Wake Up America!

“The Inquiry committee members are Sir John Chilcot (Chairman), Sir Lawrence Freedman, Sir Martin Gilbert, Sir Roderic Lyne and Baroness Usha Prashar.”

Britain inquiry into the Iraq war has been dealt severe blow by a pro-Israel activist on the inquiry committee who has given an interview to a Jewish settlers’ radio accusing his critics of “anti-Semitism”.

http://www.redress.cc/stooges/redress20100129

http://en.apa.az/news.php?id=115183

Chilcot inquiry on Iraq War: mentioning that 2 of 5 are Jewish shows “prejudice”

Britain’s affair with antisemitism

By questioning the allegiances of Jews serving on the Chilcot inquiry, Sir Oliver Miles continues a long tradition of prejudice

David Cesarani

guardian.co.uk, Friday 29 January 2010 13.00 GMT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/29/chilcot-inquiry-oliver-miles

His loyalty questioned: Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81), Conservative prime minister and novelist. (Engraving from a photograph, ca 1878.) Photograph: Hulton Archive/John Jabez Edwin Mayall/Getty

In November 2009, Sir Oliver Miles, a distinguished retired diplomat with years of service in the Middle East, wrote an article in the Independent lamenting that two Jews had been appointed to the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war. He triggered a spat that threatens the integrity of the inquiry and exposes the tenacity of prejudice in sections of British society.

Sir Miles didn’t much approve of the other members, either. But he singled out the choice of Sir Lawrence Freedman and Sir Martin Gilbert. The fact that they were Jews, and that Gilbert was also well known as a champion of Israel, would provide “handy ammunition” for attacks on the committee’s work, especially in the Arab media. Sir Miles was ticked off by the Times a few days later and there the matter might have rested. However, Sir Martin has now reignited the affair by suggesting that the attacks smack of antisemitism. Unaccountably he vented his ire in an interview on a rightwing Zionist online radio station serving Israeli settlers.

Sir Martin’s retort actually fuels the row and may even overshadow the interrogation of Tony Blair. At another level, the controversy throws into doubt the vaunted multiculturalism of modern Britain and lays bare a stubborn vein of intolerance that has blighted the treatment of immigrants and minorities for centuries.

In a confrontation on BBC Newsnight last night, Denis MacShane MP accused Sir Oliver of resurrecting prejudices about the Jews that were more typical of the 1930s. He protested that it was unacceptable to make religion a criteria for determining whether a person was fit for public office, no matter what the task. In fact, discrimination against the Jews persisted a lot longer than that. In his history of MI5, Christopher Andrews regretted that the security services refused to employ Jews long into the postwar era. But the spooks were only continuing a tradition that went back to the 19th century and a furore that eerily prefigures the one we are currently witnessing.

In 1876, an uprising of Bulgarian Christians against Ottoman rule provoked a murderous response from the Muslim Turkish authorities. William Gladstone, former prime minister and grand old man of the Liberal Party, was so enraged by the massacres of Christians that he published a pamphlet The Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East. In it, he lambasted the then prime minister Benjamin Disraeli for abandoning the victims in preference for a pro-Turkish policy. Even though it had long been British policy to support the Ottoman Empire, Gladstone ascribed Disraeli’s stance to the fact that he was born a Jew and therefore sympathised with the Ottomans who had treated their Jews fairly – unlike the new Christian states in the Balkans.

Writing to a Jewish correspondent who questioned this response, Gladstone explained: “I have always had occasion to admire the conduct of the English Jews in the discharge of their civil duties; but I deeply deplore the manner in which, what I may call Judaic sympathies, beyond as well as within the circle of professed Judaism, are now acting on the question of the East; while I am aware that as regards the Jews themselves, there may be much to account for it.”

Gladstone’s peculiar reference to those “beyond” the community of observant Jews was a swipe at Disraeli who had been baptised into the Anglican communion aged 12. He believed that Disraeli was perversely motivated by some residual racial loyalty. Gladstone had more respect for Jews affiliated to their community, but they fared little better. Their dual loyalty was simply more obvious and explicable.

Within a short time, Gladstone’s tirade was being echoed by eminent intellectuals, including Professor AE Freeman, also a stalwart of the Liberal party, and Goldwin Smith, professor of history at Oxford. In addition to claiming that money-grubbing Jews exploited Christian guilt over past oppression (such as the Inquisition) and controlled the press, Smith declaimed that Jews could not be loyal citizens because “their only country is their race; which is one with their religion”.

While he would no doubt dismiss the comparison, 134 years later this is exactly what Sir Miles is banging on about. Either he thinks it is a problem that Jews are serving on the Iraq inquiry because they have a dual loyalty or he thinks that less enlightened folk than him in the Arab world might draw this conclusion. The first possibility is dismaying but the alternative is no cause for relief. His response to the existence of bigotry is not to pour scorn on prejudice and defend the integrity of public servants who happen to be Jewish, but to appease it.

This suspicion of Jews is ingrained in certain quarters of Britain’s ruling class but it is not only the Jews who should be concerned. Muslims, Hindus, Roman Catholics and members of every minority should pay attention to the implications. If the religious affiliation or origin of members of the Iraq inquiry is relevant because it may be used against the inquiry or taken to explain its shortcomings, what of other departments of state and government agencies?

Are Muslims to be barred from the Ministry of Defence or Home Office lest a terrorist outrage be perpetrated by a Muslim? After all, someone might say: this is what happens if you put Muslims in charge of our security. Are immigrants or the children of immigrants to be banned from working in the immigration services? It would indeed be embarrassing if there was a mishap in the controls and the minister responsible was, heaven forbid of “immigrant stock”. What would the BNP say? And surely we can’t trust Northern Ireland in the hands of a Roman Catholic, in case something goes wrong. Or a Protestant for that matter.

You can see where this argument is leading. Of course, Sir Miles and those who think like him may object that it is only this inquiry and these Jews that present the problem. But then you can see where that argument leads, too.

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Chilcot inquiry: 2 of 5 are Jewish – one a Zionist, & one drafted Blair’s Invasion policy

Oliver Miles: The key question – is Blair a war criminal?

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/oliver-miles-the-key-question-ndash-is-blair-a-war-criminal-1825374.html

The terms of reference for the new Iraq inquiry allow for the big unknowns to be tackled. And we might just get to the truth

Sunday, 22 November 2009

{caption} Apocalypse then: The US’s ‘shock and awe’ campaign in Iraq wreaked devastation. George Bush said he was inspired by the Old Testament {end}

The Iraq inquiry will start hearing evidence in open session on Tuesday, and it will almost certainly lead to fireworks. Let us hope the media cover it properly; five months ago, there was a sharp debate on Iraq in the Commons which the media ignored.

“Anyone with information” has been invited to get in touch, which includes serving officials and military. Some officials resigned because they disagreed with the war, but most stayed on. But there is plenty of evidence, including leaked documents, to show there was strong opposition to the war, and for good reasons. As a retired diplomat myself, I hope my former colleagues will not be shy.

The situation in Iraq is still horrible. More than 400 people died in violent incidents last month; more than 1,400 were wounded. Millions of Iraqis are still displaced, inside Iraq or in Syria, Jordan or elsewhere, with little prospect of their returning home. Water and electricity are limping along, the vital oil industry will take years to rebuild. British troops sent to train the Iraqi security forces were in Kuwait through the summer marking time, while the Iraqi government quibbled about their legal status.

We’ve had umpteen Iraq inquiries already, but this one should be different. Its terms of reference are open. Previous inquiries concentrated on the non-existent weapons of mass destruction, the misuse of intelligence to make the case for war, the “dodgy dossier” and so on. But there are plenty of other questions, starting with the big one: was this a war of aggression and therefore a war crime? There were two views about its legality, and the then attorney general seems to have held both of them.

What about the alleged links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qa’ida? – it seems there were no such links. What happened to the civil planning for after the fighting? – according to Clare Short, who was a member of the Cabinet, there “were preparations that were then all junked, because of the hubris and deceit that went into preparing for war”. Were the arguments for and against war ever assessed by the FCO, and was formal advice submitted to the then secretary of state, the Cabinet and the prime minister? Here is Clare Short again: “All the Cabinet meetings were little chats: they were never a proper consideration of all the options.” Is it true that the Iraq experts invited to No 10 in November 2002 (two of whom also took part in the seminar organised by the inquiry on 5 November) decided not to tell Tony Blair whether they thought an invasion was wise or not because they thought he wouldn’t listen? We have heard a lot recently about the freedom of experts to give advice which is unpalatable to the Government, so why the self-censorship?

We need to know more about the exchanges between George Bush and Tony Blair. According to Colin Powell, the then US secretary of state, he and Jack Straw sometimes tried to get Blair to hold Bush back. “Jack and I would get him all pumped up about an issue. And he’d be ready to say, ‘Look here, George’. But as soon as he saw the president he would lose all his steam.” Can this be true?

When Bush tried to persuade President Chirac to go to war, Bush compared Saddam Hussein with Gog and Magog, obscure legendary figures named in the book of Ezekiel as enemies of the people of Israel. This sounds like a joke, but seems to be true. Chirac was baffled and his staff consulted a professor of theology who spilt the beans. Blair told his Iraq experts that Saddam was “uniquely evil”; the inquiry should ask him whether Bush mentioned Gog and Magog to him, or he to Bush.

The Prime Minister’s choice of the members of the committee has been criticised. None is a military man, Sir John Chilcot was a member of the Hutton inquiry and has been closely involved with the security services, Baroness Prashar has no relevant experience, Sir Roderic Lyne was a serving ambassador at the time of the war, and so on.

Rather less attention has been paid to the curious appointment of two historians (which seems a lot, out of a total of five), both strong supporters of Tony Blair and/or the Iraq war. In December 2004 Sir Martin Gilbert, while pointing out that the “war on terror” was not a third world war, wrote that Bush and Blair “may well, with the passage of time and the opening of the archives, join the ranks of Roosevelt and Churchill” – an eccentric opinion that would seem to rule him out as a member of the committee. Sir Lawrence Freedman is the reputed architect of the “Blair doctrine” of humanitarian intervention, which was invoked in Kosovo and Afghanistan as well as Iraq.

Both Gilbert and Freedman are Jewish, and Gilbert at least has a record of active support for Zionism. Such facts are not usually mentioned in the mainstream British and American media, but The Jewish Chronicle and the Israeli media have no such inhibitions, and the Arabic media both in London and in the region are usually not far behind.

All five members have outstanding reputations and records, but it is a pity that, if and when the inquiry is accused of a whitewash, such handy ammunition will be available. Membership should not only be balanced; it should be seen to be balanced.

Tony Blair’s responsibility for the Iraq war was a strike against him as a candidate for the role of president of the European Council. Perhaps the launch of the inquiry helped to kill the idea off. No European democratic institution has entertained the idea of electing someone under the shadow of a war crime charge since Kurt Waldheim became President of Austria in 1986.

Oliver Miles is a former British ambassador to Libya

Bush’s biblical justification for war:

http://secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=haught_29_5

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‘The Transparent Cabal’ mentioned in ‘The Independent’ (UK) newspaper

http://america-hijacked.com/2009/12/12/the-transparent-cabal-mentioned-in-the-independent-uk-newspaper/

http://tinyurl.com/IRAQWARINQUIRY

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http://www.red-star-research.org.uk/subframe1.html

Britain’s Longest Serving MP Tam Dalyell Criticized for Calling Bush Administration a “Cabal” (be sure to access links at bottom of following URL):

http://www.democracynow.org/2003/5/13/britain_8217_s_longest_serving_mp

Britain: Labour extends antiwar witch-hunt to Tam Dalyell:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/may2003/lab-m22.shtml

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