Paying the Piper

The bulk of Britons and Americans hold their respective countries to be paragons of virtue and upholders of high morals. They decry the brutality and barbarism that characterise, in their minds at least, regimes such as Saddam Hussein's and the other brutal dictatorships both of the present and the past. The political and human tragedy that swept Latin America in the 70's and 80's, apartheid South Africa, Saddam Hussein's Iraq - all are held up as examples of regimes that are "simply unacceptable". 

One feature of all despotic regimes is the presence of Death Squads and the disappearance of people in the dead of night as Snatch Squads prowl the streets and countryside. For an excellent synopsis of the mechanisms and effect of these tactics read Naomi Klein's 'Shock Doctrine' - the first few chapters will turn your stomach.

Sitting comfortably in their homes in Britain and America, citizens are mostly ignorant of the role that their nations played in events in those far off lands. The fact that the US "School of the Americas" at Fort Benning, Georgia, trained these death and snatch squads and the torturers into whose hands their hapless victims fell, those that lived that is, escapes the mind of most Americans who have been brainwashed into believing their country to be a paragon of virtue and morality.

Similarly, most Britons have avoided the ugly truths of their country's true actions; actions detailed, in part, by Mark Curtis in 'Unpeople: Britain's secret human rights abuses.' It never seeming to occur to them that the reason Maggie Thatcher was so protective of the ailing General Pinochet of Chile was because they were allies and friends and that she was culpable in the terror visited upon Chile, just as she and the entire British establishment are culpable for the crimes of Suharto in Indonesia and Israel in Palestine; crimes, by the way, decried by New Labour when seeking power yet continued once in power. Robin Cook, the architect of New Labour's "ethical foreign policy", conveniently suffered a massive coronary just prior to the unleashing of Britain's and America's terror on Iraq - perhaps he really meant what he said and had to be removed for that very reason.

Ignorance of the past, or ignorance of history, is one thing but ignorance of the present is another. In not taking responsibility for the actions of their governments in the present, the Americans and Britons are living examples of the old adage that "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it”. Of course it’s not that the average American or Briton is forgetting history so much as they have an appalling ignorance of history, being so completely brainwashed on the one hand and so utterly contemptuous of those that seek to educate them as to the truth on the other.

However, there comes a point in history where the “Piper must be paid”. 

The UK Daily Telegraph headline of 31st August read:

"SAS kills hundreds of terrorists in 'secret war' against al-Qaeda in Iraq"

the article going on to explain:

"More than 3,500 insurgents have been "taken off the streets of Baghdad" by the elite British force in a series of audacious "Black Ops" over the past two years."

Now let's get real here! That headline and article are a categoric statement that the SAS are operating Death Squads and Snatch Squads against the people that are resisting the British and American invasion of Iraq. This is IMMORAL and ILLEGAL behaviour and should be condemned as such by the media, not trumpeted as some great victory.

So how does this relate to paying the Piper? Walk with me, if you will, down a little know byway of British history; the role of the SAS and British Intelligence Services in Ireland, for it is here that we see the past, present and future encapsulated.

The strategy of the British establishment (the government, the military and the judiciary) in Ireland is not what many believe it to have been. Far from being an essentially benign government that was pushed to the limits of civil control such that a military deployment was necessary, a deployment that was at all times constrained by laws both civil and moral, the British ruling establishment was instrumental in establishing the situation on the ground that necessitated the militarization of Northern Ireland, the perpetuation of the “Troubles” and the flagrant, although little reported, abuse of human rights and the outright assassination and torture of civilians.

French journalist Roger Faligot exposed the truth of what became known as “The Kitson Experiment” in his book ‘Britain’s Military Strategy in Ireland’, a book that, perhaps unsurprisingly, is very hard to find. What Falgot achieved, in my opinion, is an exemplary description of both the real actions on the ground and the psychology behind those actions. Key details of action on the ground include:-

• The widespread use of special forces and special operations units in conjunction with MI5 and MI6; the at times inseparable triangle of SAS, MI5 and “Loyalist” paramilitaries.

• The role, as perpetrators, of the SAS and other Special Operations Units in bombing in the Republic of Ireland.

• The establishment and maintenance of “Pseudo-Gangs” – paramilitary groups that seemed to be another outcrop of the religious sectarianism that gripped Ireland but were in fact instruments of the British intelligence services.

• The use of special forces, special operations units and “Pseudo-Gangs” to murder innocent civilians in order to create sectarian tension.  For example the murder of 125 people in 1972 in order to establish the illusion that the British Army was a ‘neutral party’ standing between two warring factions.

• The ‘selective’ summary execution between 1976 and 1978 of at least 16 people, some unrelated to the IRA and most unarmed.

• The extensive use of Psychological Warfare techniques and Black Propaganda.

• The means of control of the population through the separation of Belfast and other cities into Strategic Districts, the use of Audio and Video surveillance, and the techniques of riot control.

• The use of special (I would use ‘extreme’) legislation to legitimize otherwise illegal (morally and under international law) practices, including internment without trial.

• The widespread use of torture against detainees and long term prisoners.

If you have any doubt as to the depths to which the British sank in their behaviour in Ireland see the work of two Irish priests, Denis Faul and Raymond Murray, eye witnesses to the effects of the widespread use of torture and states-sponsored summary execution. Beyond these facts, Faligot exposes the mind of General Frank Kitson, a man for whom the end justified any means, however abhorrent to normal people. He also provides some small details of how the techniques used in Ireland were later taught to other law enforcement and counter-insurgency specialists of Britain and other nations for wider use both within Britain and the wider world.

For Kitson there is literally nothing that cannot be done to ensure the dominance of the state over those that it seeks to repress. In Kenya he was instrumental in forming gangs (and even accompanied them on occasion) that murdered white farmers, the very people whom he was sworn to protect, so as to generate the needed anti-revolutionary propaganda. This technique was used extensively in Ireland.

Kitson had no qualms about using summary execution rather than the rule and process of law as a means to rid himself of his enemy. This technique was used in Kenya, Malaysia and Ireland.

Kitson favoured the use of torture both as a means of extracting information, a means to debilitate the enemy and as a weapon of pure terror. This was used extrensivly in Kenya, Malaysia and Ireland.

The astute reader will notice that the above ‘actions on the ground’ could just as well be a synopsis of the news from Iraq these last 5 years. That the situation in Iraq reflects in almost every detail that of Northern Ireland 30 years ago should shake all people of conscience to the core, for it demonstrates beyond any doubt that Iraq is no accident. Rather it reflects a deliberate policy. A policy advanced by both British and American establishments and fulfilled through the widespread use of Special Forces.

It is this fact that leads me to conclude that the time to pay the piper is at hand, for while these techniques may have been developed in Kenya, Malaysia, and Ireland (Frank Kitson’s career path), and while there are many similar justifications in the propaganda surrounding their use in Iraq, if you carefully scrutinize the recent revelations about Sarah Palin's background with the Christian Right and their Dominionist agenda, you must realize that this is what lies in store Americans. The absence in Britain of right wing religious extremism should not give Britons any illusions of safety; for the absence of dogma does not mean that there will be no reckoning. The British Empire was created and maintained through unadulterated brutality. Nothing has changed about the way the British Establishment conducts its affairs; as amply illustrated in Kenya, Malaysia, Yemen, Oman, Ireland, Afghanistan, Iraq, barbarism and brutality remain the core methodology, elitism and manifest destiny the rationale such as it is, pure unmitigated power the goal.

Another Daily Telegraph headline on 1st September ‘Credit crisis: Minister admits crime will rise’ illustrated how the current British government is seeking to manipulate people’s fears around a rising tide of crime.

I have no doubt that it is the intention of both British and American ruling elites to generate a situation in both countries where rival gangs, extreme criminality, racism and ‘terrorism’ are melded together to form a heady cocktail of societal collapse, blamed on "Secular Humanism" (anyone who is not a Born Again Christian by their standards) in the US and through thinly disguised 'terrorism' propaganda in Britain, against which the Kitson methodology that we see today in Iraq is brought home to roost.

If the people of Britain and America do not stand up for the rights of ordinary Iraqis and state plainly and simply that we will no longer tolerate nor aid the brutalization of another nation in our name then we shall have no one else to blame when that same brutality, barbarism and murder are visited upon us. Will shall be called to pay the piper and his fees shall be paid in our freedom, our blood and our suffering.

British Foreign Policy towards Israel

In preparing a piece on British foreign policy I needed a link to Mark Curtis, the historian, this is on his home page. It speaks volumes.

British policy towards Israel, the Arab states and the US, Foreign Office note, July 1970

August 28, 2008

Percy Cradock, Foreign and Commonwealth Office planning staff, to Sir Denis Greenhill, Permanent Under-Secretary, FCO, 24 July 1970

‘We start from the fact that our economic interests in the Arab world greatly outweigh those in Israel. It would be reasonable to expect that our policy should reflect this fact. It does not do so for a number of reasons, one of them the need for association with the United States over Middle East issues. Although out [sic] interests in the area are proportionately greater than those of the United States and although we are more vulnerable, we cannot afford to distance ourselves too far from the United States position without risk of injury to the general Anglo-US relationship. The United States, however, are identified with the Israeli position, at least in Arab eyes. Herein lies our dilemma, or one of them… As regards loss of our economic interests in Arab countries, it is impossible to point to specific current instances of loss attributable to our political posture alone. But this posture is the main reason why our economic interests in the Arab world are permanently at risk. And if we are to talk of potential [last word UL] trade… it is fair to argue that on the Arab side, where the economic stake is much bigger, our potential losses are much greater as a result of our attempt to take up a neutral position’.

Source: National Archives, FCO 49/305

Father Christmas, fairies and the financial markets

Do you believe in Father Christmas and fairies? I hope you do because those belief should last longer than a belief in the financial markets.

Lehman Brothers has filed for bankruptcy and is suspended from trading around the world, Merrill Lynch is sold to Bank of America (in an all stock deal), and the reason Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were so quickly rescued is because the foreign funds that have been buying their paper decided to dump it for something of value (at this stage almost anything is worth more than a USD mortgaged backed security).

So what do the markets do. Stock markets wobble and sit about 2% down at midday in New York, Gold moves up 2% (while Zinc rises 5%) and believe it or not the American Peso (still know rather quaintly as the US dollar) actually strengthens once the Asians (who have a better handle on these things it seems that the Europeans and the Americans) are out of the market for the day.

If nothing else tells you that the markets are dubious reflectors of reality at best then surely the fall in gold over the last months while the US slides towards its doom, dragging Europe with it, should remind us of the increasingly bizarre and illusory nature of the world we live in.

It will be really interesting to see how long the financial elite can keep the illusion up before the whole pack of cards comes crashing down.

Singapore - a nation of slaves

Singapore is touted as being such a great place. The people as happy and welcoming, the airline is the best in the world, the women stunningly beautiful, the food exceptional in its scope and flavours, the weather tropical.

Yet below the surface of this island paradise lurks a meanness, a cunning brutality that few can truly comprehend for its soullessness.

I happened to be a reception a couple of years back.. The host was a foreign diplomat, the purpose being the promotion of that diplomats home country as a place to do business, banking business. Now, it's a strange thing but ministers and government officials seem somewhat less guarded than they might otherwise be on certain topics among bankers - perhaps it's the idea that there's a club amongst money men and men of political power, an unspoken common bond, a way of seeing things in common.

Whatever it is, the comments made to me by a minister of the Singapore government were most telling. The topic of conversation was the domestic savings rate. I understood that the average cash savings of employed people in Singapore equated to 2 months income - I ventured to the minister that I thought this rather low, what was his perspective?

The Minister confirmed the figure and explained the following:-

• The governments mandatory savings scheme - the Central Provident Fund (CPF) is the preferred savings method and all policies, including the setting of mandatory contributions, withdrawal rules and management rules are designed to ensure and enforce this policy of government controlled savings.

• Singapore competes on the "flexibility" of its workforce. The workforce is less "flexible" the greater its access to cash savings.

• Imagine, he said, if people had a year's worth of cash income in cash savings - they would be far less willing to go along with retraining, wage freezes or reductions and the general implementation of government policy.

Now, to be fair to the Minister, he didn't use these exact words but what he was in effect saying was that by keeping the average person savings poor the government maintains a stranglehold on their very existence and thereby exerts it's will upon them. The people have no power and no resources to rsist when the government orders a wage cut or retraining into an area where wages are lower.

The average Singaporean is therefore a slave. Singapore is so obviously a model for the Orwellian future those in power have planned for us all we should pay close attention to that little island state for its methods are spreading throughout the developed world.

Track Palin - could he be a patsy for his mother's political ambition?

There's more than enough being written about how incredibly unsuitable Sarah Palin is to hold any power anywhere let alone to be a heartbeat away from the US Presidency.

The idea that this narrow minded bigot should be in possession of the launch codes for the biggest nuclear arsenal in earth is truly terrifying. That the US electoral process has now boiled down to such an infantile level that this woman can even be on the Republican ticket speaks volumes for the pitiful state of the US.

However, my concern today is not for the world but for her son Track (don't these rednecks have a cute with with naming their kids?). For while Track Palin is no angel - rumour has it that he signed up in order to avoid jail time for vandalising the breaks on a school bus - he shipped out to Iraq yesterday. It must surely be among his greatest fears that his mother will be only too happy to see him sacrificed to further her own political ambition.

While entirely speculative of course, I do wonder about Track's safety. Initially my speculation led me to wonder just how long the kid will live - what better media spin than to have Track show up in a bodybag on or about November 7th just days before the election. But a little further consideration led me to an even better ruse - imagine the media sensation if the Vice-Presidential nominee's son were to be taken prisoner by "Al-Qaeda in Iraq" (his Mum is one of the few people that believe that such an organisation actually exists)

Now that one could run and run - it would be a 24 hour news focus and would justify why "America elected Palin" - for you see they really need an explanation for why Obama didn't win the election. Why? Because the whole damn thing is an illusion.

If you still like to hold on to the belief that elections are anything to do with how you vote then this may come as a shock - they aren't. It's all been decided a long while ago - the only thing that's in the air is how to fake it sufficiently convincingly that enough people will buy it.

So they need a media sensation and what better media sensation that Track being a prisoner?

Sure beats an October surprise.

Banking - Systemic Collapse on the horizon

The big issue that doesn't seem to be getting nearly enough play in the mainstream media is the regulatory capital position of banks. Most western hemisphere banks have been running along with their Tier 1 ratios around 4.5 to 5.5% (they cannot legally function below 4%) and Tier 2 at around 8.5% to 9% (legal limit 8%) - these ratios are based on their internal valuation models which have a habit of over valuing their earnings (mark to market) and ignoring the true nature of their "off-balance sheet" positions. Most regulators are either unwilling or incapable of challenging these models and the rating agencies have been complicit in their development so are not useful as independent arbiters.

The market has paid enormous attention to the "sub-prime" mortgage situation but this is both misleading (not many of these mortgages are actually in default relative to the market fallout) and disingenuous (the real issue is that the multi-layered off-balance sheet "repackaging" business has been a massive and fraudulent racket for banks to balloon their balance sheets with the huge liquidity that the Fed and other central banks pumped into the system over the last 10 years while keeping it all "off-balance sheet" - a tidy way to profit without proper capital allocation).

In a nutshell, the central banks have been pushing large amounts of "money" (created out of thin air) into the banks. The banks have been creating new financial instruments and new ways to "invest" this money but in ways where the earning from what is essentially a casino have been trumpeted as financial boom ,while failing to have the necessary capital to support the risks being taken. Fractional reserve banking is already a racket - the banks, the regulators and the rating agencies all decided that it wasn't a big enough racket and stepped it up a few gears. It is a system based entirely on the ability to keep the illusion running. Musical chairs but with no chairs at all - as long as the music keeps going nobody notices but as soon as there is even the slightest break in the music the problem becomes obvious.

The music faltered at the end of last summer but the "system" (governments, central banks, banks, rating agencies) did some speedy karaoke so no one would notice and got a new CD on and the musical chairs continued. But those in the know could see that there were no chairs. Hence the need for massive injections of liquidity (money) into the system as the players (the banks) stopped lending to each other as they know damn well that they are all bankrupt.

From March 2006 the US Fed is no longer publishing M3 money supply statistics. One of the key components of M3 is Fed Repos with banks. Given that so many US banks are holding vast amounts of hard to value (and valueless) paper the Fed has been Repoing this rubbish at par and doesn't need to disclose it. This allows the banks to "mark to market" large chunks of their portfolios by pointing at the Fed Repos and calling them "market".

The illusion has therefore been created that the banks are not bankrupt. Despite this enormous amount of new capital has had to be injected. This new capital is being pumped into the key players but the western banks are basically screwed unless they can persuade Asia to pump in more cash. It seems that Asia will pump in cash while it can be persuaded of the benefits of keeping the system alive. After all if the system collapses there will only be a handful of winners while the rest of the world looses big time.

The Fed, Bank of England and European Central Banks are all desperately propping the system up but the strains are palpable. Add the recent change in tone in Bernanke and others public pronouncements and my take is that we are "in the late summer of 1929" but with bells on this time. I am not sure whether the central banks will be able to weather this particular storm - I rather think they will not.

That will mean a complete systemic collapse - Economic Armageddon.

ID Cards - Britain slips closer to totalitarian rule.

A few months back a friend of mine in the UK received a letter from his bank informing him of a new law or regulation or some such piece of the burgeoning web of control that is the UK today. The letter simply stated that his bank was now operating a system whereby his account could be frozen should a third party inform the bank that they had a claim against him and the bank reasonably believed that he might try to remove his money before the bank was able to pay said third party.

This struck me as strange to say the least because UK law already has the necessary mechanisms in place for creditors that have been granted the necessary rights through due legal process to notify banks of such claim and the relevant Court order and have accounts frozen pending settlement of the debt.

If you take a moment to think about this the new system that the bank was informing my friend about is appalling as there it clearly stated that there is no need for any due process. A third party can just inform the bank without you even being aware of the stated claim against you and the first thing you know about it is when you can’t get to use any of your own money.

I’ve searched the internet for details of this new system but the UK banking system is so awash with claims over illegal bank charges that it seems nobody’s being paying attention to anything else that’s going on. Being a suspicious sort I have an idea that this may not be entirely coincidental – it’s called distraction!

So the idea bugged me and the obvious implications of the removal of yet another of our meager legal protections from over-arching power – that of the totalitarian state and it’s buddies in the “own and control everything” corporations – angered me.

But there it lay until I was reading an article in the Daily Telegraph (online) “We have everything to fear from ID cards” by Andrew O’Hagan which argued strongly against the introduction of ID Cars in the UK. I agree with Mr O’Hagan that :

"Among the basic civil rights in this country, there has always been, at least in theory, an inclination towards liberal democracy, which includes a tolerance of an individual's right to privacy."

"We are born free and have the right to decide what freedom means, each for ourselves, and to have control over our outward existence, yet that will no longer be the case if we agree to identity cards.”

I do not believe that we should trust our governments as they invariably and consistently deprived the people of Britain of their wealth, their freedom, their rights and frankly anything else the bastards have been able to get their grubby little hands on. I do not believe in the War on Terror as all rational and reasonable evidence shows us clearly that it’s a massive hoax and I certainly don’t buy the line “..if you’ve nothing to hide…” – damn it, we’ve all got everything to hid, that’s what we call PRIVACY.

What really heartened me was that the comments following this article were in the vast majority well informed and against ID Cards. Within the comments were a number of statements proposing that citizens should take a stand against this totalitarian scheme and refuse to apply for the card.

This really encouraged me as I have been growing increasingly frustrated with the inability of ordinary citizens in every country that imposes these ever-restrictive laws to oppose them. The only idea I have come up with is simple passive (Ghandi-esque – if you like) disobedience. If everybody, or maybe even 10 million people, in the UK simply refused to do as they are told maybe things might change.

There are now so many laws that encroach into people’s daily activities that there must surely come a point where people simply stand up and say NO. I keep telling myself that I know that the imperceptible removal of one freedom after another is never enough to wake the sleeping masses but there must surely come a point when people must wake up.

OK, I know that is massive wishful thinking but I still cling to a thread of hope. Perhaps, I said to myself last night, this ID Card scheme will be the straw that breaks the camels back…………and then it hit me. That’s why they need to be able to access people’s bank accounts and freeze them without due legal process – if millions of people had to be taken to court by the government it would simply never happen but if the government could avoid all due process and grab you by the throat by cutting off your supply of money then that’s going to make a lot of people buckle under the pressure.

Now there’s a very real chance that those who refuse to get an ID Card would win in the UK courts (if they could afford to access their right to a fair hearing) as there are still independent judges who respect the rights of freedom of the common man. But on further investigation that son of the devil David Blunkett (Home Secretary responsible for the Identity Card Act 2006) removed the right to contest mandatory ID Cards by making it not a criminal matter but a “civil financial penalty” of up to £1,000 – in fact he wanted the fine to be £2,500 but that was reduced in the final legislation. He has so little respect for the people of Britain that he is quoted “…not making registering a criminal issue would avoid "clever people" becoming martyrs.” How unbelievably cynical can you get – and they want us to trust people like this man!

On the subject of David Blunkett, a man for whom garnering contempt is something of a hobby, I notice that he just happens to be in the pay of Entrust Inc. a Texas based firm interested in bidding to run the UK’s ID Card scheme. Not only that but he’s been busy writing to the London Times arguing the case for ID Cards.

So if you're British and you intend to act for your freedom and refuse to apply for the ID Card what will happen? Well, it seems that you will immediately become liable for a "civil financial penalty" of £1,000. There are presently no details of what warnings you will be given but as the situation stands today, should you fail to pay the penalty AND get the ID Card the government will inform your bank and your ENTIRE account will be blocked.

So NO ID CARD = NO MONEY. That's the sort of society that Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Blunkett have built for Britain.

So there might seem to be precious little the average citizen can do to resist these ID Cards unless they are prepared well in advance and have the stomach for a long fight. But fight they must for with the passing of every new law the chance to fight gets less and less until there will be NO CHANCE.

Freedom and liberty are not rights – they have to be fought for.