Saturday, January 03, 2004
Brit historian says American Revolution story is our "Creation Myth"
By James Mullin
Niall Ferguson, an Oxford Professor of Finance and History, is the author of a new book, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World order and the Lessons for Global Power. His work has already become a revisionist classic.
Ferguson writes: “No organization in history has done more to promote the free movement of goods, capital, and labor than the British Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries. And no organization has done more to impose the western norms of law, order, and governance around the world.''
In that one statement Ferguson displays his gift for the flagrant, the overreaching, and the fantastical. Because of his scholarly chutspah, and inbred loyalty to the myth of Britain’s Imperial beneficence, the Times of London crowned him, “the most brilliant British historian of his generation.” A dubious honor to be sure.
In Empire, Ferguson tries to make America heir to the “Mother Country’s” benevolent imperial dynasty. To do this, he must minimize the historical distinctions, especially that little conflict called the American Revolution.
For example, Ferguson has this to say about the document signed on July 4th, 1776:
“In fact, most of the Declaration is a rather tedious and overstated list of wrongs supposedly inflicted on the colonists by the king, whom they accuse of trying to erect a ‘Tyranny over these states.’” Looks like those wrong-headed Yankee Doodles turned the world upside down over nothing!
Ferguson goes on to challenge the entire justification for the Revolution: “The Hollywood version of the War of Independence is a straightforward fight between heroic Patriots and wicked Nazi-like Redcoats. The reality was quite different. This was indeed a civil war, which divided social classes and even families. And the worst of the violence did not involve regular British troops, but was perpetrated by rebel colonists against their countrymen who remained loyal to the crown.”
Ferguson says that this “struggle for liberty against an evil empire” is “at the very heart of America’s conception of themselves.” He calls it our country’s “creation myth”.
He goes on: “Schoolchildren and tourists are still taught the story of the American Revolution primarily in terms of economic burdens… On close inspection, however, the real story is one of taxes repealed, not taxes imposed…The taxes that caused so much fuss were not just trifling; by 1773 they had all but gone. In any case, these disputes about taxation were trivial compared with the basic economic reality that membership of the British Empire was good – very good – for the American colonial economy.”
According to Ferguson, American patriots made violent revolution against the world’s greatest empire, risking their lives, their liberty and their sacred honor, for reasons that were tedious, trifling and trivial. That is an open attack on American republicanism, and our national identity.
Ferguson is just the latest in a long line of British and Anglo-Irish historians bent on challenging nationalist “mythology”. In the early ‘70s, Conor Cruise O’Brien wrote in States of Ireland that the 1916 rebellion was “a putsch with no pretense of popular support.” His views are shared by contemporary revisionist, Ruth Dudley Edwards. In her book, Patrick Pearse – The Triumph of Failure, she portrays Pearse as a deluded romantic obsessed with a desire for revolutionary “blood sacrifice” and heroic martyrdom.
The acknowledged master of revisionism is Roy Foster, chairman of the Irish History Department at Oxford University, and author of the 600-page tome, Modern Ireland: 1600-1972.
Desmond Fennell, an Irish critic, said the underlying message of Modern Ireland is Foster’s revisionism, which he called, “A retelling of Irish history which seeks to show that British rule of Ireland was not, as we have believed, a bad thing, but a mixture of necessity, good intentions and bungling; and that Irish resistance to it was not, as we have believed, a good thing, but a mixture of wrong-headed idealism and unnecessary, often cruel violence.” (This sounds remarkably like Ferguson’s description of the American Revolution!)
Oddly enough, Foster’s latest work is about Irish mythmaking. In The Irish Story: telling tales and making it up in Ireland, he asserts that the Irish have “misused” their own history by taking the great events - the 1798 Rising, the Famine, the Celtic Revival, Easter 1916, the Troubles - and dropping them all into a fictional narrative that includes elements of romance, folklore and myth.
According to Foster, Irish historians have “sentimentalized Irish poverty and oppression”, and packaged it as a heroic story. They have manipulated the historical facts for political ends. Consequently, Irish History is rife with “nationalist myths”, which need to be replaced by objective, “value-free history”, of the British kind.
Once the Irish and American people have been disabused of their “creation myths,” they will be able to absorb the gargantuan myth of the benevolent British Empire.
Then Britain’s 300-year “adventure” in the slave trade can be trivialized or erased; the murder by neglect, of 11,000 American patriots imprisoned on His Majesty’s “horrible hulks” during the Revolutionary War can be expunged; the first drug war, prosecuted to force opium addiction on millions of Chinese can be made into a footnote; the forced famines manufactured in British-occupied Ireland and India can be turned into ordinary crop failures; the “transportation” of Irish rebels to penal colonies in Australia can be turned into a blessing; and the construction of the world’s first concentration camps during the Boer War can be made into a practical necessity.
Fortunately, Empire’s Tory twaddle will not achieve academic respectability, and the Oxford History of the American People will never become required reading in our high schools and universities. Why? Because Jefferson was correct on another point: "Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."
By James Mullin
Niall Ferguson, an Oxford Professor of Finance and History, is the author of a new book, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World order and the Lessons for Global Power. His work has already become a revisionist classic.
Ferguson writes: “No organization in history has done more to promote the free movement of goods, capital, and labor than the British Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries. And no organization has done more to impose the western norms of law, order, and governance around the world.''
In that one statement Ferguson displays his gift for the flagrant, the overreaching, and the fantastical. Because of his scholarly chutspah, and inbred loyalty to the myth of Britain’s Imperial beneficence, the Times of London crowned him, “the most brilliant British historian of his generation.” A dubious honor to be sure.
In Empire, Ferguson tries to make America heir to the “Mother Country’s” benevolent imperial dynasty. To do this, he must minimize the historical distinctions, especially that little conflict called the American Revolution.
For example, Ferguson has this to say about the document signed on July 4th, 1776:
“In fact, most of the Declaration is a rather tedious and overstated list of wrongs supposedly inflicted on the colonists by the king, whom they accuse of trying to erect a ‘Tyranny over these states.’” Looks like those wrong-headed Yankee Doodles turned the world upside down over nothing!
Ferguson goes on to challenge the entire justification for the Revolution: “The Hollywood version of the War of Independence is a straightforward fight between heroic Patriots and wicked Nazi-like Redcoats. The reality was quite different. This was indeed a civil war, which divided social classes and even families. And the worst of the violence did not involve regular British troops, but was perpetrated by rebel colonists against their countrymen who remained loyal to the crown.”
Ferguson says that this “struggle for liberty against an evil empire” is “at the very heart of America’s conception of themselves.” He calls it our country’s “creation myth”.
He goes on: “Schoolchildren and tourists are still taught the story of the American Revolution primarily in terms of economic burdens… On close inspection, however, the real story is one of taxes repealed, not taxes imposed…The taxes that caused so much fuss were not just trifling; by 1773 they had all but gone. In any case, these disputes about taxation were trivial compared with the basic economic reality that membership of the British Empire was good – very good – for the American colonial economy.”
According to Ferguson, American patriots made violent revolution against the world’s greatest empire, risking their lives, their liberty and their sacred honor, for reasons that were tedious, trifling and trivial. That is an open attack on American republicanism, and our national identity.
Ferguson is just the latest in a long line of British and Anglo-Irish historians bent on challenging nationalist “mythology”. In the early ‘70s, Conor Cruise O’Brien wrote in States of Ireland that the 1916 rebellion was “a putsch with no pretense of popular support.” His views are shared by contemporary revisionist, Ruth Dudley Edwards. In her book, Patrick Pearse – The Triumph of Failure, she portrays Pearse as a deluded romantic obsessed with a desire for revolutionary “blood sacrifice” and heroic martyrdom.
The acknowledged master of revisionism is Roy Foster, chairman of the Irish History Department at Oxford University, and author of the 600-page tome, Modern Ireland: 1600-1972.
Desmond Fennell, an Irish critic, said the underlying message of Modern Ireland is Foster’s revisionism, which he called, “A retelling of Irish history which seeks to show that British rule of Ireland was not, as we have believed, a bad thing, but a mixture of necessity, good intentions and bungling; and that Irish resistance to it was not, as we have believed, a good thing, but a mixture of wrong-headed idealism and unnecessary, often cruel violence.” (This sounds remarkably like Ferguson’s description of the American Revolution!)
Oddly enough, Foster’s latest work is about Irish mythmaking. In The Irish Story: telling tales and making it up in Ireland, he asserts that the Irish have “misused” their own history by taking the great events - the 1798 Rising, the Famine, the Celtic Revival, Easter 1916, the Troubles - and dropping them all into a fictional narrative that includes elements of romance, folklore and myth.
According to Foster, Irish historians have “sentimentalized Irish poverty and oppression”, and packaged it as a heroic story. They have manipulated the historical facts for political ends. Consequently, Irish History is rife with “nationalist myths”, which need to be replaced by objective, “value-free history”, of the British kind.
Once the Irish and American people have been disabused of their “creation myths,” they will be able to absorb the gargantuan myth of the benevolent British Empire.
Then Britain’s 300-year “adventure” in the slave trade can be trivialized or erased; the murder by neglect, of 11,000 American patriots imprisoned on His Majesty’s “horrible hulks” during the Revolutionary War can be expunged; the first drug war, prosecuted to force opium addiction on millions of Chinese can be made into a footnote; the forced famines manufactured in British-occupied Ireland and India can be turned into ordinary crop failures; the “transportation” of Irish rebels to penal colonies in Australia can be turned into a blessing; and the construction of the world’s first concentration camps during the Boer War can be made into a practical necessity.
Fortunately, Empire’s Tory twaddle will not achieve academic respectability, and the Oxford History of the American People will never become required reading in our high schools and universities. Why? Because Jefferson was correct on another point: "Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."
“Honest Broker” with Bloody Hands.
By James Mullin
On April 17th, when Sir John Stevens submitted his long-delayed (14 years) report on British collusion with Loyalist death squads, the government’s response was absolute silence. Ministers made no apology, offered no defense, admitted no guilt, and announced no new or impending arrests. Once again, justice for the Irish would be a “non-starter” in the so-called “Mother of Parliaments”.
Just four months earlier, on December 17th, British Prime Minister Tony Blair was less reticent: “We condemn totally anybody who is engaged in terrorist activity of any sort at all, wherever in the world.”
Where is the condemnation when your own hands are stained with blood?
On April 24th, one week after the Stevens report on collusion was greeted with guilty silence, the British Prime Minister was back in form. He spoke out in self-righteous indignation concerning an Irish Republican Army peace overture, which he found too vague: "Clarity is our friend in this process now. Ambiguity is our enemy."
Where was the “clarity” and the lack of ambiguity when his government failed to respond to Stevens’ charge that the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary had acted in collusion with the UDA’s terrorist killers?
Where is the “clarity” and transparency in a government-appointed police inquiry into government-assisted collusion and murder, which was repeatedly blocked, wrecked by arson, manipulated, and delayed for 14 years? And when Sir John Stevens’ 3,000-page report was delivered to this same government, it released in silence a vapid 20-page summary, which names no names! Where is the clarity?
Before the ink was dry on this indictment, Blair was back claiming the moral high ground. He impudently asked whether IRA commitments, "mean an end to all activities inconsistent with the Good Friday agreement, including targeting, procurement of weapons, so-called punishment beatings and so forth."
What about the “targeting” performed by British Army Intelligence Sergeant (now Captain) Margaret Walshaw, when she passed British Army Force Research Unit (FRU) agent Brian Nelson classified documents enabling Loyalist paramilitary soldiers to murder attorney Pat Finucane and others?
And on the subject of “procurement of weapons”, what about agent Brian Nelson’s travels to the apartheid state of South Africa in 1987, where he arranged for the importing of weapons for use by loyalist paramilitaries? According to former FRU soldiers who testified on BBC Panorama, Nelson kept military intelligence informed of developments at every stage of the proceedings, and passed them all the details, including the methods to be used to smuggle in the weapons into Northern Ireland. No military or police action was taken to impede him because he was working under the direction of Lieutenant Colonel (now Brigadier) Gordon Kerr, commander of the FRU.
In the six years following the British Army’s FRU/Brian Nelson weapons shipment, these same loyalists killed 229 people – tripling the number of murders they carried out before they were armed by the British government. The Army not only provided intelligence information to improve the targeting of nationalists, they armed, aided, and abetted Loyalist assassins. That was a war crime of enormous magnitude.
It is now two weeks since the mysterious death of Brian Nelson, and the non-release of the Stevens report on collusion – both events that would deeply embarrass any government – unless it is a British government. The insolent Mr. Blair now demands that the IRA scrap "all arms, so that the process is complete." That would be far from a complete disarmament, because the republican side represents only one-third of the combatants. The British must dismantle their extensive military bases, and watch towers, and withdraw the entire garrison, including military intelligence agents, FRU, etc., and they must find and destroy the weapons they supplied to Loyalist militias.
Ned McGinley, President of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, articulated the same point in a recent press release: “The murder weapons and ammunition procured in South Africa, paid for, transported, hidden, as well as used by the British Security Forces and their agents against nationalists and total innocents have yet to be confiscated and put beyond use. There can be no talk of trust until this weapon cache is controlled and placed beyond use. These weapons are the responsibility of the London government.”
I agree, but where are the people foolish enough to trust a “dirty war” conspirator to destroy weapons sight unseen? Despite their recent indictment, these sanctimonious frauds want the world to accept Britain as an “honest broker”. The Irish people know better. This conflict is nothing but the fag end of an 800-year colonial occupation of the Island of Ireland, and it has now been boiled down to a struggle for democracy in a six-county, gerrymandered “statelet”. The endemic sectarianism we are cursed with is not something the British found on their right honorable doorstep: it is their own bloody-minded creation.
With all this collusion and demagoguery hanging from his coattails, Blair still has the effrontery to lecture republicans about the road to democracy! Twice his government has dissolved a democratically elected assembly with “devolved” powers. To what extent are the powers “devolved” if they may be taken away with impunity?
Today, May 1st, the British government again showed their power, unilaterally canceling the May 29th elections. Bertie Ahern, speaking from Government Buildings in Dublin, expressed his disappointment: "I disagree with the British government on the postponement of the elections. I re-iterated this in conversations with the Mr. Blair last evening and this morning. Ultimately I believed that another postponement causes more problems for the peace process."
Earlier in the day, Sinn Fein chairman Mitchel McLaughlin, said that a postponement of the elections would be called just to suit Mr. Trimble`s Ulster Unionists.
That was also the view of Nigel Dodds, the Democratic Unionist North Belfast MP. On May 1st, Dodds told UTV that Downing Street was guilty of overseeing a farce to save rival Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble.
Dodds went on: “Tony Blair is now about to join the illustrious band like General Pinochet and African countries like the Ivory Coast where elections have been called off. This is the sort of activity you get in a country which knows nothing about democracy, where leaders interfere with people’s right to choose when they think the result will not be to their liking.
Make no mistake about it, there is only one reason for this: Tony Blair has listened to the Ulster Unionists pleading to put off the elections in order to save David Trimble`s skin.
Mr. Blair has fought a war in Iraq to bring about democracy, but in his own back yard on the very day when Scotland and Wales go to the polls he is refusing the people of Northern Ireland the right to vote.”
McLaughlin, Ahern, and Dodds are all on target. Apart from David Trimble`s Ulster Unionists, all parties in Belfast including Sinn Fein, the SDLP and the Rev Ian Paisley`s Democratic Unionists have urged Mr. Blair to press ahead with the election. Instead of a “road map” to democracy in the six counties, all they will get is a British roadblock.
By James Mullin
On April 17th, when Sir John Stevens submitted his long-delayed (14 years) report on British collusion with Loyalist death squads, the government’s response was absolute silence. Ministers made no apology, offered no defense, admitted no guilt, and announced no new or impending arrests. Once again, justice for the Irish would be a “non-starter” in the so-called “Mother of Parliaments”.
Just four months earlier, on December 17th, British Prime Minister Tony Blair was less reticent: “We condemn totally anybody who is engaged in terrorist activity of any sort at all, wherever in the world.”
Where is the condemnation when your own hands are stained with blood?
On April 24th, one week after the Stevens report on collusion was greeted with guilty silence, the British Prime Minister was back in form. He spoke out in self-righteous indignation concerning an Irish Republican Army peace overture, which he found too vague: "Clarity is our friend in this process now. Ambiguity is our enemy."
Where was the “clarity” and the lack of ambiguity when his government failed to respond to Stevens’ charge that the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary had acted in collusion with the UDA’s terrorist killers?
Where is the “clarity” and transparency in a government-appointed police inquiry into government-assisted collusion and murder, which was repeatedly blocked, wrecked by arson, manipulated, and delayed for 14 years? And when Sir John Stevens’ 3,000-page report was delivered to this same government, it released in silence a vapid 20-page summary, which names no names! Where is the clarity?
Before the ink was dry on this indictment, Blair was back claiming the moral high ground. He impudently asked whether IRA commitments, "mean an end to all activities inconsistent with the Good Friday agreement, including targeting, procurement of weapons, so-called punishment beatings and so forth."
What about the “targeting” performed by British Army Intelligence Sergeant (now Captain) Margaret Walshaw, when she passed British Army Force Research Unit (FRU) agent Brian Nelson classified documents enabling Loyalist paramilitary soldiers to murder attorney Pat Finucane and others?
And on the subject of “procurement of weapons”, what about agent Brian Nelson’s travels to the apartheid state of South Africa in 1987, where he arranged for the importing of weapons for use by loyalist paramilitaries? According to former FRU soldiers who testified on BBC Panorama, Nelson kept military intelligence informed of developments at every stage of the proceedings, and passed them all the details, including the methods to be used to smuggle in the weapons into Northern Ireland. No military or police action was taken to impede him because he was working under the direction of Lieutenant Colonel (now Brigadier) Gordon Kerr, commander of the FRU.
In the six years following the British Army’s FRU/Brian Nelson weapons shipment, these same loyalists killed 229 people – tripling the number of murders they carried out before they were armed by the British government. The Army not only provided intelligence information to improve the targeting of nationalists, they armed, aided, and abetted Loyalist assassins. That was a war crime of enormous magnitude.
It is now two weeks since the mysterious death of Brian Nelson, and the non-release of the Stevens report on collusion – both events that would deeply embarrass any government – unless it is a British government. The insolent Mr. Blair now demands that the IRA scrap "all arms, so that the process is complete." That would be far from a complete disarmament, because the republican side represents only one-third of the combatants. The British must dismantle their extensive military bases, and watch towers, and withdraw the entire garrison, including military intelligence agents, FRU, etc., and they must find and destroy the weapons they supplied to Loyalist militias.
Ned McGinley, President of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, articulated the same point in a recent press release: “The murder weapons and ammunition procured in South Africa, paid for, transported, hidden, as well as used by the British Security Forces and their agents against nationalists and total innocents have yet to be confiscated and put beyond use. There can be no talk of trust until this weapon cache is controlled and placed beyond use. These weapons are the responsibility of the London government.”
I agree, but where are the people foolish enough to trust a “dirty war” conspirator to destroy weapons sight unseen? Despite their recent indictment, these sanctimonious frauds want the world to accept Britain as an “honest broker”. The Irish people know better. This conflict is nothing but the fag end of an 800-year colonial occupation of the Island of Ireland, and it has now been boiled down to a struggle for democracy in a six-county, gerrymandered “statelet”. The endemic sectarianism we are cursed with is not something the British found on their right honorable doorstep: it is their own bloody-minded creation.
With all this collusion and demagoguery hanging from his coattails, Blair still has the effrontery to lecture republicans about the road to democracy! Twice his government has dissolved a democratically elected assembly with “devolved” powers. To what extent are the powers “devolved” if they may be taken away with impunity?
Today, May 1st, the British government again showed their power, unilaterally canceling the May 29th elections. Bertie Ahern, speaking from Government Buildings in Dublin, expressed his disappointment: "I disagree with the British government on the postponement of the elections. I re-iterated this in conversations with the Mr. Blair last evening and this morning. Ultimately I believed that another postponement causes more problems for the peace process."
Earlier in the day, Sinn Fein chairman Mitchel McLaughlin, said that a postponement of the elections would be called just to suit Mr. Trimble`s Ulster Unionists.
That was also the view of Nigel Dodds, the Democratic Unionist North Belfast MP. On May 1st, Dodds told UTV that Downing Street was guilty of overseeing a farce to save rival Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble.
Dodds went on: “Tony Blair is now about to join the illustrious band like General Pinochet and African countries like the Ivory Coast where elections have been called off. This is the sort of activity you get in a country which knows nothing about democracy, where leaders interfere with people’s right to choose when they think the result will not be to their liking.
Make no mistake about it, there is only one reason for this: Tony Blair has listened to the Ulster Unionists pleading to put off the elections in order to save David Trimble`s skin.
Mr. Blair has fought a war in Iraq to bring about democracy, but in his own back yard on the very day when Scotland and Wales go to the polls he is refusing the people of Northern Ireland the right to vote.”
McLaughlin, Ahern, and Dodds are all on target. Apart from David Trimble`s Ulster Unionists, all parties in Belfast including Sinn Fein, the SDLP and the Rev Ian Paisley`s Democratic Unionists have urged Mr. Blair to press ahead with the election. Instead of a “road map” to democracy in the six counties, all they will get is a British roadblock.
Brian Nelson’s “Death” Greatly Exaggerated
By James Mullin
Any reasonable person would consider a government-appointed police inquiry into British government-assisted collusion and murder charges a recipe for a cover-up. Such was the case with the Stevens’ investigation, which was repeatedly blocked, wrecked by arson, manipulated, and delayed for 14 years. Less than 20 pages of the 3,000-page report have been released to the press and public.
This same reasonable person would have grave doubts about the death by “natural causes” of Brian Nelson, the principal witness in the collusion and murder case, just four days before the Stevens’ report was presented to the government.
To someone even more suspicious than a reasonable person - a criminal prosecutor for example - the disappearance of a vital murder witness known to be in state custody would not lead to a presumption of death. The accused government may have decided that the witness should not be made available to give damaging testimony. However, if the supposed body of the deceased witness was produced, then the prosecutor would want to determine by forensic tests that the body is indeed Nelson’s, and that his untimely death was, in fact, due to natural causes.
In the 17th Century, the great Italian physicist and astronomer, Galileo, set forth one of the guiding principles of modern science: statements or hypotheses about nature (including death) must always be based on observation, rather than received authority. Let is apply that principle to the Nelson case.
How do we know that Brian Nelson is dead? Because the BBC says he is. The BBC has often been used as the house organ of the British government, so this is “received authority” of the first degree. Before swallowing this camel, we need to choke on a few gnats, and ask relevant questions about the demise of double agent Brian Nelson:
Was Nelson being held in “protective custody” when he died? If so, who were his immediate “handlers”? Where did he die? Who found the body? Did he receive medical treatment before his death? Was he taken to a hospital? Who was the attending physician? Who pronounced him dead? Was a coroner consulted before it was determined that the deceased had died of purely “natural causes? Were all the doctors present civilian or military? Were there any other witnesses? Did family members confirm that the body was, in fact, Nelson’s? Were any photographs taken of the body? Were blood, hair and DNA samples taken? Were dental records checked against the teeth of the deceased? Was there an autopsy? If so, who performed the autopsy? Where is the record of this autopsy? Nelson supposedly died of a brain hemorrhage. If so, was it brought on by the administration of a drug? Were there traces of amphetamines, barbiturates, arsenic, cyanide, curare or any other drugs in his blood system? Were there any unusual bruises or ligature marks on the deceased? Was there an open casket at his funeral? Was the funeral open to the public and the press? Where was it? Were photographs taken? Where is his body buried?
With the delivery of the Steven’s report, Brian Nelson was about to become the most important man in Britain after the Prime Minister Blair. He would almost certainly have been called to testify at the trial of FRU Commander Brigadier Gordon Kerr, who personally recruited Nelson as double agent 6137, and placed him in the Ulster Defense Association.
Under Kerr’s command, British army agents fed Nelson classified military and intelligence documents that were used to target and murder suspected republicans, nationalists and ordinary Catholics. This collusion was part of a campaign of an organized state-sanctioned murder – a war crime. In advance of a number of loyalist attacks, the FRU secured “restriction orders”, keeping Royal Ulster Constabulary members notified so they would avoid accidentally disrupting a planned killing.
Until recently, Brigadier Gordon Kerr was the British military attaché in Beijing, one of the most distinguished positions in the diplomatic service. He is the most senior serving officer in the Intelligence Corps and has been rewarded with both an OBE and the Queen's Gallantry medal for his services to the Army. Earlier this year he returned from China, and took two weeks' leave before his posting to the Gulf at the beginning of the Iraq War.
A senior military source told the Sunday Herald: “This posting makes Kerr untouchable. He is not going to be dragged away from essential war work in an operational theatre to talk to the police or prosecutors. Kerr has landed on his feet with this posting.
It shows that the whole Stevens inquiry is nothing but a whitewash. He is never going to end up in a court of law. This posting keeps him safe and protects those in the army who are above him -- and those politicians who were in power when the FRU was carrying on these activities in Ulster -- from ever having to answer nasty questions that might arise through him being arrested or charged.” Who were those people?
According to an FRU source, interviewed in the Nov 19, 2000 Sunday Herald, there was an unbroken chain of command running from the FRU handlers, to Kerr, then through to the military top brass in Ulster, on to the Ministry of Defense Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and finally the Prime Minister.
At the time of Pat Finucane's death, George Younger was Secretary of State for Defense, Tom King was Ulster Secretary, General Sir John Waters was commanding officer in Northern Ireland, and Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. Kerr got his orders through this “unbroken chain of command”.
Double agent Brian Nelson’s “death”, whether fact or fiction, was arranged to keep the above named individuals from being charged with directing a “dirty war” campaign of collusion and murder. Only fools and monarchists believe otherwise.
By James Mullin
Any reasonable person would consider a government-appointed police inquiry into British government-assisted collusion and murder charges a recipe for a cover-up. Such was the case with the Stevens’ investigation, which was repeatedly blocked, wrecked by arson, manipulated, and delayed for 14 years. Less than 20 pages of the 3,000-page report have been released to the press and public.
This same reasonable person would have grave doubts about the death by “natural causes” of Brian Nelson, the principal witness in the collusion and murder case, just four days before the Stevens’ report was presented to the government.
To someone even more suspicious than a reasonable person - a criminal prosecutor for example - the disappearance of a vital murder witness known to be in state custody would not lead to a presumption of death. The accused government may have decided that the witness should not be made available to give damaging testimony. However, if the supposed body of the deceased witness was produced, then the prosecutor would want to determine by forensic tests that the body is indeed Nelson’s, and that his untimely death was, in fact, due to natural causes.
In the 17th Century, the great Italian physicist and astronomer, Galileo, set forth one of the guiding principles of modern science: statements or hypotheses about nature (including death) must always be based on observation, rather than received authority. Let is apply that principle to the Nelson case.
How do we know that Brian Nelson is dead? Because the BBC says he is. The BBC has often been used as the house organ of the British government, so this is “received authority” of the first degree. Before swallowing this camel, we need to choke on a few gnats, and ask relevant questions about the demise of double agent Brian Nelson:
Was Nelson being held in “protective custody” when he died? If so, who were his immediate “handlers”? Where did he die? Who found the body? Did he receive medical treatment before his death? Was he taken to a hospital? Who was the attending physician? Who pronounced him dead? Was a coroner consulted before it was determined that the deceased had died of purely “natural causes? Were all the doctors present civilian or military? Were there any other witnesses? Did family members confirm that the body was, in fact, Nelson’s? Were any photographs taken of the body? Were blood, hair and DNA samples taken? Were dental records checked against the teeth of the deceased? Was there an autopsy? If so, who performed the autopsy? Where is the record of this autopsy? Nelson supposedly died of a brain hemorrhage. If so, was it brought on by the administration of a drug? Were there traces of amphetamines, barbiturates, arsenic, cyanide, curare or any other drugs in his blood system? Were there any unusual bruises or ligature marks on the deceased? Was there an open casket at his funeral? Was the funeral open to the public and the press? Where was it? Were photographs taken? Where is his body buried?
With the delivery of the Steven’s report, Brian Nelson was about to become the most important man in Britain after the Prime Minister Blair. He would almost certainly have been called to testify at the trial of FRU Commander Brigadier Gordon Kerr, who personally recruited Nelson as double agent 6137, and placed him in the Ulster Defense Association.
Under Kerr’s command, British army agents fed Nelson classified military and intelligence documents that were used to target and murder suspected republicans, nationalists and ordinary Catholics. This collusion was part of a campaign of an organized state-sanctioned murder – a war crime. In advance of a number of loyalist attacks, the FRU secured “restriction orders”, keeping Royal Ulster Constabulary members notified so they would avoid accidentally disrupting a planned killing.
Until recently, Brigadier Gordon Kerr was the British military attaché in Beijing, one of the most distinguished positions in the diplomatic service. He is the most senior serving officer in the Intelligence Corps and has been rewarded with both an OBE and the Queen's Gallantry medal for his services to the Army. Earlier this year he returned from China, and took two weeks' leave before his posting to the Gulf at the beginning of the Iraq War.
A senior military source told the Sunday Herald: “This posting makes Kerr untouchable. He is not going to be dragged away from essential war work in an operational theatre to talk to the police or prosecutors. Kerr has landed on his feet with this posting.
It shows that the whole Stevens inquiry is nothing but a whitewash. He is never going to end up in a court of law. This posting keeps him safe and protects those in the army who are above him -- and those politicians who were in power when the FRU was carrying on these activities in Ulster -- from ever having to answer nasty questions that might arise through him being arrested or charged.” Who were those people?
According to an FRU source, interviewed in the Nov 19, 2000 Sunday Herald, there was an unbroken chain of command running from the FRU handlers, to Kerr, then through to the military top brass in Ulster, on to the Ministry of Defense Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and finally the Prime Minister.
At the time of Pat Finucane's death, George Younger was Secretary of State for Defense, Tom King was Ulster Secretary, General Sir John Waters was commanding officer in Northern Ireland, and Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. Kerr got his orders through this “unbroken chain of command”.
Double agent Brian Nelson’s “death”, whether fact or fiction, was arranged to keep the above named individuals from being charged with directing a “dirty war” campaign of collusion and murder. Only fools and monarchists believe otherwise.
Bush’s War on the Environment
By James Mullin
In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President Bush’s energy and environmental policies have been given an impregnable “national security” coating. As a result, oil, gas, chemical, and mining interests have been given unprecedented influence and access in the White House, while our natural environment pays a horrible price.
Soft on Arsenic in our drinking water
One of the Bush administration’s first environmental missteps was to cancel a health regulation that would have reduced allowable levels of arsenic in U.S. drinking water from 50 parts per billion (ppb) to 10 ppb. Arsenic causes cancer of the skin, lungs, bladder and prostate. The National Academy of Sciences and the World Health Organization endorsed the regulation, but the mining and chemical industries, which are responsible for the release of arsenic into the environment, are big donors to the Republican Party. After an outcry from environmental groups and the mainstream press, the U.S. Congress blocked Bush’s arsenic gambit.
Global Warming is for Wimps!
Next, Bush rejected the Kyoto treaty on global warming, which was favored by almost all of the European nations. Global warming, sometimes called the greenhouse effect, is a consequence of increasing amounts of human-made gases in the atmosphere, especially carbon dioxide, which arises from the burning of coal, oil and gas. It is also associated with ozone depletion. The following events put Bush’s decision in perspective:
On March 19th, a Rhode Island-size chunk of the Antarctica Peninsula ice shelf collapsed into the sea. The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said that some 1,255 square miles of ice shelf, weighing 720 billion tons, had disintegrated into thousands of floes in less than a month. According to a glaciologist, there has not been open water in this area for 12,000 years. The Center noted that 720 billion tons is enough for 290 trillion 5- pound bags. Only two months later, another chunk of Antarctic ice sheet five times the size of Manhattan collapsed into the sea. Temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula have risen 4.5 degrees in five decades, and scientists say the likely culprit is “greenhouse” gas emissions.
Trucking Nuclear Waste Across the States
Bush recently endorsed Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the final resting place for 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste. First the waste will have to be brought by interstate highway and railroads from 131 contaminated sites in 39 states. Nevada senator Harry Reid says Bush’s “plan” will require 100,000 trucks or 20,000 rail cars. The Department of Energy, which (mis) manages the nations most polluted sites – our nuclear weapons labs - will be in charge.
Drilling our National Heritage
Bush pressed hard for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, (ANWR) one of America’s greatest national treasures. The 19 million-acre refuge in remote northeast Alaska is home to 130 species of birds, grizzlies, rare musk oxen, polar bears, and dozens of other wildlife species. The 1.5 million acre coastal plain of the Refuge - the area where drilling would occur - is the birthing and nursery grounds for a 130,000 member caribou herd, one of the hemisphere's largest. This fragile coastal plain is the last 5% of the entire north slope of Alaska not already available to oil and gas exploration. According to the US Geological Survey, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge likely contains less than six months worth of oil, and the oil industry has admitted that it would take at least ten years to reach the market.
Vice President Dick Cheney tried to put everyone’s mind at ease when he said: "The notion that somehow developing the resources in ANWR requires a vast despoiling of the environment is provably false," but few were convinced. When some environmentalists suggested that the administration promote energy conservation instead of drilling in the refuge, Cheney replied: "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy.”
So far, a majority in Congress has prevented Bush and the oil and gas industry from drilling in ANWR, but the next crisis in Middle East could swing more votes
Secrecy and Energy Policy
Before Enron’s shell game collapsed, CEO Kenneth Lay, helped V.P. Dick Cheney create an “energy policy task force”. They invited big oil, gas, mining, and chemical interests to help interview regulators and to draft their industries regulations. When Congress, through its General Accounting Office, asked to see records of the task force meetings and obtain a list of attendees, the White House claimed “executive privilege”.
On May 9th, two Senate committees began investigating Enron’s manipulation of energy prices during the California Energy Crisis of 2000-2001. Enron memos show that its executives rigged markets with schemes named, “Fat Boy”, “Ricochet”, “Get Shorty”, and “Death Star”. While California ratepayers were robbed of $30 billion, the Bush administration stood aside to let deregulated free market forces work. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission investigated the crisis by asking energy executives if they were manipulating the system. None said they were.
Decapitating Mountains for Quick Profits
On May 3rd the Bush Administration approved regulations that allow coal companies to dump leftover dirt and rock from mountaintop mining into adjacent streams and valleys. The companies simply blast the tops off of mountains in West Virginia and other parts of Appalachia to get at the coal seam underneath. The soil and rock are then scraped off by enormous machines and dumped down the mountainsides. Christie Whitman, head of the so-called Environmental Protection Agency, and the administration’s chief enabler, signed the rule allowing the dumping
On May 4th the Associated Press published a related article: “Police Seek 11 Missing in Appalachia Floods”. In addition to the missing, five people were found dead, including a 14-month-old girl. Two hundred homes were destroyed and 2,000 flooded. Half a dozen mountainside communities were devastated by two episodes of flash flooding in the past ten months. Residents complained that clear-cut timber harvesting and coal strip-mining have dangerously accelerated the flooding.
The May 9th, New York Times said: “Stunned residents say natural runoffs, and trees that would otherwise help absorb the downpours, have been obliterated, so that flash rains roar down on towns like unimpeded avalanches.” Many specifically complained about the Bush administration decision to ease coal waste restrictions on mountaintop mining.
Jim Widener, an undertaker in Kimball, W.VA, said, “Timbering and mining have raped and ruined us. A hundred families left after the July flood, and now here’s the fresh storm, the ground bursting open with nowhere for the water to go.”
Epilogue
A wise person once said, “We do not inherit the Earth from our parents; we borrow it from our children.” Unless we stop Bush, Cheney and Whitman, our children will not inherit the purple mountain’s majesty above the fruited plain that they sing about in school, but a clear-cut, strip-mined, flooded, polluted and over-drilled America. Remember, it’s not conservative or in the interest of national security to irreparably destroy the land, air and water for a quick buck.
By James Mullin
In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President Bush’s energy and environmental policies have been given an impregnable “national security” coating. As a result, oil, gas, chemical, and mining interests have been given unprecedented influence and access in the White House, while our natural environment pays a horrible price.
Soft on Arsenic in our drinking water
One of the Bush administration’s first environmental missteps was to cancel a health regulation that would have reduced allowable levels of arsenic in U.S. drinking water from 50 parts per billion (ppb) to 10 ppb. Arsenic causes cancer of the skin, lungs, bladder and prostate. The National Academy of Sciences and the World Health Organization endorsed the regulation, but the mining and chemical industries, which are responsible for the release of arsenic into the environment, are big donors to the Republican Party. After an outcry from environmental groups and the mainstream press, the U.S. Congress blocked Bush’s arsenic gambit.
Global Warming is for Wimps!
Next, Bush rejected the Kyoto treaty on global warming, which was favored by almost all of the European nations. Global warming, sometimes called the greenhouse effect, is a consequence of increasing amounts of human-made gases in the atmosphere, especially carbon dioxide, which arises from the burning of coal, oil and gas. It is also associated with ozone depletion. The following events put Bush’s decision in perspective:
On March 19th, a Rhode Island-size chunk of the Antarctica Peninsula ice shelf collapsed into the sea. The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said that some 1,255 square miles of ice shelf, weighing 720 billion tons, had disintegrated into thousands of floes in less than a month. According to a glaciologist, there has not been open water in this area for 12,000 years. The Center noted that 720 billion tons is enough for 290 trillion 5- pound bags. Only two months later, another chunk of Antarctic ice sheet five times the size of Manhattan collapsed into the sea. Temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula have risen 4.5 degrees in five decades, and scientists say the likely culprit is “greenhouse” gas emissions.
Trucking Nuclear Waste Across the States
Bush recently endorsed Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the final resting place for 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste. First the waste will have to be brought by interstate highway and railroads from 131 contaminated sites in 39 states. Nevada senator Harry Reid says Bush’s “plan” will require 100,000 trucks or 20,000 rail cars. The Department of Energy, which (mis) manages the nations most polluted sites – our nuclear weapons labs - will be in charge.
Drilling our National Heritage
Bush pressed hard for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, (ANWR) one of America’s greatest national treasures. The 19 million-acre refuge in remote northeast Alaska is home to 130 species of birds, grizzlies, rare musk oxen, polar bears, and dozens of other wildlife species. The 1.5 million acre coastal plain of the Refuge - the area where drilling would occur - is the birthing and nursery grounds for a 130,000 member caribou herd, one of the hemisphere's largest. This fragile coastal plain is the last 5% of the entire north slope of Alaska not already available to oil and gas exploration. According to the US Geological Survey, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge likely contains less than six months worth of oil, and the oil industry has admitted that it would take at least ten years to reach the market.
Vice President Dick Cheney tried to put everyone’s mind at ease when he said: "The notion that somehow developing the resources in ANWR requires a vast despoiling of the environment is provably false," but few were convinced. When some environmentalists suggested that the administration promote energy conservation instead of drilling in the refuge, Cheney replied: "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy.”
So far, a majority in Congress has prevented Bush and the oil and gas industry from drilling in ANWR, but the next crisis in Middle East could swing more votes
Secrecy and Energy Policy
Before Enron’s shell game collapsed, CEO Kenneth Lay, helped V.P. Dick Cheney create an “energy policy task force”. They invited big oil, gas, mining, and chemical interests to help interview regulators and to draft their industries regulations. When Congress, through its General Accounting Office, asked to see records of the task force meetings and obtain a list of attendees, the White House claimed “executive privilege”.
On May 9th, two Senate committees began investigating Enron’s manipulation of energy prices during the California Energy Crisis of 2000-2001. Enron memos show that its executives rigged markets with schemes named, “Fat Boy”, “Ricochet”, “Get Shorty”, and “Death Star”. While California ratepayers were robbed of $30 billion, the Bush administration stood aside to let deregulated free market forces work. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission investigated the crisis by asking energy executives if they were manipulating the system. None said they were.
Decapitating Mountains for Quick Profits
On May 3rd the Bush Administration approved regulations that allow coal companies to dump leftover dirt and rock from mountaintop mining into adjacent streams and valleys. The companies simply blast the tops off of mountains in West Virginia and other parts of Appalachia to get at the coal seam underneath. The soil and rock are then scraped off by enormous machines and dumped down the mountainsides. Christie Whitman, head of the so-called Environmental Protection Agency, and the administration’s chief enabler, signed the rule allowing the dumping
On May 4th the Associated Press published a related article: “Police Seek 11 Missing in Appalachia Floods”. In addition to the missing, five people were found dead, including a 14-month-old girl. Two hundred homes were destroyed and 2,000 flooded. Half a dozen mountainside communities were devastated by two episodes of flash flooding in the past ten months. Residents complained that clear-cut timber harvesting and coal strip-mining have dangerously accelerated the flooding.
The May 9th, New York Times said: “Stunned residents say natural runoffs, and trees that would otherwise help absorb the downpours, have been obliterated, so that flash rains roar down on towns like unimpeded avalanches.” Many specifically complained about the Bush administration decision to ease coal waste restrictions on mountaintop mining.
Jim Widener, an undertaker in Kimball, W.VA, said, “Timbering and mining have raped and ruined us. A hundred families left after the July flood, and now here’s the fresh storm, the ground bursting open with nowhere for the water to go.”
Epilogue
A wise person once said, “We do not inherit the Earth from our parents; we borrow it from our children.” Unless we stop Bush, Cheney and Whitman, our children will not inherit the purple mountain’s majesty above the fruited plain that they sing about in school, but a clear-cut, strip-mined, flooded, polluted and over-drilled America. Remember, it’s not conservative or in the interest of national security to irreparably destroy the land, air and water for a quick buck.
Point of Order
By James Mullin
At the time of his inauguration, the President-elect said, "I, George Bush, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and I will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Article II of that Constitution directs the President as follows: "He shall take care that the Laws be faithfully executed."
Title 50, Ch. 15, Section 421 of the United States Code covers "Protection of identities of certain United States undercover intelligence officers, agents, informants, and sources."
It says, in part:
"Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified
information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses
any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not
authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the
information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the
United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert
agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be
fined under title 18 ($50,000) or imprisoned not more than ten years, or
both.
On July 14th, conservative journalist Robert Novak named former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative on weapons of mass destruction, citing two Bush administration officials as his sources.
CIA Director, George J. Tenet, asked the Justice Department to investigate whether White House officials revealed the identity of an undercover CIA officer in order to punish or discredit an administration critic. On October 1st, Attorney General John Ashcroft, a Bush appointee, began investigating the charge.
Two and one-half months after the Novak article was published, President Bush commented: "If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of. I welcome the investigation. I want to know the truth. Leaks of classified information are bad things."
No, Mr. President, they are high crimes. Your father, a former Director of the CIA, called the act of exposing an agent's identity, "the most insidious form of treason."
By not investigating this crime for two months, you have violated your oath to
"faithfully execute the office of President of the United States" and "defend the Constitution of the United States."
Therefore, it is now the responsibility of the Chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees to draw up the necessary articles of impeachment. I intend to sign them as soon as they reach my desk.
By James Mullin
At the time of his inauguration, the President-elect said, "I, George Bush, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and I will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Article II of that Constitution directs the President as follows: "He shall take care that the Laws be faithfully executed."
Title 50, Ch. 15, Section 421 of the United States Code covers "Protection of identities of certain United States undercover intelligence officers, agents, informants, and sources."
It says, in part:
"Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified
information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses
any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not
authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the
information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the
United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert
agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be
fined under title 18 ($50,000) or imprisoned not more than ten years, or
both.
On July 14th, conservative journalist Robert Novak named former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative on weapons of mass destruction, citing two Bush administration officials as his sources.
CIA Director, George J. Tenet, asked the Justice Department to investigate whether White House officials revealed the identity of an undercover CIA officer in order to punish or discredit an administration critic. On October 1st, Attorney General John Ashcroft, a Bush appointee, began investigating the charge.
Two and one-half months after the Novak article was published, President Bush commented: "If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of. I welcome the investigation. I want to know the truth. Leaks of classified information are bad things."
No, Mr. President, they are high crimes. Your father, a former Director of the CIA, called the act of exposing an agent's identity, "the most insidious form of treason."
By not investigating this crime for two months, you have violated your oath to
"faithfully execute the office of President of the United States" and "defend the Constitution of the United States."
Therefore, it is now the responsibility of the Chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees to draw up the necessary articles of impeachment. I intend to sign them as soon as they reach my desk.
