassment to the UK – and no way for Gordon Brown to pursue his campaign on tax havens.

Against Guidelines, Police Clearly Using Pain Compliance

This was a Tasering sent to Trent FM in Nottingham

(sorry Daily Mail) According to guidelines from the Association of Chief Police Officers, they must not be used indiscriminately. Guidelines issued to forces state: ‘The use of taser is one of a number of tactical options available to an officer who is faced with violence or the threat of violence.

 ‘Its purpose is to temporarily incapacitate an individual in order to control the threat that they pose.

‘It must not be used to inflict severe pain or suffering in the performance of official duties.’

So either the cops broke the guidelines or this is a big fib they are being taught to use pain compliance or in other words electro-torture to make people do whatever the officer wants them to do. Oh yeah, they punched him a fair bit too.

Taser– This machine creates fascists.

Iran Media-pendium

Media on the Iranian election-

• A big factor in the argument about Ahmadinejad’s victory is the Terror Free Tomorrow & the New America Foundation poll which was conducted in May and returned results broadly in agreement with the announced results. This is the polling report PDF and a YouTube interview by Steve Clemons with Terror Free Tomorrow President Kenneth Ballen and New America Foundation/Iran Project Director Flynt Leverett.
• This is a couple of the poll’s authors in the Washington Post saying the result was in line with what they found.
• And a summation from Huffington Post.
• Steve Clemons @ The Washington Note reports ‘a well-connected Iranian who knows many of the power figures in the Tehran political order‘ contacted him and he posts their rather violent musings.
• Roger Cohen in the NYT who enraged the Israel lobby by reporting from Iran and not finding it a hotbed of evil (then he wrote about Gaza! The Lobby fair wet themselves) writes about Iran’s Day of Anguish.
• And from last week @ Iranian.com Renewed revolutionary zeal a piece about the political background and the context the election is taking place in.(ht2 Naj & Gene)
• PeoplesGeography @ Pulse asks are we watching destabilisation operations at work?
• Jadi– Everyone is depressed. When leaving house at the morning, I was thinking that I’m going to confront many many Ahmadinejad supporters at the streets but there were none. There were only depressed people who were walking silently to their offices or shops.
• Naj gets the last word– Beware … this is a  nation of brave hearts … hands off Iran … yo … Netanyahu … yo Dick Cheney … yo Al Quaeda … yo Pan-Arabists … I am talking to you! 

Ross Out, Khamenei Orders Investigation

• Ross as Iran envoy out, sez Haaretz, hmmmm good riddance! 
• Khamenei- has ordered officials to look into the election complaints.
• PS. And as for Bibi’s speech, defenceless bantustans ain’t a peace overture.

SOAS Cleaners

A public protest is now scheduled for 4.30, this is great way for Refugee Week to start. Real action to support migrants! 

Speakers to be confirmed.

All media welcome

SOAS steps

4.30pm.

Many staff will also be there.

see freesoascleaners.blogspot.com for more and details of the occupation!

Students and allies at the University of London’s School of School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) have occupied the university today to protest against managers’ attacks on migrant workers.

Nine cleaners from the university were taken into detention after a dawn raid by immigration police on Friday.

Five have already been deported, and the others could face deportation within days. One has had a suspected heart attack and was denied access to medical assistance and even water. One was over 6 months pregnant. Many have families who have no idea of their whereabouts.

The cleaners won the London Living Wage and trade union representation after a successful “Justice for Cleaners” campaign that united workers of all backgrounds and student activists.
Activists believe the raid is managers’ “revenge” for the campaign.

Fiddlers

Prem Sikka via Richard Murphy–

The UK has about 50,000 family doctors, but nearly 280,000 professionally qualified accountants (pdf), often earning exorbitant salaries. That is almost the highest number per capita in the world and more than the rest of the European Union put together.

In The Guardian’s Shell Like

At the end of this Independent on Sunday story- Secret papers ’show how Shell targeted Nigeria oil protests’, Documents seen by The IoS support claims energy giant enlisted help of country’s military government

There is this nugget-

Shell ‘lobbied’ Guardian to soften its Nigeria stance

Confidential internal documents reveal how the oil giant lobbied The Guardian newspaper to reduce its support for Saro-Wiwa. In an assessment of the political and security situation, a Shell executive noted: “The Guardian newspaper ran a much more balanced article on the Ogoni issue, with their position moving from apparent support for Saro-Wiwa to the middle ground. There is a slight possibility that this may have been influenced by the meeting we had with The Guardian’s editor the week before.”

Peter Preston, The Guardian’s editor from 1975 to 1995, said yesterday that he could not remember a meeting with Shell. “I have absolutely no memory of one. And Nigerian politics was never one of my interests.”