[casi] St George's Day

["farbuthnot" <asceptic@DELETETHISfreenetname.co.uk>]

Published: Morning Star 5th May 2003.

Felicity Arbuthnot,

St George¹s Day.

Goodness, in times of crisis how coincidences abound. Out of the inferno
that was 9/ll, which demolished the World Trade Centre, melted concrete and
the vast steel girders which were the skeleton of the buildings, the subway
station underneath, one item miraculously survived - a passport with the
name of an alleged hi-jacker. No doubt he wound down the window and chucked
it out just before it hit the building, to be retrieved later.

Flames leaped skywards from the Pentagon. But unsinged, living to flutter
another day, the stars and stripes above it, phoenix like, arriving in
Baghdad - unscorched and pristine - to be wrapped over the face of the
statue of Saddam Hussein, as it was pulled down by US military heavy
toppling gear, in a lifetime photo-op, in front of the Palestine Hotel,
which coincidentally housed the world¹s media.

The Palestine Hotel has offered hospitality to many foreigners over the
years: Douglas Hurd, who in the 1980¹s as Foreign Officer Minister arrived
to offer to sell President Saddam a British Aerospace missile system, David
Œwhat will happen to that man when he loses his looks¹ Mellor, around the
time the Kurds were being gassed at Halabja (not thankfully in a football
strip - this was another kind of cuddling up.) Tony Newton, then Margaret
Thatcher¹s Trade Secretary, arranging credit exports in British tax payer¹s
money* and of course, Donald Rumsfeld, a big chum-up-to-Saddam man at the
time.

George Galloway then, was protesting outside the Foreign Office at the
excesses of the regime and the gassing of the Kurds, but the buisiness band
wagon rolled on.

Galloway though, cares about lives and when they started to be lost in even
more countless thousands of: Œembargo related causes¹, resultant from the
most draconian UN embago ever administered by the UN (after the U.S.
Administration under George the First, boasted of Œreducing the country to a
pre-industrial age¹) Galloway turned his sights on the US and UK
governments.

He organised Initiatives, spectacular international conferences with high
profile speakers, a Œfrom Big Ben to Baghdad¹ bus which drove through
Europe, North Africa and the Middle East to Baghdad to raise awareness of
the plight of Iraq¹s people - forty six percent of whom are sixteen or
under. The bus was mobbed where ever they stopped and Galloway¹s passionate,
eloquent tv, radio and print interviews were seen and applauded by millions.
Whitehall and Washington were less than amused.

He brought little Mariam Hamza (Œthe first child, in the first bed, in the
first hospital¹ he visited in Baghdad) to Glasgow for treatment for cancer -
a condition which has reached epidemic proportions in Iraq, since the Gulf
war - a phenomenon linked by many experts to the radioactive and chemically
toxic uranium weapons used by the US and UK. Mariam captured the heart of
the nation - and showed the human face of Iraq. Robin Cook, then Foreign
Secretary, allowed her visa - just maybe she captured his too and
contributed to his opposition of Gulf War 11. Even bringing Mariam to the UK
for treatment has now all but become a sin. Why was Mariam Œchosen¹, shrill
various papers. Equally it could be argued, why was Ali Ismael Abbas
Œchosen¹ for treatment in Kuwait? There are countless other children with
limbs blown off, resultant from this murderous, illegal war.

Twice Galloway was prevented from joining sanctions-busting flights to
Baghdad, by pressure brought to bear on the insurers by the United States.
One of them, arranged from Belgium by a French priest, Father Jean Marie
Benjamin, senior in the Foreign Affairs division at the Vatican, failed due
to the US threatening that if it left Bruxelles, no Belgium carrier would be
allowed landing rights in the US. Such is democrocy.

Galloway, as always, unbowed, borrowed the private jet of the President of
Bulgaria and informed the Foreign Office he was going on a pilgrimage (he is
a Catholic) to Sophia.

In the event, they refuelled in Sophia, waved it good bye and headed east.
One can only imagine reaction to the dawn call he placed to the then
Minister of State Peter Hain - from the Palestine Hotel: ŒGood morning from
Baghdad, Minister of State.¹ Another more recent greeting was from an Arab
television station when he condemned the current onslaught at a time when
David Blunkett had condemned media commentators not working with the miltary
as similar to Lord Haw Haw in the second world war - traitors.

So it is against this backdrop that another miracle in troubled times
occurred. In the smouldering ruins of Baghdad, amid rape, pillage, looting
and shooting; the destruction of civilisation¹s most priceless heritage in
the National Museum, from burning buildings and banks (and curiously, the
Ministry of Defence bombed, presumably destroying documents relating to any
weapons of mass destruction so sought after - odd that) just two important
things survive intact and unsinged - the Oil Ministry and a dossier on
Galloway (not Mellor, Howe, Rumsfeld etc) - and after all buildings had been
combed by the CIA and US Military Intelligence. Another pheonix - this time
from the ashes of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Magic Kingdom meets Mesapotamia.

Many questions arise over what we have seen of the documents (first ones
discovered in a further coincidence by Conrad Black¹s pro-Israel Daily
Telegraph¹s journalist, in a quirky joy, named Blair.) The holding company
of the Telegraph, the Hollinger Group also has US Defence Advisor ŒPrince of
Darkness¹ Richard Perle on the Board. Black and Perle are both friends of
Isralei Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon.The ailing Hollinger, which the
Guardian described as Œdowngraded to junk status¹ also owns the Jerusalem
Post.

Coincidences aside, after the CIA had combed the burned, gutted, building, a
pristine internal file with ŒBritain¹ on the outside conveniently written in
English, had been missed? Odder still, in the Telegraph¹s reproduction of
the letter in Arabic, an internal document, just one heading is in English:
ŒIRAQ INTELLIGENCE SERVICE¹ with a little eye and iris above and the acronym
ŒIRIS¹ below. Dodgy Bin Laden videos come to mind, or babies being thrown
from incubators and left to die by Iraqi soldiers which arguably triggered
the first Gulf war. A story entirely invented by giant advertising agence
Hill and Knowlton - who are re-employed by the US government for Gulf war
11. The US is acronym obsessed: CIA, FBI, INS,  IRS (not far from IRIS) FEMA
etc. A recent gem is the Federal Air Transportation Airport Security Service
- FATASS.

Sabah Al Mukhtar, oil expert and President of the League of Arab Lawyers, is
deeply sceptical. The letter, he says was not drafted by an Arab: Œthis is
not Arab thinking, this is western thinking¹. Further, a letter purportedly
from Depty Prime Minister, Tareq Aziz (5th February 2000) to other Ministers
starts: ŒIn the name of Allah, the Compassionate and the Merciful.¹ Aziz is
a devout Christian.

No doubt the sales of the Telegraph have finally risen with a story which
will run and run. Perhaps Hollinger will put in a bid for the Baghdad
Observer. Oh and two Gulf wars, run by two George¹s. Another George was a
pain in their side  - and it all blew up in his face on: St George¹s Day.
Strange eh?

*John Pilger - The New Rulers of the World; new pb edition just published
and updated.


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