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.