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Saddam's Accomplices Absent At Trial: John Pilger Poses Perfectly Proper Questions ...
This Old Brit and Richard are
Since you can safely bet a GBPound to a piece of pigeon pooh, that the blogosphere will be bombarding you with such stuff for (at the very least), several days to come.
Therefore, we'd prefer to point people in the direction of John Pilger, one giant gem of a journalist, from Australia.
Take a look at these teasers we've taken from his latest piece for 'The New Statesman' - wherein, the press professional-par-excellence asks some of the most perfectly pertinent questions it's probably possible to pose.
The following, we've pinched from aforementioned article's first paragraph.
John Pilger wonders why Saddam should be alone in the dock. Surely, those who aided and abetted his crimes, and were accomplices in other great crimes committed against the Iraqi people, should be prosecuted, too.And to continue to clip & paste ...
(snip)Let's start with George Bush senior, Saddam's sponsor, and let's not forget those journalists who echoed Bush junior's and Blair's lies that justified the invasion of Iraq.
Why isn't George Bush Snr being charged? In 1992, a congressional inquiry found that Bush as president had ordered a cover-up to conceal his secret support for Saddam and the illegal arms shipments being sent to Iraq via third countries.
Why isn't Douglas Hurd being charged? In 1981, as Britain's Foreign Office minister, Hurd travelled to Baghdad to sell Saddam a British Aerospace missile system and to celebrate the anniversary of Saddam's blood-soaked ascent to power.(snip)
Why isn't his former cabinet colleague, Tony Newton, being charged? As Thatcher's trade secretary, Newton, within a month of Saddam gassing 5,000 Kurds at Halabja (news of which the Foreign Office tried to suppress), offered the mass murderer £340m in export credits.
Why isn't Donald Rumsfeld being charged? In December 1983, Rumsfeld was in Baghdad to signal America's approval of Iraq's aggression against Iran. Rumsfeld was back in Baghdad on 24 March 1984, the day that the United Nations reported that Iraq had used mustard gas laced with a nerve ...(snip)
Why isn't Madeleine Albright being charged? As President Clinton's secretary of state, Albright enforced an unrelenting embargo on Iraq which caused half a million excess deaths of children under the age of five.(snip)
Why isn't Peter Hain being charged? In 2001, as Foreign Office minister, Hain described as gratuitous the suggestion that he, along with other British politicians outspoken in their support of the deadly siege of Iraq, might find themselves summoned before the International Criminal Court.
(snip)
Above all, why aren't Blair and Bush Jnr being charged with the paramount war crime, to quote the judges at Nuremberg and, recently, the chief American prosecutor, that is, unprovoked aggression against a defenceless country?
(snip)
And why aren't those who spread and amplified propaganda that led to such epic suffering being charged? The New York Times ...
(snip)
Over here, the BBC all but celebrated the invasion with its man in Downing Street congratulating Blair on being conclusively right ...
And there's plenty more powerfully-penned, no-punches-pulled, vintage Pilger from whence came that little lot.
See for yourself at this link.
*
posted by Richard at Monday, November 13, 2006
7 Comments:
Pilger is a jewel!
The Saddam trial has always seemed like an ugly sick charade to me, sorta like the "spidey hole" was. An invention of Chaney's warped mind to be used when expedient.
Never mind that many good men who served as defence attorneys and staff so conveniently got eliminated in the process.
Outstanding piece -- he's certainly fingered the right perps!
And he made quite a good case for having every one of them in the dock, for having been Saddam's enablers and then crushing him and his country, unprovoked.
We have so many media whores these days that it's all the more wonderful to still have journalists like John Pilger - though there are nothing like enough of them.
His books and films are NOT to be missed either - not ANY of them.
Has anyone else noticed that since The Daily Mirror's (once editor), fiercely anti-war Piers Morgan was set up to be sacked by British intelligence and conned into using the now infamous fake Brit sldier photos -- Pilger's regularly published freelance articles have completely dried up?
Well, I and many others have. And I can assure that it was definitely NOT Pilger who choose to end the long and previously very sucessful working relationship.
He was 'fisked' - a la Robert Fisk. You'd better believe it. As far as The Mirror goes, Pilger's gone - for good - gone the way of Greg Dyke ex BBC boss. Dyke and his staff made the same mistake as Pilger. They thought they were living and working in a free country. And they thought there was no enemy within (their own ranks).
Just for the record. Kissinger dare not leave the US without first taking legal advice as to whether he can be extradited. I'm sure your heart bleeds for the evil old f**k just as much as mine does. *G*
Richard,
There was a debate on MOA a while back as to whether Daily Kos was a redneck site or not. (Answer: Yup) Incidentally if you like Billmon you'll love Moon of Alabama
Anyway KOS' redneckedness is one reason why I don't usually link to there but this time I'm making an exception. I think that you as a Brit really do need to have a read of this story by "London Yank"
Keep Your Torturing, Extrajudicial Police State At Home, Please
The original "This is London" story is here:
Outrage at London sting by US spies
I'm trying to get my head around the idea of The Evening Standard, The Evening Standard! Covering the story in terms they did. Maybe there's hope for Britain yet.
The Evening Standard!!! Jaypers.
Then again (link courtesy of MOA) there's this unadulterated sh*te from Con Coughlin in The Telegraph so there's obviously still a deal of work to do to get the Torygraph upto the Evening Standard Standards of truthfulness......
I can't believe I've just typed this ............
mfi
On the subject of journalism (or lack of it), there is posting entitled Hamas In Its Own Words from Lawrence of Cyberia.
And on the subject of Hamas, Lawrence has this background report, For Us Or Against Us? Arab League Makes Up Its Mind
And for some deeper background, there
s always Gary Brecher. Read The Doctrine of Asymmetrical War
Brecher is abrasive (even offensive) at times. You might say he is an acquired taste, but he often has very sharp insights.
Why Americans have an absolute ignorance about Israeli aggression towards Palestine: The Media
CNN editors pull Palestinian quotes, replace with US
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