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Immediate Release: CANA UK newsletter six hits out @ Blair's support for regime change in Iraq & calls on the Parliamentary Labour Party "not to endorse the war mongering policies of our Prime Minister." "But if Parliament fails there are other options for regime change in the UK..." The Armed Forces of the Crown should "now consider whether they cannot protest against their demeaning role...of becoming mercenary forces for the Americans" by either (a) a refusal to obey orders... or (b) ("if things get really bad") the Forces should "reconsider their constitutional position, arrest Blair & his cronies & shut them up in The Tower..." While not disputing the power of the New Labour whips office "sustained riots & strikes in the UK which should follow in the event of UK participation in an attack on Iraq might just concentrate a few minds in the Labour Party." CANA UK Director William Spring points out how officers serving in the British Armed Forces receive their commissions from, & owe their allegiance to, the Queen, & not to Presidents Bush & Blair. ends Newsletter follows, including text of speech delivered outside Ministry of Defence March 24th 2002
FROM THE DIRECTOR
CANA (CHRISTIANS AGAINST NATO AGGRESSION) UK
News Letter 6
April 7th 2002
Please note our change of e mail address to canauk@blueyonder.co.uk &
our change of telephone number, to 0044 (0)208 376 1454, &
our change of postal address to One
Scales Road, London N17 9HB, England.
CANA UK was off line for a while & for a
number of reasons & for an even longer period of time
our web site was not updated.
No thanks to Telewest we got back on line again & on March
21st 2002 began to update the site, which is: www.canauk.human-rights.org/ In
particular we have placed on the site News Letter number 5 sent
out several months ago & more material, with links, will be
posted on the web site in the coming days, including this
news letter.
For this Community on Line Internet work, I'm particularly
grateful to have the assistance of Andrew Yiannides, whose
concept and organisation of the *human-rights* Community On Line
and the community's home pages are worth a
visit!
This newsletter (6) is sent out April 7th 2002. What
follows is a statement regarding the upcoming war with
Iraq, & below it I have pasted the text of a speech I
made outside the Ministry of Defence here in London &
opposite Downing Street at a commemoration sponsored by the
British Serbian Alliance on March 24th 2002.
THE CONCEPT OF REGIME CHANGE = A BOGUS WAR ON TERRORISM.
At the Western White House
April 6th 2002 Messers Bush & Blair spelled out to the media
their commitment to regime change, newspeak for an ancient
phenomenon, that of military conquest & imperialism.
Without any question Iraq will be attacked in the next few months
or year.
What is now clear is that March 24th 1999 was more than just an
attack by a military combination of the richest countries in the
world upon one impoverished European state.
It was also a prototype for the new philosophy of regime change,
whereby regimes & legitimate governments can be displaced by
a combination of aerial bombardment, bribery, & direct
military land force action involving usually the use of surrogate
forces.
People have said September 11th was the date the world changed
forever.
But March 24th 1999 was a more important date. September
11th merely presented to the US public an overpowering argument
as to why regimes should be changed, but which regime we will
talk about in a minute. But
the new philosophy of regime change necessarily involves the
abrogation of the UN Charter
& enormous consequential dangers for world peace.
The first test case of its effectiveness was March 24th 1999 -
Yugoslavia was the first country to "benefit" from such
an experiment.
REGIME CHANGE - OLD & NEW PHILOSOPHIES
Regime change has always
been adopted by imperialist powers usually tied in with
sphere of influence considerations.
In the cold war both the US & USSR engaged in the process. The US has always regarded itself
as having a monopolistic right to engage in aggression
against states in its own hemisphere, & reference to the
Monroe doctrine has provided at least consistency in the
application of such a doctrine.
In the early 60's aggression was nominally more covert,
e.g. the Bay of Pigs. But increasingly over many decades
& against a number of countries in the western
hemisphere from thereon the USA employed its resources overtly.
All this is known & accepted. For
years there has been an assumption by Europe that the
US does have a unilateral authority to engage in any manner
of illegality against the states of Central & South America
& the Caribbean.
All this basic
to any understanding to the history of international relations.
Regime change could of course also be applied by the Soviets, (as
in Hungary 56, Imre Nagy witnessed regime change at the hands of
a Soviet firing squad, & Czechoslovakia in 68).
But since the end of the Cold War & the emergence of a
unipolar world, the US has seen the value in redefining
regime change, creating a right of intervention extended
beyond South & Central America & the Caribbean.
As mentioned the Yugoslav situation was the first test of this
new concept & since then we have had 'successful' regime
change in Afghanistan, & now one is publicly scheduled for
Iraq.
The usual method of effecting regime change is to target the
enemy's infrastructure with cruise missiles.
WHY
REGIME CHANGE IN IRAQ.
The imperative for regime change in Iraq seems to be the "window" opened in US policy following September 11th. Whilst elements in the US administration had always sought to encompass the downfall of Saddam Hussein, only after September 11th did it appear a viable operation in terms of selling such a concept to the US public - a public mostly uninformed about world affairs & suffering from a generally low standard of education in the humanities. Of course it cannot be sold to the UK public no matter how hard Mr Blair tries. BASIC FACTS ABOUT IRAQ Basic facts about Iraq are: 1. A major policy mistake was made by the Iraqi Govt in attacking Kuwait in August 1990. 2. It appears that the attack was "set up" by the US. Conversations with the US Ambassador prior to the attack made it clear to Saddam Hussein that the US had no interest in opposing his plan to annex Kuwait. 3. There was an urgent need in US policy terms to degrade Iraq's military capability, & the entrapment of the Iraqi leadership into a war was thought to be the best way to do it. 4. Why was there such a preoccupation to degrade the military capability of Iraq? Did Iraq present any direct threat to the USA? Answer no: but he did present a threat to (a) the Gulf oil states, particularly the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, & more importantly to (b) Israel 6. Following the successful expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait it was essential in western minds that the Iraqi leadership not be allowed to build up a strong military capability again, so a programme of sanctions was kept in place tied in with a regime of UN inspections. 7. Another factor keeping the sanctions in place was the desire of the US oil companies to keep the oil price high. Should Iraq come on stream again in any significant way then the oil price in the world already depressed these last ten years would go down further.
THE WORLD'S MOST UNPUBLICISED NEWS STORY
was the discovery by
Saddam Hussein, & the admission of this fact by the UN
Secretary General, that personnel in the UN weapons inspectorate
going into Iraq were in fact operatives for US intelligence. When
this news story came out I don't recall anyone taking it up inthe
western media - except Alistair Cook in his "Letter from
America" on BBC Radio 4. But
surely this is the most significant story of all - because if the
inspectorate has already been compromised & proven to be
agents for US imperialism, Saddam Hussein's refusal to
admit them is entirely reasonable. SANCTIONS: "Hey,
hey LBJ. How many kids did you kill today?..." In
Iraq figures are already available for how many kids killed by
Blair & Clinton.
The Barnabas
Fellowship in the UK, (a seditious organisation staffed by
well known pro Saddam fanatics such as the Plymouth Brethren) has
given the figure of 5,000 children under 5 per month as having
died in Iraq as a result of, & since the introduction of
sanctions. These figures are also given by the
UN. Although there seems to have been
some improvement in the Iraqi economy in the last year or so, for
the major part of the 1990's the people of Iraq, &
particularly its once prosperous middle class suffered
enormously. As far as sanctions goes
Scott Ritter, a former UN inspector, is of the opinion that
Iraq has already been disarmed & that Saddam Hussein's
government poses no significant threat in terms of the
development of the weapons of mass destruction. As
well as the sanctions there was the bombing. Nearly
every week US & UK war planes go on routine bombing
missions over Iraq, surgical strikes which have hit such well
know military targets as St Matthew's Tomb near Mosul, en passant
killing significant numbers of Iraqi civilians every month,
frequently shepherds.
THE
WINDOW
Following September 11th US policy makers saw the war on terrorism as an opportunity to settle up accounts. From October 2000 articles advocating military action against Iraq started to appear in the London Daily Telegraph ( owned by the Canadian Conrad Black, married to Barbara Amiel, an apologist for the Zionist lobby). All these articles were signed by individuals whose names ended with "...ein", except in one case that of Mark Steyn, which ends in "..yn" & Richard Pearl. I don't know anything about Richard Pearl's ethnic origins. US policy was now increasingly allied to Israeli policy
A COMPLICATION
has arisen in that Mr Sharon is currently conducting his own war on terrorism, & Bush has seen the indefinite continuation of such a policy as making a policy of regime change in Iraq more difficult to carry out, not least in terms of alienating pro US allies such as the KSA & Pakistan, whose assets it will be necessary to use in the event of war. Hence the demand from Bush that Sharon stop. But can he be stopped? Or to be precise can the current war in the Middle East be stopped? Answer, I think not. Even if the Israelis "begin to withdraw" prior to the US Secretary of State's visit to the region scheduled for this coming week, the Palestinians who have suffered so much these last few days are unlikely to be reconciled & terrorist attacks against Israeli could continue, & even become more intense. I believe both Sharon & George Bush should have adopted a defensive posture in relation to their respective wars on terrorism, instead of which George Bush went off & bombed Afghanistan & Sharon went into the West Bank. Neither of these actions stop suicide bombers. Instead effective internal security & surveillance is necessary, & on a political level addressing the causes, asking what turns people into suicide bombers in the first place.
A BOGUS WAR ON TERRORISM
George Bush is not really determined to destroy the Al Quaeda network. If he was he would target Saudi Arabia. Osama bin Laden is probably staying in a villa in Jubail or Riyadh, & if so there is no way whatsoever that the Americans will ever find him, other than doing a house to house search in Riyadh. If the Americans were serious about a war on terrorism they would have targeted the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia & its abhorrent regime, instead of which they went & attacked Afghanistan, "the wretched of the earth."". The former Taliban regime in Afghanistan represented the 'poor' Taliban. The rich Taliban & their paymasters live in Saudi Arabia .... protected by US troops.
BRITAIN
It is hard to define how deep our national humiliation is when British forces are turned into mere mercenary contingents for the US. It is interesting how the Royal Marines & Commandos are sent to Afghanistan in a combat role by Blair only when the US begins to sustain casualties in Afghanistan. Having been willing to fight to the last Afghan, US policy is now seeking other expendables ... anything other than American body bags. Now Blair's mercenary army has been committed by him to the service of regime change in Iraq.
ACTION THIS DAY
The writer believes British forces should not accept this humiliating role. Neither should the Parliamentary Labour Party endorse the war mongering policies of our Prime Minister.
A motion of no confidence in Mr Blair should now be tabled in the House by Labour party members. Equally the Conservative Party needs to reassess its options.
Duncan Smith's supine support of US aggression is damnable in the eyes of many of his Conservative supporters. If the Conservative Party were to support a no confidence motion, or even to abstain, it is possible the Government could fall, although this unlikely, as the party mangers would stop all but a few hard core labour activists voting against the Blair Government.
On the other hands sustained riots & strikes in the UK which should follow in the event of UK participation in an attack on Iraq might just concentrate a few minds in the Labour Party.
But if Parliament fails there are other options for regime change in the UK.
Perhaps the Armed Forces of the Crown should now consider whether they cannot protest against their demeaning role, by either (a) a refusal to obey orders, as has occurred in the past , as in the Curragh mutiny , or (b) if things get really bad, reconsider its constitutional position, arrest Blair & his cronies & shut them up in The Tower.
After all those officers serving in the British Armed Forces receive their commissions from, & owe their allegiance to, the Queen, & not to Presidents Bush & Blair.
follows
STATEMENT BY CANA UK DIRECTOR ISSUED 24TH MARCH 2002 AT WHITEHALL COMMEMORATION OF THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF THE INITIATION OF THE NATO WAR ON YUGOSLAVIA.
One of the great saints of the Church is Saint Augustine.
Not the Saint Augustine
who came to southern England in 597 AD - about the same time as
the Serbs were first settling in Kosovo, but another Saint
Augustine, Saint Augustine of Hippo, who was a bishop in North
Africa.
In his book City of God written in the 5th century as Rome fell
to the barbarians there is a striking phrase, to me descriptive
of the entire character of that military combination which rained
death & destruction down upon
Yugoslavia three years ago.
He said "what are states without justice but robber bands
enlarged?"
There
was only one item uniting the NATO military combination in March
1999, & that was a common pursuit of injustice.
As an
enlarged robber bands the NATO forces have brought nothing to
Kosovo, neither liberation for the Albanians, nor basic
protections for the many other elements in the population, Serbs
included.
Churches & medieval monasteries & frescos which had
survived long years of Ottoman occupation, (howbeit having been
in the interim converted to other uses) have not survived the
NATO occupation, & well over 100 churches first in
Kosovo & now in Macedonia have been desecrated, & many of
them, some of medieval origin containing priceless cultural
treasures, destroyed totally, in professional mining operations,
conducted I believe by the American Corps of Engineers.
If this cultural devastation had been perpetrated by The Taliban
we would properly denounce it.
As it is this attack both on the religion & history &
national identify & the cultural artefacts of a people, were
done by the Taliban of Europe - NATO operating through its KLA
surrogates.
The same NATO military combination continued the bombing of
civilian targets for 78 days & nights, uninterruptedly &
during the Orthodox Easter as well. No truces.
The Muslims were allowed a respite in the early days of the Afghan bombing campaign on Friday, their holy day. Not so the Serbs. Indeed the Christian Church in England endorsed this destruction, at least the Archbishop of Canterbury did, George Carey, as he has also endorsed the bombing of Afghanistan & Iraq.
He is our paraplegic Archbishop - wheeled out to say whatever New Labour wants whenever they want a moral homily in support of militarism.
He asked then for the Christian people of England to pray for the bombers, those RAF crews who for money were inflicting such needless pain & suffering upon a defenceless population.
It was @ that point, (hearing of his bloodthirsty sermons) I thought up the idea of CANA - Christians who unlike our Archbishop would be against war & the breakdown of international order.
This statement of
Augustine shows the Christian imperative of there being a link
between the policies of states & justice.
This is the view not only of Christianity but all major world
religions,
Law has to be respected, but in a unipolar world where American
military dominance is unchallenged law is tailored for military
agendas.
When Robin Cook said his Foreign Office staff were unhappy at the
legal implications of the NATO bombing Madelaine Albright
replied: "get some other lawyers".
Probably the best lawyer around today, certainly in Court room
performance is Mr Milosevic.
In the Hague he is alone, denied confidential access to legal
advisers, not even a Mackenzie friend to be in Court with him, to
help him shuffle his papers, & only having a pay phone to
discuss the case with interested persons.
Confronted with a bevy of UK lawyers -
a hostile judge from the US's main ally in Europe, the UK, (a judge who continually tries to interrupt)
another other judge from South Korea, the US's main ally in Asia,
another Judge from
Jamaica, who being Jamaican is also a subject of HM Queen
Elizabeth - although we don't know yet if he will turn into an
Uncle Tom, he might just surprise his paymasters - (and what
happened to the Islamic judge, who was in the trial at the
beginning?) in the face of all these pressures Mr
Milosevic has shown, whatever your view of his politics, amazing
resilience, personal courage, & fluency, & already
established beyond doubt, that he has no case to answer.
He
pointed out in his opening statement the critical issue in this
so called trial:
"You were duty bound to call a hearing with respect to the unlawful arrest that took place over my person and with respect to the fact that I was brought here on the basis of a crime having been committed."
You remember Mr Milosevic was not extradited according to due process.
Instead he illegally transferred by the Djindjic clique to Tusla (one of Nato's recently acquired airbases in the Former FRY, which they now use to bomb Afghanistan & Iraq) & then flown out by the RAF, on Geoff Hoon's orders, who by that act became a party to an illegal criminal enterprise, that of abduction & kidnapping.
Yet the Court declined to consider the circumstances of
his arrest & transfer to The Hague.
I
find it unbelievable to think that when the Security Council
established the Court it did so on the basis that it had a
mandate & jurisdiction to violate the laws &
Constitutions & sovereignty of individual states.
As a
supposedly legal body it should operate in a legal way.
Doesn't
the UN Charter, which emphasises the sovereignty of individual
states, apply to this so called UN Court?
Apparently not.
If a so
called Court can abduct people from Yugoslavia, it can do so
anywhere.
No wonder the Americans don't want anything to do with the proposed International Criminal Court.
For Americans war crimes
Courts are for other people, not themselves.
Further in The Netherlands even the basic rights given us to all
of us here in Europe are denied.
The European Convention of Human Rights does not apply to the Court, so the Royal Netherlands Govt says.
Milosevic has had lawyers appointed to present defence arguments to the Court for him against his express wishes, contrary to Article Six.
(One of them we suspect to be a member of the British intelligence service).
So what has happened is that the Security Council has set up a spoof bogus Court - in fact a no go area for law.
I conclude the national interest of Great Britain was not served by our participation in the 1999 Yugoslav War, a rehearsal for other wars.
They say warfare we say welfare.
Income support rates have not changed since May 1997 so those on benefit long term either become criminalised or get into debt.
Students still eak out their precarious existence.
Money is not available for schools, hospitals nor legal aid for anyone.
Yet there is always money for the MOD, for cruise missiles, to destroy rather than build, & for rotten lawyers, to ratchet up legal bills in The Hague for a case where the UK Establishment has already decided the outcome.
Milosevic well beyond Serbia, has become a symbol of protest to all those who have ever been messed around by lawyers, a symbol too for the Third Word, a symbol for the Under Class, the Exclu, in UK & the other countries of Europe.
He has most all become a symbol of Yugoslavia.
It is the state on trial, yet as Edmund Burke observed of the American colonists he did not know how to frame an indictment against a whole people.
Tony Blair said "We
must act now to save thousands of innocent men, women &
children from
humanitarian catastrophe." (House of Commons 23rd March
1999)
All these were lies. There was no humanitarian catastrophe - until Blair caused one!
In fact it is he who is
the humanitarian disaster, not only for Serbia & Kosovo,
& Afghanistan & Iraq, but most of all for this country.
" There is no sufficient actual proof of a secret program or
an unspoken consensus on the Serbian side to liquidate the
Albanian people. On the contrary it is directed towards keeping
this people within the state federation." (German Foreign
Office & Court documents February 1999)
end
Add:
1. recommended reading in the International Crisis "Sheriff & Outlaw in the Global Village"
by Dan Plesch.
published March 11th 2002 by Menard Press Tel/fax 0208446 5571
Price £5 (postage extra)
2. Tapes:
We have some video tapes available of our last Conference (held in Islington November 24th 2001)
Also of proceedings of earlier Conferences & Walter Rockler's masterful address.
Fax/ phone or e mail for information.
(Walter Rockler, who died last month, worked as a lawyer in New York & Washington DC & was formerly in the [prosecution team @ Nuremberg. His was one of the few voices of sanity to be heard in the United States in recent years.)
3. For a personal statement by CANA UK Director issued September 29th 2001 & which dealt in part with issues raised by the current crisis over Israel, Palestine & the Occupied Territories, see News Letter 5 on web site.
(A further statement will be issued as agreed by the CANA UK executive).
Also we plan to update the web site with the text of various speeches made @ the November 24th 2001 Islington Conference.
4. Text of letter to Rt Hon Michael Ancram MP "shadow" foreign policy spokesman sent today 8th April from CANA UK Director
Dear Michael Ancram,
I was very disturbed to hear your interview on the Today programme defending the lunatic proposal of Tony Blair that we go to war with Iraq.
It is surely not Conservative policy to break international law.
You are well aware that an attack upon a foreign state in these circumstances would constitute such & a violation of the UN Charter.
I am appalled by the tie up between American money, so it seems, & the Conservative Party.
If in order to pay the rent on Smith Square you have to sink to Tony Blair's level, in providing ignorant disinformation to the public, then the Conservative Party should be put into voluntary liquidation.
You are well aware that one of the reasons for Saddam being sceptical about weapons inspectors is that it was demonstrated how the inspectorate had been infiltrated by CIA agents, & Koffi Annan conceded such.
You are also aware of the division of opinion in the inspectorate: Scott Ritter said last year he didn't think SH had any weapons of mass destruction, but the Israelis certainly have, & it is clear the drive to push us into war with Iraq is very much influenced by the Zionist lobby in Washington.
It may be in Israel's national interest to periodically degrade SH's military capability, but I don't see how this is the interest of the UK.
The interest of the UK is to have peace in the Middle East.
How can you get peace by starting another war?
What we need is to get Tony Blair out of power.
His party will not support him over Iraq.
He will only get his war if you vote for him, & if he has to rely on your votes then you shd be his foreign secretary.
In short a war on Iraq is a criminal enterprise, certainly not to be pressed by any one with a claim to pro-life credentials.
I wish you & your family well
as ever
Sincerely yours,
William Spring
Finally
5. CANA UK incurs expenses. To operate effectively we need funds. Donations are welcome & necessary. Receipts will be issued by our Treasurer, if specified.
Gifts can be sent direct to the CANA UK account @ Lloyds Bank PLC High Rd Tottenham London (Branch sort code 30 98 70 Account number 0094920)
We are considering extending activities by a setting up an additional non-profit making company limited by guarantee to pursue research into foreign policy issues & citizenship, &, hopefully, qualify for charitable status. We need funds to incorporate such a company.
Although we do not want to replicate the work of existing Foundations, we still feel that the sort of foreign policy research we are doing on a shoe string should be done properly by Universities & so we will be interested to hear from any institutions supporting the principle of original research in these policy areas.
(All this assumes the human race will come through this apparently terminal crisis, to which Clinton & Albright's foreign policy, as accentuated by Mr Bush, have brought us.)