How does a government lead its people to war? How does it communicate to its citizens – and to the wider world – the reasons and rationale for initiating military conflict? What rhetorical devices and techniques are employed? And how is a nation brought to support the profound decision to wage war against another nation?

LEADING TO WAR is comprised entirely of archival news footage – without commentary, without voiceover – presented chronologically from President Bush’s State of the Union address in January, 2002 (the “axis of evil” speech), and continuing up to the announcement of formal U.S. military action in Iraq on March 19, 2003.

This compressed, chronological view offers a unique opportunity to examine the media record from a historical perspective, allowing the material to speak for itself.

Looking back on it, it’s both terrifying and comical how so many people were duped by such a wafer thin argument delivered by a gang of utterly unconvincing thugs.

It’s also worth noting that this whole recent business in the UK about whether the war was legal or not is rendered irrelevant as you hear Bush admit on camera that the policy of his administration was regime change in Iraq – a war crime as defined without ambiguity in International law.

Bush’s little helper, Tony Blair, makes a couple of appearances, cutting an absolutely pathetic figure and reminding us it is not only Americans who can be stupidly naive.

The film is free to view online and available with subtitles in a large number of languages. Worth a watch.

• 27 January, Rt Hon (sic) Lord Goldsmith QC 10.00-13.00 and 14.00-17.00 Attorney General, June 2001-June 2007

• 29 January, Rt Hon (sic) Tony Blair 09.30-12.30 and 14.00-17.00 Prime Minister, 2001-June 2007

• 2 February, Rt Hon (sic) Clare Short MP 10:00-13:00 International Development Secretary, 2001-2003

• 8 February, Rt Hon (sic) Jack Straw MP 14:00-17:00 Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, 2001-2006

Full details here: Iraq Inquiry

Tune in – it’s free(ish)!

Ignorance is Bliss (David Shankbone)

Further, Americans live in a democracy and enjoy liberty. Americans worship a Christian God who is a God of love. Iranians are enslaved under a tyrannical and backward religion that is founded in violence.

Americans do good, they help police and protect the world, they liberate those who are enslaved. Iranians do evil, they sponsor terrorism and conduct secret programs to build weapons of mass destruction.

Americans live affluent lifestyles because they have worked hard to build a modern economy. They live in big houses with modern amenities. They drive luxury cars and wear fine clothes. Iranians are poor because their culture is medieval and their economy archaic.

Americans are intelligent and attractive, they are healthy and have great teeth. Iranians are simple folk. They are either old goat herders or young, indoctrinated terrorists. They dress in rags and funny headdress. They are dirty, unhealthy and have very poor teeth. And they speak a silly language and always have an AK-47 in their hands, even when they sleep.

And if I haven’t insulted your intelligence by now then I guess you watch a lot of western mainstream media. And I guess you’re wondering why I’m bothering to state the “obvious”.

For the rest of us there is grey space between the black and white. The documentary “Wake Up Call (2008)” lives in that grey space.

The film is a compilation of clips from several non-mainstream sources, spliced together by commentary or reflective messages. The format works well. The topics covered are diverse with each segment being informative enough to give an introduction to the subject. Credits to the original material are provided to allow for follow-on research.

Have a watch. Laugh at the parts you find incredible, think about the parts that ring true in the light of recent global developments. Perhaps the speakers don’t draw all the right conclusions or are a little hysterical in places but can you really say the circumstances being described are not real? Can you say those circumstances are not with us today?

It may have been possible to brush this material off very easily a decade ago, but the world has changed and is starting to look at least similar to the picture being painted in this film. Coincidence?

“Wake Up Call” is not a New World Order for Dummies guide. It’s a vehicle to encourage you to take a look at the world from a different perspective to the one being forced on you each day by the mainstream media. Watching it won’t hurt you, you don’t have to switch off at the first clip that doesn’t appeal – just wind forward. There’s something in there for everyone.

Watch through to the end to be rewarded by a great sequence taken from the animal kingdom. The clip tells us clearly that even the meek, if they cooperate, can conquer the mightiest predator. It gives us a hope that eventually, we will find our way.

UN council endorses nuclear curbs

The nations that currently hold the whip hand over the rest of the planet by retaining nuclear weapons whilst insisting nobody else develops them are nervous. Their ability to launch illegal wars and invasions with impunity has been threatened. Several of their potential victims have been attempting to build a meaningful deterrent to the rapacious advances of empire.

Take Iran, steady boys – I don’t mean literally. Iran can’t help but to have noticed the destruction of Iraq by overwhelming conventional (in most cases) force. If you recall, Iran is a nation that has the temerity to insist it retains control of its own national affairs. This automatically places it at odds with the empire.

Now Iran may or may not be developing nuclear weapons. There’s not a shred of proof to suggest the former, despite the most stringent of inspection regimes. But as we have seen, lack of evidence is no deterrent to imperial aggression.

America’s unruly stepchild Israel has repeatedly threatened Iran, from behind the security of its own undeclared nuclear arsenal. Unsurprisingly a nation that actually has waged extreme aggression against its neighbours and genuinely does engage in nuclear proliferation is not much of a concern to the chaps at the Security Council who claim to be gunning for world peace. Instead it is Iran, a nation with every justification to develop a deterrent given the circumstances, that is under the spotlight.

All the kings horses and all the kings men haven’t been able to pin anything credible on Iran in terms of identifying an active nuclear weapons program. With the blatant illegality of the invasion of Iraq still raw in the public mind, kicking off another atrocity without justification is a tough sell. Time to turn to the public relations team and where better than to stage the theatre than the UN Security Council?

Why not have all the main offenders get together and sing a song of peace? Russia, China, France, The UK and America, linked hand in hand for a rousing chorus of Kum Ba Yah. These are the nations who own all the weapons, bar an insignificant hand-full and excluding Israel that (shhhh!) isn’t showing and isn’t telling. These are the nations that have throughout modern history engaged in brutal wars, mainly against defenceless human beings. And this is the team that is bringing you world peace and will be slapping upstarts like Iran into their long-standing and apparently rightful status, subservient to the new world order.

The big hitters won’t be getting rid of all their weapons, mind you. They claim they will eventually but, given Gordon Brown has so far committed to a reduction of a single submarine by 2020, don’t go holding your breath.

Brown is having a tough time getting the British public to foot the bill for his new nuclear toys, at a cost of billions of pounds when we are all coming to terms with the banks having made off with the contents of our wallets. Brown has been lending the banksters a hand for the past decade and has also assisted the inequality drive by throwing away the nation’s gold and driving taxes on the average guy through the roof. People are getting sick of his demands so now he’s generously offered to cut his Christmas list. It’s the sort of offer that a Cameron, for the only example, might be grateful for, because it doesn’t really matter who’s in power provided the agenda of empire proceeds. You noticed that, right?

Put bluntly, if you had a pea shooter and had to go up against an adversary who was packing a suitcase full of guns, would you be more confident if your enemy tipped half the suitcase away? Would it make a difference?

Because politicians are liars and cheats and crooks and the most cynical and anti-social guys in the room, it’s easy enough to figure their sing-song at the UN is nothing more than an attempt to secure the supremacy of the empire and proliferate without causing too much of a fuss among the helpless and voiceless masses who pay the bills.

Or, I suppose, you could go with the theory that a massive change has really occurred. That’s what the BBC is reporting. Bwahhaha!

911 Facts and Fiction

I thought not, because speculation isn’t evidence and the ability to disprove one thing does not automatically prove an alternative. This is the fundamental mistake being made by the “truth” movement and this is why the official story of 911 remains in force today.

Now let me be clear, in all likelihood 911 actually was an inside job. There, I’ve said it. But that’s just my opinion based on what I’ve read or heard or watched. I can’t prove it. And if I can’t prove it then why should I expect anyone to believe my claim? If I claim my opinion is fact but don’t have the proof to demonstrate it, then isn’t it valid if I’m subsequently labelled a “conspiracy theorist?” That’s all I have, a theory about a conspiracy. You can either buy my theory or walk away from it.

If you accept my theory on faith and then pass it to another person who does the same, after a while you have a movement based on faith. It’s not based on facts, is it? Just a belief in the opinion of the person who originally devised the theory. So we now have a conspiracy theory movement. But still we are no closer to the truth of things.

Now imagine people come along and legitimately challenge this movement and instead of admitting we have no facts and our theory is really just speculation, we decide to become entrenched in our belief and build a stack of opinion on top of our theory, or worse misapply facts taken out of context or even create phoney or fanciful disinformation to support our argument. Imagine we engage a number of experts in fields related to our theory and hold their qualifications out as a substitute for our lack of facts.

This is simply not an acceptable way in which to proceed. We start with a shaky premiss, draw an unsustainable conclusion and then compound this error by throwing whatever other fuel we can onto the argument even if it is unrelated or taken out of context. This is a fraud and this is primarily what the “truth” movement is engaged in today.

How can I be so sure of this? It’s simple really. Most of the key information that would allow us to discover what really occurred on 911, beyond that which we witnessed directly, has either not been released to the public or is simply unavailable. Do we know, for a fact, that demolition charges were set in the twin towers? Where are the witnesses to prove this? If we don’t have those witnesses or some other conclusive proof then the demolition theory remains just that, a theory. A theory of a conspiracy. A conspiracy theory.

If we persist in formulating conspiracy theories and presenting them to the public then the establishment will continue to gleefully seize on this strategic blunder and use it to effectively neutralise the facts of 911 that they find inconvenient and would prefer not to discuss. Give the establishment talk of laser beams from space and mini-nuclear devices and they’ll take that all the way for a touchdown.

The issue of 911 has become incredibly complicated. I’m not sure how many theories or variations on themes are in circulation now. It must be sweet music to the government’s ears. Because even if one of these theories is correct not all of them can be true. Now that’s a fact. So how do so many theories spring up? And why? What could the motive be for creating a theory which is not supported by facts and then pushing it out to the public as the truth?

Money, would be one motive. It can’t be disputed that several well known “truthers” continue to do rather well financially from 911. Books, speeches, videos, T-shirts, you name it. A few newcomers to the conspiracy scene have made a name for themselves and are now ingrained in the history of 911.

There are others who appear to have a more genuine motive and seemingly would like to discover the truth, even if it doesn’t fit with pre-conceived notions of good guys and evil baddies. You uncover truth when it is hidden by applying reason and logic and by focusing on facts rather than making wild speculation. And by doing your homework, putting in the legwork, verifying the sources, cross referencing the data. Boring and time consuming and less prone to produce immediate headlines but this is the minimum requirement.

Once you have disqualified the profiteers and weeded out those who are well intentioned but work in the realms of theory rather than fact, what do you have left? Not much really, but a few constructive venues for debate remain open. Find them for yourself if you are genuinely interested in getting involved in an extremely complex and diverse investigation.

Here’s a fact for you. If you look at all the criticisms of the truth movement I make above, the same criticisms can be applied to the establishment. Aren’t they pushing their very own conspiracy theory? Have you seen any compelling evidence to suggest their theory is less speculative than any other? Have you been convinced by their theory based on the power of officialdom’s say-so rather than the hard facts?

Osama bin Laden did it! Oh really, based on what facts? A dubiously translated video? The fires caused the collapse of the towers! Is that right? Based on what, an extremely questionable report by NIST? Are you absolutely sure the establishment has presented a solid case for their version of the truth? If so, it should be a simple enough task for you to find that case, somewhere, presented clearly and in its entirety. Go and have a look and good luck.

You might think one of the greatest crimes in history would have been thoroughly investigated and the findings could explain beyond reasonable doubt what happened on 911. But almost the reverse has occurred.

The official investigation is now mired in controversy, subject to criticism not just by the truth movement but by members of its own panel.

NIST’s various reports don’t stand up to even the most basic scrutiny and have been subject to reluctant revision following exposure of flaws in their scientific analysis – flaws so basic that even a high school teacher can highlight the problems (see the video below).

Government has been notable more for its obstruction of the investigative procedure and has spent far more of its time and resources rolling out legislation that curtails the very liberties it supposedly seeks to preserve in the face of terrorism.

Financial anomalies such as strong indicators of insider knowledge of the attacks have been brushed under the media rug.

The official conspiracy theory has as many holes as any speculative masterpiece set out by the truth movement. If you don’t believe me, go and verify this fact for yourself.

So how we will finally discover the real details of 911? Not by crafting grand theories that can never be supported by the facts, but by challenging the alleged facts set out by the establishment and examining the conspiracy theory it is attempting to sell. If this theory can be proven to be faulty we revert to a position of not knowing what happened on 911. And at that point it becomes justifiable to demand a better, more thorough and more open inquiry. But attempting to demand this based on ill-supported theory understandably gets us nowhere.

For as long as we meet one flawed theory with an avalanche of competing speculation we’ll continue to run around in circles, the perpetrators will continue to walk free, the commercially motivated “truthers” will continue to rake in the dollars and the truth will remain beyond our grasp.

The facts of this matter tell a story and they will lead us to a conspiracy that is not based in theory but demonstrable by proof. Certainly there are people who would prefer we don’t go down this route and they’ll throw every possible roadblock in our path. So we need to decide, why are we seeking the truth? For revenge? To be famous? To ensure that justice is done and the events of 911 can never occur again?

And if we can get that motive straight and then chase the facts for all we are worth, the truth may come of it.

For example, are you a person? Many people will simply answer yes to that question, after all it’s obvious isn’t it? Everyone is a person! However, the term “person” has a very different definition under the law than the meaning applied in common usage.

In a fascinating speech at the Lawful Rebellion Conference John Harris takes a look at the law and strips away the layers of deliberate complexity to reveal some surprising conclusions. Have a watch. It will certainly make you consider your words more carefully next time you are conversing with the state.

New Labour, first under the war criminal Tony Blair and more recently under the banksters’ puppet Gordon Brown, has worked diligently since 1997 to overturn the basic freedoms we have enjoyed for centuries.

Our complacency and the cynical exploitation of events on September 11th, 2001 and July 7th, 2005 have encouraged authoritarians and their bureaucrats to introduce thousands of new laws, sweeping police powers and unprecedented government interference in our daily lives. These laws are allegedly designed to deter terrorism but are increasingly deployed against law abiding citizens who have attempted to exercise their right to protest.

The police state that is the inevitable product of this avalanche of draconian legislation is now openly on display. The Big Brother nightmare that Orwell warned against in 1948 might have taken two decades longer to materialise than he predicted but it has undeniably arrived.

From grandmothers falling prey to police (who have long abandoned their duty to protect the community) through to millions of CCTV cameras that spy on our every movement, to courts that can imprison without charge or trial, New Labour has constructed a society where protest has been transformed into serious organised crime, the concept of privacy has been converted into an act of concealment and innocence is rejected as a legal defence.

The sobering documentary, “Taking Liberties”, examines the impact of Blair’s regime on our country and reminds us it has always been the citizen that has fought for and won civil rights. And it is always the citizen that must stand up and protest when government comes to take those rights away.

There must be moments when every person of genuine conscience despairs as they stand up to protect the rights of their fellow citizens. Why must they stand alone? Why does the majority sit on its hands, often hurling abuse at those who make personal sacrifices to properly defend society? Please watch the following documentary and if you are a person that has long remained silent as our liberty drains away, have a thought for whose interests are best served by your inaction. Yours? Do you think?

I’m off on my hols right now so I’ve scheduled for each day a video I’ve found interesting. Hope you do too.

I’m off on my hols right now so I’ve scheduled for each day a video I’ve found interesting. Hope you do too.

I’m off on my hols right now so I’ve scheduled for each day a video I’ve found interesting. Hope you do too.