More From Commondreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0724-08.htm

Britain in Denial Over Its Nationwide Racial Problems
by David Love

Britain is facing a season of racial strife. Race riots have erupted
in a number of cities around England, particularly northern cities
with large Asian immigrant populations, but the British government
remains in a state of denial over the problem of racism.
A few years ago, I was in Britain on a nationwide speaking tour
sponsored by Amnesty International. I had arrived in London only a few
hours earlier and was riding on a subway train from the airport.

A mild-mannered Asian man was in my subway car preaching a Bible
sermon. Suddenly, a white man in his 20s leaped toward the man and
began to shove and hit him. "Shut the f---up!" he told him. "Shut up,
you bloody Paki! Go back where you came from!"

The Asian man, visibly shaken, responded, "Bless you brother, bless
you." "Shut up! I'm not your brother!" the white man yelled back.

The passengers, many of whom were black or Asian, watched silently.
The white man was eventually convinced by a friend to leave the Asian
man alone.

Instead of seeing the recent disturbances as part of a societal
problem, Prime Minister Tony Blair has characterized the riots and
clashes with police as "simple thuggery." Home Secretary David
Blunkett, apparently unwilling to view the riots as part of a national
crisis, said that "whatever the provocation from outside the area, it
is overwhelmingly local people who have damaged their own community
and its future."

But community organizations identify the British National Party and
other neo-fascist groups as the agitators. The party, which runs
candidates for parliament and other elective offices, has called for
preserving a white Britain and a halt to nonwhite immigration.

Racism has been a long-standing problem in the country. Twenty years
ago, Britain witnessed urban uprisings in black communities in
response to police brutality and racial violence. In 1993, a black
teen-ager named Stephen Lawrence was murdered by a gang of white
youths in London. A botched police investigation of the murder -- and
a failure to bring Lawrence's killers to justice -- resulted in a
massive public outcry throughout the country.

There have been several prominent instances of hate-crime activity in
Britain in recent years.

In April 1999, two bombings rocked communities of color in London. A
bomb exploded in the crowded market section of Brixton, a multiracial
community in South London. Thirty-nine people were injured, including
a 23-month-old boy who had a 4-inch nail embedded in his skull.

The following week, another bomb exploded, this time in a busy section
of a Bangladeshi neighborhood in London. Six people were injured in
that blast. A neo-Nazi group called Combat 18 claimed responsibility
for both incidents.

Combat 18, which is affiliated with a British National Party offshoot
called the British National Front, was linked to a plot to send letter
bombs to British athletes involved in interracial relationships. A
recent inquiry into deteriorating race relations seems to confirm that
the government has allowed racial problems to fester.

An 11-member panel -- commissioned by the Bradford city council and
chaired by Sir Herman Ouseley, former head of Britain's Commission for
Racial Equality-- blamed political leaders and the establishment for
maintaining a "status quo of control and segregation through fear,
ignorance and threats."

The report, released July 12, examined underlying problems, including
discrimination against Asians, high youth unemployment, a struggling
local economy, poverty and white middle-class flight from the city.

The report decries the system of "virtual apartheid" in secondary
schools and condemns the prevalence of "Islamaphobia" -- an increased
British intolerance of Muslims.

"If you look at the white Christian society in the United Kingdom,
taking the north of England as an example, there's very little mutual
understanding or desire to understand each other's beliefs," said
Peter Clarke, professor of the history and sociology of religion at
Kings College in London.

Now is the time for Britain's leaders to stop the cycle of hatred and
violence in their country that threatens to tear the nation apart.

Love is a public interest scholar at the University of Pennsylvania
Law School. He contributed to the book "States of Confinement:
Policing, Detention and Prisons" (St. Martin's Press, 2000). He can be
reached via e-mail at [email hidden].

John Hanson said:

The Colonial Precedent
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1026-24.htm

The Growing Brutality and Deception of the Iraq War Mirrors Britain's
Recent Imperial History

by Mark Curtis

The redeployment of British forces in Iraq to support a US assault on
Falluja marks another stage in a creeping return to the colonial era,
when popular revolts against occupation were routinely suppressed by
overwhelming force. These past episodes, revealed in declassified
British government files, provide numerous parallels with Iraq, and
suggest a pattern of future blunders and atrocities. Those in Britain
who like to regard more recent military interventions as humanitarian
might dwell on those parallels as the latest phase of the Iraq war
unfolds.

British ministers' claim to be defending civilisation against
barbarity in Iraq finds a powerful echo in 1950s Kenya, when Britain
sought to smash an uprising against colonial rule. Yet, while the
British media and political class expressed horror at the tactics of
the Mau Mau, the worst abuses were committed by the occupiers. The
colonial police used methods like slicing off ears, flogging until
death and pouring paraffin over suspects who were then set alight.

British forces killed around 10,000 Kenyans during the Mau Mau
campaign, compared with the 600 deaths among the colonial forces and
European civilians. Some British battalions kept scoreboards recording
kills, and gave £5 rewards for the first sub-unit to kill an
insurgent, whose hands were often chopped off to make fingerprinting
easier. "Free fire zones" were set up, where any African could be shot
on sight.

As opposition to British rule intensified, brutal "resettlement"
operations, which led to the deaths of tens of thousands, forced
around 90,000 into detention camps. In this 1950s version of Abu
Ghraib prison in Iraq, forced labour and beatings were systematic and
disease rampant. Former camp officers described "short rations,
overwork, brutality and flogging" and "Japanese methods of torture".

Guerrillas resisting British rule were routinely designated
"terrorists", as now in Iraq. Britain never admitted that it was
opposing a popular, nationalist rebellion in Kenya. Similarly,
leftwing Malayan insurgents fighting British rule in the 1950s had
strong popular support among the Chinese community but were officially
called "terrorists". In secret, however, Foreign Office correspondence
described the war as being fought "in defence of [the] rubber
industry", then controlled by British and European companies.

But under the banner of fighting communism, British forces were given
free rein in Malaya. Collective punishments were inflicted on villages
for aiding insurgents. A shoot-to-kill policy was promoted, tens of
thousands of people were removed into "new villages" and used as cheap
labour, and British soldiers had themselves photographed holding
guerrillas' decapitated heads. The idea that the revolt was ended
through "winning hearts and minds" is a myth; it was crushed by
overwhelming force, such as massive aerial bombing.

The brutality needed to be kept secret, a key theme in suppressing
revolts. After Britain intervened to crush a rebellion in Oman in
1957, an internal Foreign Office minute stated that "we want to avoid
the RAF killing Arabs if possible, especially as there will be
newspaper correspondents on the spot". The British army commander in
Oman later noted that "great pains were taken throughout the Command
to keep all operational actions out of the press".

The reason for this was that Britain committed numerous war crimes in
Oman, including the systematic bombing of civilian targets such as
water supplies and farms. These attacks "would deter dissident
villages from gathering their crops" and ensure "denial of water",
officials stated in private. Bombing was intended to "show the
population the power of weapons at our disposal" and to convince them
that "resistance will be fruitless and lead only to hardship".

Britain was defending an extremely repressive regime where smoking in
public, playing football and talking to anyone for more than 15
minutes were banned. Yet Harold Macmillan told President Kennedy in a
1957 telegram that "we believe that the sultan is a true friend to the
west and is doing his best for his people".

As Blair and Bush claim to support democracy in Iraq, it is as well to
remember that London and Washington have almost always opposed
popular, democratic forces in the Middle East, preferring strong
regimes capable of bringing "order".

Britain's stance on the US war in Vietnam offers other useful lessons.
Just as Tony Blair poses as providing a brake on US tactics in Iraq,
Harold Wilson claimed to do the same over Vietnam. Yet Britain
secretly backed the US in every stage of military escalation.

In July 1965, when the US doubled its ground troop numbers in Vietnam,
Wilson privately reassured President Johnson of his support for US
policies "in the interests of peace and stability".

The Wilson-Johnson correspondence highlights a shocking level of
connivance between No 10 and the White House to deceive the public.
When the US first bombed Hanoi and Haiphong in June 1966, Wilson
issued a statement disassociating the government from the bombing. Yet
this statement had been passed to the US for approval while Wilson
assured Johnson that "I cannot see that there is any change in your
basic position that I could urge on you." The myth in Iraq that
Britain is not complicit in US brutalities has its precedent in
Vietnam. Declassified files show that, in 1962, Britain covertly sent
an SAS team to south Vietnam under "temporary civilian status", to
help train soldiers of the dictatorial regime of President Diem.
Britain secretly provided arms and intelligence support to the US to
improve US bombing.

Moreover, brutal US "counter-insurgency" programmes were based on
prototypes developed by British advisers. Britain's "Delta Plan" for
the south Vietnamese regime, described by the Foreign Office as
intended "to dominate, control and win over the population" in rural
areas, became the US "strategic hamlets" programme, which forced
millions of Vietnamese peasants into fortified villages that resembled
concentration camps.

As in Iraq, the publicly proclaimed search for peace was largely a
charade. A senior Foreign Office official wrote in 1965: "The
government are fighting a continuous rearguard action to preserve
British diplomatic support for American policy in Vietnam. They can
only get away with this by constantly emphasising that our objective,
and that of the Americans, is a negotiated settlement".

These episodes highlight the gulf between what ministers have told the
public and what they have understood to be the case in private. The
declassified secret files point to some harsh truths about current
policy in Iraq: that the war is not about what our leaders say it is
(democracy), is not primarily against who they say it is (terrorists)
and is not being conducted for whom they say it is (Iraqis).

Iraqis are in practice regarded as "unpeople" whose deaths matter
little in the pursuit of western power; the major block on committing
atrocities is the fear of being exposed and ministers will do all they
can to cover them up. The public is the major threat to their
strategy, which explains why they resort to public deception
campaigns. If, as must be expected, atrocities now multiply in Iraq -
with Britain complicit - we cannot claim we were not warned.

There is no doubt that we are a nation of warriors and people mess
with us at their peril. ;o)

Charles said:

There is no doubt that we are a nation of warriors and people mess
with us at their peril.

LMFAO! Good one Charles. The word in my homeland is, that the english
were/are punks, but they have always had sheer numbers going for them,
and eventually could swarm over everything. Nothing tough about you,
just that there's a lot of you.

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and
more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day
the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the
White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
"Anyone with degrees from Yale and Harvard is presumed to be intelligent,
but George W. Bush has managed to overcome that presumption."

Charles said:

This doesn't appear to co-incide with your previous post JH, where
Mark Curtis was banging on about how brutal we are.

Just get around to chopping up Hanson with your war axe, and lets be
done with this thread.

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and
more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day
the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the
White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
"Anyone with degrees from Yale and Harvard is presumed to be intelligent,
but George W. Bush has managed to overcome that presumption."

John Hanson said:

http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0724-08.htm

Britain in Denial Over Its Nationwide Racial Problems
by David Love

Britain is facing a season of racial strife. Race riots have erupted
in a number of cities around England, particularly northern cities
with large Asian immigrant populations, but the British government
remains in a state of denial over the problem of racism.
A few years ago, I was in Britain on a nationwide speaking tour
sponsored by Amnesty International. I had arrived in London only a few
hours earlier and was riding on a subway train from the airport.

A mild-mannered Asian man was in my subway car preaching a Bible
sermon. Suddenly, a white man in his 20s leaped toward the man and
began to shove and hit him. "Shut the f---up!" he told him. "Shut up,
you bloody Paki! Go back where you came from!"

The Asian man, visibly shaken, responded, "Bless you brother, bless
you." "Shut up! I'm not your brother!" the white man yelled back.

The passengers, many of whom were black or Asian, watched silently.
The white man was eventually convinced by a friend to leave the Asian
man alone.

Instead of seeing the recent disturbances as part of a societal
problem, Prime Minister Tony Blair has characterized the riots and
clashes with police as "simple thuggery." Home Secretary David
Blunkett, apparently unwilling to view the riots as part of a national
crisis, said that "whatever the provocation from outside the area, it
is overwhelmingly local people who have damaged their own community
and its future."

But community organizations identify the British National Party and
other neo-fascist groups as the agitators. The party, which runs
candidates for parliament and other elective offices, has called for
preserving a white Britain and a halt to nonwhite immigration.

Racism has been a long-standing problem in the country. Twenty years
ago, Britain witnessed urban uprisings in black communities in
response to police brutality and racial violence. In 1993, a black
teen-ager named Stephen Lawrence was murdered by a gang of white
youths in London. A botched police investigation of the murder -- and
a failure to bring Lawrence's killers to justice -- resulted in a
massive public outcry throughout the country.

There have been several prominent instances of hate-crime activity in
Britain in recent years.

In April 1999, two bombings rocked communities of color in London. A
bomb exploded in the crowded market section of Brixton, a multiracial
community in South London. Thirty-nine people were injured, including
a 23-month-old boy who had a 4-inch nail embedded in his skull.

The following week, another bomb exploded, this time in a busy section
of a Bangladeshi neighborhood in London. Six people were injured in
that blast. A neo-Nazi group called Combat 18 claimed responsibility
for both incidents.

Combat 18, which is affiliated with a British National Party offshoot
called the British National Front, was linked to a plot to send letter
bombs to British athletes involved in interracial relationships. A
recent inquiry into deteriorating race relations seems to confirm that
the government has allowed racial problems to fester.

An 11-member panel -- commissioned by the Bradford city council and
chaired by Sir Herman Ouseley, former head of Britain's Commission for
Racial Equality-- blamed political leaders and the establishment for
maintaining a "status quo of control and segregation through fear,
ignorance and threats."

The report, released July 12, examined underlying problems, including
discrimination against Asians, high youth unemployment, a struggling
local economy, poverty and white middle-class flight from the city.

The report decries the system of "virtual apartheid" in secondary
schools and condemns the prevalence of "Islamaphobia" -- an increased
British intolerance of Muslims.

"If you look at the white Christian society in the United Kingdom,
taking the north of England as an example, there's very little mutual
understanding or desire to understand each other's beliefs," said
Peter Clarke, professor of the history and sociology of religion at
Kings College in London.

Now is the time for Britain's leaders to stop the cycle of hatred and
violence in their country that threatens to tear the nation apart.

Love is a public interest scholar at the University of Pennsylvania
Law School. He contributed to the book "States of Confinement:
Policing, Detention and Prisons" (St. Martin's Press, 2000). He can be
reached via e-mail at [email hidden].

I was on that Underground train when this incident happened. Like many
other passengers I was outraged at the conduct of this man.

How dare the Paki [censored] try and ram his religion down our throats. I
mean who wants religion when you are on the tube going to work? I mean
who wants religion at any time really?

There should be a law against religious zealots on tube trains!! ;o)

The Bill Rogers said:

Just get around to chopping up Hanson with your war axe, and lets be
done with this thread.

And of course if anyone else calls you brutal, chop them up too.

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and
more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day
the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the
White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
"Anyone with degrees from Yale and Harvard is presumed to be intelligent,
but George W. Bush has managed to overcome that presumption."

John Hanson said:

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 14:59:46 +0100, Charles <[email hidden]> wrote
in misc.fitness.weights:

Quoted message said:

John Hanson said:

We Are Now A Client State
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0717-03.htm

Britain Has Lost Its Sovereignty To The United States

by David Leigh and Richard Norton-Taylor

[...]

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

This doesn't appear to co-incide with your previous post JH, where
Mark Curtis was banging on about how brutal we are. ;o)

See:

The Growing Brutality and Deception of the Iraq War Mirrors Britain's
Recent Imperial History

by Mark Curtis

Isn't it funny both articles came from the same site?

I think it's more pathetic than funny, but then journalists write for
money and if people are willing to publish such [censored], to feed a
voracious public that want to read such [censored], there will always be a
plentiful supply of [censored] for them to read.

Did you have a few beers over the weekend? I had a great time and was
feeling a bit fragile until after my workout. I'm feeling okay now!
;o)

"Charles" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

John Hanson said:

The Colonial Precedent
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1026-24.htm

The Growing Brutality and Deception of the Iraq War Mirrors Britain's
Recent Imperial History

by Mark Curtis

The redeployment of British forces in Iraq to support a US assault on
Falluja marks another stage in a creeping return to the colonial era,
when popular revolts against occupation were routinely suppressed by
overwhelming force. These past episodes, revealed in declassified
British government files, provide numerous parallels with Iraq, and
suggest a pattern of future blunders and atrocities. Those in Britain
who like to regard more recent military interventions as humanitarian
might dwell on those parallels as the latest phase of the Iraq war
unfolds.

British ministers' claim to be defending civilisation against
barbarity in Iraq finds a powerful echo in 1950s Kenya, when Britain
sought to smash an uprising against colonial rule. Yet, while the
British media and political class expressed horror at the tactics of
the Mau Mau, the worst abuses were committed by the occupiers. The
colonial police used methods like slicing off ears, flogging until
death and pouring paraffin over suspects who were then set alight.

British forces killed around 10,000 Kenyans during the Mau Mau
campaign, compared with the 600 deaths among the colonial forces and
European civilians. Some British battalions kept scoreboards recording
kills, and gave £5 rewards for the first sub-unit to kill an
insurgent, whose hands were often chopped off to make fingerprinting
easier. "Free fire zones" were set up, where any African could be shot
on sight.

As opposition to British rule intensified, brutal "resettlement"
operations, which led to the deaths of tens of thousands, forced
around 90,000 into detention camps. In this 1950s version of Abu
Ghraib prison in Iraq, forced labour and beatings were systematic and
disease rampant. Former camp officers described "short rations,
overwork, brutality and flogging" and "Japanese methods of torture".

Guerrillas resisting British rule were routinely designated
"terrorists", as now in Iraq. Britain never admitted that it was
opposing a popular, nationalist rebellion in Kenya. Similarly,
leftwing Malayan insurgents fighting British rule in the 1950s had
strong popular support among the Chinese community but were officially
called "terrorists". In secret, however, Foreign Office correspondence
described the war as being fought "in defence of [the] rubber
industry", then controlled by British and European companies.

But under the banner of fighting communism, British forces were given
free rein in Malaya. Collective punishments were inflicted on villages
for aiding insurgents. A shoot-to-kill policy was promoted, tens of
thousands of people were removed into "new villages" and used as cheap
labour, and British soldiers had themselves photographed holding
guerrillas' decapitated heads. The idea that the revolt was ended
through "winning hearts and minds" is a myth; it was crushed by
overwhelming force, such as massive aerial bombing.

The brutality needed to be kept secret, a key theme in suppressing
revolts. After Britain intervened to crush a rebellion in Oman in
1957, an internal Foreign Office minute stated that "we want to avoid
the RAF killing Arabs if possible, especially as there will be
newspaper correspondents on the spot". The British army commander in
Oman later noted that "great pains were taken throughout the Command
to keep all operational actions out of the press".

The reason for this was that Britain committed numerous war crimes in
Oman, including the systematic bombing of civilian targets such as
water supplies and farms. These attacks "would deter dissident
villages from gathering their crops" and ensure "denial of water",
officials stated in private. Bombing was intended to "show the
population the power of weapons at our disposal" and to convince them
that "resistance will be fruitless and lead only to hardship".

Britain was defending an extremely repressive regime where smoking in
public, playing football and talking to anyone for more than 15
minutes were banned. Yet Harold Macmillan told President Kennedy in a
1957 telegram that "we believe that the sultan is a true friend to the
west and is doing his best for his people".

As Blair and Bush claim to support democracy in Iraq, it is as well to
remember that London and Washington have almost always opposed
popular, democratic forces in the Middle East, preferring strong
regimes capable of bringing "order".

Britain's stance on the US war in Vietnam offers other useful lessons.
Just as Tony Blair poses as providing a brake on US tactics in Iraq,
Harold Wilson claimed to do the same over Vietnam. Yet Britain
secretly backed the US in every stage of military escalation.

In July 1965, when the US doubled its ground troop numbers in Vietnam,
Wilson privately reassured President Johnson of his support for US
policies "in the interests of peace and stability".

The Wilson-Johnson correspondence highlights a shocking level of
connivance between No 10 and the White House to deceive the public.
When the US first bombed Hanoi and Haiphong in June 1966, Wilson
issued a statement disassociating the government from the bombing. Yet
this statement had been passed to the US for approval while Wilson
assured Johnson that "I cannot see that there is any change in your
basic position that I could urge on you." The myth in Iraq that
Britain is not complicit in US brutalities has its precedent in
Vietnam. Declassified files show that, in 1962, Britain covertly sent
an SAS team to south Vietnam under "temporary civilian status", to
help train soldiers of the dictatorial regime of President Diem.
Britain secretly provided arms and intelligence support to the US to
improve US bombing.

Moreover, brutal US "counter-insurgency" programmes were based on
prototypes developed by British advisers. Britain's "Delta Plan" for
the south Vietnamese regime, described by the Foreign Office as
intended "to dominate, control and win over the population" in rural
areas, became the US "strategic hamlets" programme, which forced
millions of Vietnamese peasants into fortified villages that resembled
concentration camps.

As in Iraq, the publicly proclaimed search for peace was largely a
charade. A senior Foreign Office official wrote in 1965: "The
government are fighting a continuous rearguard action to preserve
British diplomatic support for American policy in Vietnam. They can
only get away with this by constantly emphasising that our objective,
and that of the Americans, is a negotiated settlement".

These episodes highlight the gulf between what ministers have told the
public and what they have understood to be the case in private. The
declassified secret files point to some harsh truths about current
policy in Iraq: that the war is not about what our leaders say it is
(democracy), is not primarily against who they say it is (terrorists)
and is not being conducted for whom they say it is (Iraqis).

Iraqis are in practice regarded as "unpeople" whose deaths matter
little in the pursuit of western power; the major block on committing
atrocities is the fear of being exposed and ministers will do all they
can to cover them up. The public is the major threat to their
strategy, which explains why they resort to public deception
campaigns. If, as must be expected, atrocities now multiply in Iraq -
with Britain complicit - we cannot claim we were not warned.

There is no doubt that we are a nation of warriors and people mess
with us at their peril. ;o)

Damn right. And we are gun crazed cowboys looking for a fight. Ya all best
steer clear of us and mind your manner, ya hear!

--
Dr. Dickie
Skepticult member in good standing #394-00596-438
Poking kooks with a pointy stick.
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
discoveries,
is not 'Eureka!' ('I found it!'😉, but rather 'hmm....that's funny...'"
- Isaac Asimov

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 15:16:33 +0100, Charles <[email hidden]> wrote
in misc.fitness.weights:

Quoted message said:

John Hanson said:

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 14:59:46 +0100, Charles <[email hidden]> wrote
in misc.fitness.weights:

Quoted message said:

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 08:19:12 -0500, John Hanson
<[email hidden]> wrote:

>We Are Now A Client State
>http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0717-03.htm
>
>Britain Has Lost Its Sovereignty To The United States
>
>by David Leigh and Richard Norton-Taylor
>

[...]

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

This doesn't appear to co-incide with your previous post JH, where
Mark Curtis was banging on about how brutal we are. ;o)

See:

The Growing Brutality and Deception of the Iraq War Mirrors Britain's
Recent Imperial History

by Mark Curtis

Isn't it funny both articles came from the same site?

I think it's more pathetic than funny, but then journalists write for
money and if people are willing to publish such [censored], to feed a
voracious public that want to read such [censored], there will always be a
plentiful supply of [censored] for them to read.

Did you have a few beers over the weekend? I had a great time and was
feeling a bit fragile until after my workout. I'm feeling okay now!
;o)

I had a few Saturday night but the beer made me sleepy so I went to
bed after only a few. I was hunting all day and then I stopped by my
parents on the way home so I didn't get home until early Sunday
morning. I had two with my father and then a couple more after
getting home. Buddy slept most of the day yesterday:-)

Dr_Dickie said:

"Charles" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

John Hanson said:

The Colonial Precedent
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1026-24.htm

The Growing Brutality and Deception of the Iraq War Mirrors Britain's
Recent Imperial History

by Mark Curtis

[...]

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Iraqis are in practice regarded as "unpeople" whose deaths matter
little in the pursuit of western power; the major block on committing
atrocities is the fear of being exposed and ministers will do all they
can to cover them up. The public is the major threat to their
strategy, which explains why they resort to public deception
campaigns. If, as must be expected, atrocities now multiply in Iraq -
with Britain complicit - we cannot claim we were not warned.

There is no doubt that we are a nation of warriors and people mess
with us at their peril. ;o)

Damn right. And we are gun crazed cowboys looking for a fight. Ya all best
steer clear of us and mind your manner, ya hear!

Yeee haaaah! I hear ya pardner!

What does all of this warped [censored] have to do with fitness and weights?
"John Hanson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

The Colonial Precedent
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1026-24.htm

The Growing Brutality and Deception of the Iraq War Mirrors Britain's
Recent Imperial History

by Mark Curtis

The redeployment of British forces in Iraq to support a US assault on
Falluja marks another stage in a creeping return to the colonial era,
when popular revolts against occupation were routinely suppressed by
overwhelming force. These past episodes, revealed in declassified
British government files, provide numerous parallels with Iraq, and
suggest a pattern of future blunders and atrocities. Those in Britain
who like to regard more recent military interventions as humanitarian
might dwell on those parallels as the latest phase of the Iraq war
unfolds.

British ministers' claim to be defending civilisation against
barbarity in Iraq finds a powerful echo in 1950s Kenya, when Britain
sought to smash an uprising against colonial rule. Yet, while the
British media and political class expressed horror at the tactics of
the Mau Mau, the worst abuses were committed by the occupiers. The
colonial police used methods like slicing off ears, flogging until
death and pouring paraffin over suspects who were then set alight.

British forces killed around 10,000 Kenyans during the Mau Mau
campaign, compared with the 600 deaths among the colonial forces and
European civilians. Some British battalions kept scoreboards recording
kills, and gave £5 rewards for the first sub-unit to kill an
insurgent, whose hands were often chopped off to make fingerprinting
easier. "Free fire zones" were set up, where any African could be shot
on sight.

As opposition to British rule intensified, brutal "resettlement"
operations, which led to the deaths of tens of thousands, forced
around 90,000 into detention camps. In this 1950s version of Abu
Ghraib prison in Iraq, forced labour and beatings were systematic and
disease rampant. Former camp officers described "short rations,
overwork, brutality and flogging" and "Japanese methods of torture".

Guerrillas resisting British rule were routinely designated
"terrorists", as now in Iraq. Britain never admitted that it was
opposing a popular, nationalist rebellion in Kenya. Similarly,
leftwing Malayan insurgents fighting British rule in the 1950s had
strong popular support among the Chinese community but were officially
called "terrorists". In secret, however, Foreign Office correspondence
described the war as being fought "in defence of [the] rubber
industry", then controlled by British and European companies.

But under the banner of fighting communism, British forces were given
free rein in Malaya. Collective punishments were inflicted on villages
for aiding insurgents. A shoot-to-kill policy was promoted, tens of
thousands of people were removed into "new villages" and used as cheap
labour, and British soldiers had themselves photographed holding
guerrillas' decapitated heads. The idea that the revolt was ended
through "winning hearts and minds" is a myth; it was crushed by
overwhelming force, such as massive aerial bombing.

The brutality needed to be kept secret, a key theme in suppressing
revolts. After Britain intervened to crush a rebellion in Oman in
1957, an internal Foreign Office minute stated that "we want to avoid
the RAF killing Arabs if possible, especially as there will be
newspaper correspondents on the spot". The British army commander in
Oman later noted that "great pains were taken throughout the Command
to keep all operational actions out of the press".

The reason for this was that Britain committed numerous war crimes in
Oman, including the systematic bombing of civilian targets such as
water supplies and farms. These attacks "would deter dissident
villages from gathering their crops" and ensure "denial of water",
officials stated in private. Bombing was intended to "show the
population the power of weapons at our disposal" and to convince them
that "resistance will be fruitless and lead only to hardship".

Britain was defending an extremely repressive regime where smoking in
public, playing football and talking to anyone for more than 15
minutes were banned. Yet Harold Macmillan told President Kennedy in a
1957 telegram that "we believe that the sultan is a true friend to the
west and is doing his best for his people".

As Blair and Bush claim to support democracy in Iraq, it is as well to
remember that London and Washington have almost always opposed
popular, democratic forces in the Middle East, preferring strong
regimes capable of bringing "order".

Britain's stance on the US war in Vietnam offers other useful lessons.
Just as Tony Blair poses as providing a brake on US tactics in Iraq,
Harold Wilson claimed to do the same over Vietnam. Yet Britain
secretly backed the US in every stage of military escalation.

In July 1965, when the US doubled its ground troop numbers in Vietnam,
Wilson privately reassured President Johnson of his support for US
policies "in the interests of peace and stability".

The Wilson-Johnson correspondence highlights a shocking level of
connivance between No 10 and the White House to deceive the public.
When the US first bombed Hanoi and Haiphong in June 1966, Wilson
issued a statement disassociating the government from the bombing. Yet
this statement had been passed to the US for approval while Wilson
assured Johnson that "I cannot see that there is any change in your
basic position that I could urge on you." The myth in Iraq that
Britain is not complicit in US brutalities has its precedent in
Vietnam. Declassified files show that, in 1962, Britain covertly sent
an SAS team to south Vietnam under "temporary civilian status", to
help train soldiers of the dictatorial regime of President Diem.
Britain secretly provided arms and intelligence support to the US to
improve US bombing.

Moreover, brutal US "counter-insurgency" programmes were based on
prototypes developed by British advisers. Britain's "Delta Plan" for
the south Vietnamese regime, described by the Foreign Office as
intended "to dominate, control and win over the population" in rural
areas, became the US "strategic hamlets" programme, which forced
millions of Vietnamese peasants into fortified villages that resembled
concentration camps.

As in Iraq, the publicly proclaimed search for peace was largely a
charade. A senior Foreign Office official wrote in 1965: "The
government are fighting a continuous rearguard action to preserve
British diplomatic support for American policy in Vietnam. They can
only get away with this by constantly emphasising that our objective,
and that of the Americans, is a negotiated settlement".

These episodes highlight the gulf between what ministers have told the
public and what they have understood to be the case in private. The
declassified secret files point to some harsh truths about current
policy in Iraq: that the war is not about what our leaders say it is
(democracy), is not primarily against who they say it is (terrorists)
and is not being conducted for whom they say it is (Iraqis).

Iraqis are in practice regarded as "unpeople" whose deaths matter
little in the pursuit of western power; the major block on committing
atrocities is the fear of being exposed and ministers will do all they
can to cover them up. The public is the major threat to their
strategy, which explains why they resort to public deception
campaigns. If, as must be expected, atrocities now multiply in Iraq -
with Britain complicit - we cannot claim we were not warned.

Mark Curtis' new book, Unpeople: Britain's Secret Human Rights Abuses,
is published next month by Vintage.

© 2004 Guardian Newspapers, Ltd.

John Hanson said:

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 15:16:33 +0100, Charles <[email hidden]> wrote
in misc.fitness.weights:

Quoted message said:

John Hanson said:

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 14:59:46 +0100, Charles <[email hidden]> wrote
in misc.fitness.weights:

>On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 08:19:12 -0500, John Hanson
><[email hidden]> wrote:
>
>>We Are Now A Client State
>>http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0717-03.htm
>>
>>Britain Has Lost Its Sovereignty To The United States
>>
>>by David Leigh and Richard Norton-Taylor
>>

[...]

Quoted message said:

>
>This doesn't appear to co-incide with your previous post JH, where
>Mark Curtis was banging on about how brutal we are. ;o)
>
>See:
>
>The Growing Brutality and Deception of the Iraq War Mirrors Britain's
>Recent Imperial History
>
>by Mark Curtis

Isn't it funny both articles came from the same site?

I think it's more pathetic than funny, but then journalists write for
money and if people are willing to publish such [censored], to feed a
voracious public that want to read such [censored], there will always be a
plentiful supply of [censored] for them to read.

Did you have a few beers over the weekend? I had a great time and was
feeling a bit fragile until after my workout. I'm feeling okay now!
;o)

I had a few Saturday night but the beer made me sleepy so I went to
bed after only a few. I was hunting all day and then I stopped by my
parents on the way home so I didn't get home until early Sunday
morning. I had two with my father and then a couple more after
getting home. Buddy slept most of the day yesterday:-)

"Alchoholism" is not a river in Egypt.

"Gene" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:ryWZe.26824$tT.25110@okepread02...

Quoted message said:

What does all of this warped [censored] have to do with fitness and weights?

Perhaps you missed the "misc." that starts this newsgroup?
Although it is a bit far a field from the usual dogs and guns that we
generally talk about (personally, I am a cat person, so I leave the dog talk
to the control freaks).
You running for hall monitor of something?
--
Dr. Dickie
Skepticult member in good standing #394-00596-438
Poking kooks with a pointy stick.
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
discoveries,
is not 'Eureka!' ('I found it!'😉, but rather 'hmm....that's funny...'"
- Isaac Asimov

John Hanson said:

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 15:16:33 +0100, Charles <[email hidden]> wrote
in misc.fitness.weights:

Quoted message said:

John Hanson said:

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 14:59:46 +0100, Charles <[email hidden]> wrote
in misc.fitness.weights:

> On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 08:19:12 -0500, John Hanson
> <[email hidden]> wrote:
>
>> We Are Now A Client State
>> http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0717-03.htm
>>
>> Britain Has Lost Its Sovereignty To The United States
>>
>> by David Leigh and Richard Norton-Taylor
>>

[...]

Quoted message said:

>
> This doesn't appear to co-incide with your previous post JH, where
> Mark Curtis was banging on about how brutal we are. ;o)
>
> See:
>
> The Growing Brutality and Deception of the Iraq War Mirrors
> Britain's Recent Imperial History
>
> by Mark Curtis

Isn't it funny both articles came from the same site?

I think it's more pathetic than funny, but then journalists write for
money and if people are willing to publish such [censored], to feed a
voracious public that want to read such [censored], there will always be a
plentiful supply of [censored] for them to read.

Did you have a few beers over the weekend? I had a great time and was
feeling a bit fragile until after my workout. I'm feeling okay now!
;o)

I had a few Saturday night but the beer made me sleepy so I went to
bed after only a few. I was hunting all day and then I stopped by my
parents on the way home so I didn't get home until early Sunday
morning. I had two with my father and then a couple more after
getting home. Buddy slept most of the day yesterday:-)

My 14 yr old son and I are headed out at 4:30am for a four day mule deer
hunt. It'll be great! When we leave the blacktop, I let him drive. Which
for him is half the fun. We did that earlier this year. He drove for three
days and did great.

But this is his first year with tags, his first year hunting. He's stoked.
I could care less if I get one...I've shot many. But I'd love to see him
dump a nice branch antler buck. Nothing like that first dance with buck
fever. 🙂

Yes, I'll have a full report Tuesday.
--
-Larry

"The troll hasn't been born who can troll us worse than we troll
ourselves." Hugh Beyer

Larry Hodges said:

My 14 yr old son and I are headed out at 4:30am for a four day mule deer
hunt. It'll be great!

I'll enjoy the 4 days of silence too! I hope a bear eats you idiots.

Larry Hodges said:

But this is his first year with tags, his first year hunting. He's stoked.
I could care less if I get one...I've shot many. But I'd love to see him
dump a nice branch antler buck. Nothing like that first dance with buck
fever.

So you're a murdering [censored], and want your kid to be equally as
ignorant?

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005 21:55:40 -0700, "Larry Hodges"
<[email hidden]> wrote in misc.fitness.weights:

Quoted message said:

John Hanson said:

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 15:16:33 +0100, Charles <[email hidden]> wrote
in misc.fitness.weights:

Quoted message said:

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 09:02:35 -0500, John Hanson
<[email hidden]> wrote:

> On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 14:59:46 +0100, Charles <[email hidden]> wrote
> in misc.fitness.weights:
>
>> On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 08:19:12 -0500, John Hanson
>> <[email hidden]> wrote:
>>
>>> We Are Now A Client State
>>> http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0717-03.htm
>>>
>>> Britain Has Lost Its Sovereignty To The United States
>>>
>>> by David Leigh and Richard Norton-Taylor
>>>

[...]

>>
>> This doesn't appear to co-incide with your previous post JH, where
>> Mark Curtis was banging on about how brutal we are. ;o)
>>
>> See:
>>
>> The Growing Brutality and Deception of the Iraq War Mirrors
>> Britain's Recent Imperial History
>>
>> by Mark Curtis
>
> Isn't it funny both articles came from the same site?

I think it's more pathetic than funny, but then journalists write for
money and if people are willing to publish such [censored], to feed a
voracious public that want to read such [censored], there will always be a
plentiful supply of [censored] for them to read.

Did you have a few beers over the weekend? I had a great time and was
feeling a bit fragile until after my workout. I'm feeling okay now!
;o)

I had a few Saturday night but the beer made me sleepy so I went to
bed after only a few. I was hunting all day and then I stopped by my
parents on the way home so I didn't get home until early Sunday
morning. I had two with my father and then a couple more after
getting home. Buddy slept most of the day yesterday:-)

My 14 yr old son and I are headed out at 4:30am for a four day mule deer
hunt. It'll be great! When we leave the blacktop, I let him drive. Which
for him is half the fun. We did that earlier this year. He drove for three
days and did great.

But this is his first year with tags, his first year hunting. He's stoked.
I could care less if I get one...I've shot many. But I'd love to see him
dump a nice branch antler buck. Nothing like that first dance with buck
fever. 🙂

Good luck! Duck opens tomorrow but the weather is supposed to be
terrible. Sunny and highs in the 80s. We'll be lucky to even see any
geese flying in that kind of weather which is too bad as Buddy gets a
little impatient when nothing is going on.

Quoted message said:

Yes, I'll have a full report Tuesday.

I'm looking forward to it.

John Hanson said:

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005 21:55:40 -0700, "Larry Hodges"
<[email hidden]> wrote in misc.fitness.weights:

Quoted message said:

John Hanson said:

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 15:16:33 +0100, Charles <[email hidden]> wrote
in misc.fitness.weights:

> On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 09:02:35 -0500, John Hanson
> <[email hidden]> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 14:59:46 +0100, Charles <[email hidden]>
>> wrote in misc.fitness.weights:
>>
>>> On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 08:19:12 -0500, John Hanson
>>> <[email hidden]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> We Are Now A Client State
>>>> http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0717-03.htm
>>>>
>>>> Britain Has Lost Its Sovereignty To The United States
>>>>
>>>> by David Leigh and Richard Norton-Taylor
>>>>
>
> [...]
>
>>>
>>> This doesn't appear to co-incide with your previous post JH,
>>> where Mark Curtis was banging on about how brutal we are. ;o)
>>>
>>> See:
>>>
>>> The Growing Brutality and Deception of the Iraq War Mirrors
>>> Britain's Recent Imperial History
>>>
>>> by Mark Curtis
>>
>> Isn't it funny both articles came from the same site?
>
> I think it's more pathetic than funny, but then journalists write
> for money and if people are willing to publish such [censored], to feed a
> voracious public that want to read such [censored], there will always be
> a plentiful supply of [censored] for them to read.
>
> Did you have a few beers over the weekend? I had a great time and
> was feeling a bit fragile until after my workout. I'm feeling okay
> now! ;o)

I had a few Saturday night but the beer made me sleepy so I went to
bed after only a few. I was hunting all day and then I stopped by
my parents on the way home so I didn't get home until early Sunday
morning. I had two with my father and then a couple more after
getting home. Buddy slept most of the day yesterday:-)

My 14 yr old son and I are headed out at 4:30am for a four day mule
deer hunt. It'll be great! When we leave the blacktop, I let him
drive. Which for him is half the fun. We did that earlier this
year. He drove for three days and did great.

But this is his first year with tags, his first year hunting. He's
stoked. I could care less if I get one...I've shot many. But I'd
love to see him dump a nice branch antler buck. Nothing like that
first dance with buck fever. 🙂

Good luck! Duck opens tomorrow but the weather is supposed to be
terrible. Sunny and highs in the 80s. We'll be lucky to even see any
geese flying in that kind of weather which is too bad as Buddy gets a
little impatient when nothing is going on.

Quoted message said:

Yes, I'll have a full report Tuesday.

I'm looking forward to it.

Had a great trip, but no deer. In fact, we never even saw a doe. Saw lots
of elk and elk sign, but very little deer sign. The cougar have simply
decimated the deer population according to the OR Fish & Game guys I've
talked to.

Even so, it was a fun hunt as always. This was Jake's first year hunting,
and he had a blast. We did several really good hunts per day, covering
maybe 6 miles per day. It rained like crazy opening day all day, but then
cleared up and was fairly clear and the ground was quiet. Great hunting
conditions.

He now wants to go elk hunting later this year. Since we didn't get tags
(we did put in, but didn't draw), we'll have to go second season. Maybe
even up to where we were as there were a lot of elk. I even saw a nice 4x4
bull. One of the guys in our group saw a 6x6, which is huge for there. The
elk have faired better against the cougar simply because of size.
--
-Larry

"The troll hasn't been born who can troll us worse than we troll
ourselves." Hugh Beyer

On Tue, 4 Oct 2005 15:07:01 -0700, "Larry Hodges"
<[email hidden]> wrote in misc.fitness.weights:

Quoted message said:

John Hanson said:

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005 21:55:40 -0700, "Larry Hodges"
<[email hidden]> wrote in misc.fitness.weights:

Quoted message said:

John Hanson wrote:
> On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 15:16:33 +0100, Charles <[email hidden]> wrote
> in misc.fitness.weights:
>
>> On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 09:02:35 -0500, John Hanson
>> <[email hidden]> wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 14:59:46 +0100, Charles <[email hidden]>
>>> wrote in misc.fitness.weights:
>>>
>>>> On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 08:19:12 -0500, John Hanson
>>>> <[email hidden]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> We Are Now A Client State
>>>>> http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0717-03.htm
>>>>>
>>>>> Britain Has Lost Its Sovereignty To The United States
>>>>>
>>>>> by David Leigh and Richard Norton-Taylor
>>>>>
>>
>> [...]
>>
>>>>
>>>> This doesn't appear to co-incide with your previous post JH,
>>>> where Mark Curtis was banging on about how brutal we are. ;o)
>>>>
>>>> See:
>>>>
>>>> The Growing Brutality and Deception of the Iraq War Mirrors
>>>> Britain's Recent Imperial History
>>>>
>>>> by Mark Curtis
>>>
>>> Isn't it funny both articles came from the same site?
>>
>> I think it's more pathetic than funny, but then journalists write
>> for money and if people are willing to publish such [censored], to feed a
>> voracious public that want to read such [censored], there will always be
>> a plentiful supply of [censored] for them to read.
>>
>> Did you have a few beers over the weekend? I had a great time and
>> was feeling a bit fragile until after my workout. I'm feeling okay
>> now! ;o)
>
> I had a few Saturday night but the beer made me sleepy so I went to
> bed after only a few. I was hunting all day and then I stopped by
> my parents on the way home so I didn't get home until early Sunday
> morning. I had two with my father and then a couple more after
> getting home. Buddy slept most of the day yesterday:-)

My 14 yr old son and I are headed out at 4:30am for a four day mule
deer hunt. It'll be great! When we leave the blacktop, I let him
drive. Which for him is half the fun. We did that earlier this
year. He drove for three days and did great.

But this is his first year with tags, his first year hunting. He's
stoked. I could care less if I get one...I've shot many. But I'd
love to see him dump a nice branch antler buck. Nothing like that
first dance with buck fever. 🙂

Good luck! Duck opens tomorrow but the weather is supposed to be
terrible. Sunny and highs in the 80s. We'll be lucky to even see any
geese flying in that kind of weather which is too bad as Buddy gets a
little impatient when nothing is going on.

Quoted message said:

Yes, I'll have a full report Tuesday.

I'm looking forward to it.

Had a great trip, but no deer. In fact, we never even saw a doe. Saw lots
of elk and elk sign, but very little deer sign. The cougar have simply
decimated the deer population according to the OR Fish & Game guys I've
talked to.

You need game laws set by scientists, not politicians. They need to
declare open season on the cougar.

Quoted message said:

Even so, it was a fun hunt as always. This was Jake's first year hunting,
and he had a blast. We did several really good hunts per day, covering
maybe 6 miles per day. It rained like crazy opening day all day, but then
cleared up and was fairly clear and the ground was quiet. Great hunting
conditions.

That's all that counts. I've only bagged two birds in three days of
hunting which is not good with a young dog.

Quoted message said:

He now wants to go elk hunting later this year. Since we didn't get tags
(we did put in, but didn't draw), we'll have to go second season. Maybe
even up to where we were as there were a lot of elk. I even saw a nice 4x4
bull. One of the guys in our group saw a 6x6, which is huge for there. The
elk have faired better against the cougar simply because of size.

I've always wanted to go elk hunting. We have a herd of about 30-50
here in Minnesota and they issue a tag or two ever few years via
lottery. I'm also going to start applying for a moose permit. It's a
once in a lifetime tag only open to residents. You apply as a party
of 4 which I'll do with my kids and whomever else wants to
participate.