Michael Crick writes:
I'm interested to see that the distinguished war historian Sir Lawrence Freedman has been appointed to the new inquiry into the Iraq war, announced by Prime Minister Gordon Brown today.
Critics of the war might argue Sir Lawrence was himself one of the causes of the war!
The professor once told me how, back in 1999, he was contacted by Downing Street seeking his thoughts for a speech on humanitarian intervention which the-then Prime Minister Tony Blair was about to make in Chicago.
When was military action justified for, liberal, humanitarian reasons?
Sir Lawrence says he was astonished when he heard and read Mr Blair's famous Chicago speech - perhaps the most important of Blair's premiership - that it was based largely on the memo he had sent to Number 10.
And the rest was history.
Nor will critics of the war be very happy about the appointment of the other historian Sir Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Winston Churchill.
In 2004, he went so far as to compare US President George W Bush and Mr Blair to Roosevelt and Churchill.
I don’t know about you, but I’m really disappointed that Gordon Brown hasn’t gone the whole hog. Why doesn’t he put 'Neo' Con Coughlin, Nick Cohen, and Melanie Phillips on the inquiry team too?
6 comments:
This is further disturbing news:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090619/tuk-public-rail-crashes-probe-ruled-out-6323e80.html
It seems that the victims of neo-liberal policies will never be honoured with a public enquiry in one party Britain.
Checking up on one of our favourite neocons, I think I've discovered something very fishy about Denis MacShane's expenses claims.
http://mpsallowances.parliament.uk/mpslordsandoffices/hocallowances/allowances-by-mp/denis-macshane/
The mystery is the strange sequence of invoices from The European Policy Institute (EPI), which doesn't seem to have any presence on the Internet other than it was founded by Denis MacShane. The invoices are strangely repetitive, lacking in detail as to what work was done and with all contact details redacted. Why?
After extensive Googling I found this website gave me a phone number, but no postal or web address for the EPI.
http://www.aubi06.dsl.pipex.com/contacts/interestgroups.html
And the result:
European Policy Institute 020 7736 0350
So I decided to Google the phone number to see if that would lead to anything.
I found the EPI shared a phone number with this website http://www.emsbase.co.uk/ which is a company providing addresses for direct mailing across Europe, but what has that to do with European Policy Institute or the research and translation work invoiced to the taxpayer?
A whois search on the website gives Registrant as someone called Edmund Matthew.
http://whois.domaintools.com/emsbase.co.uk
But looking back at the results of my phone number google I looked at the next result which gave me this
Edmund Matyjaszek (ems AT emsbase.co.uk or 020 7736 0350)
From the Poetry Society website.
Could Edmund Matthew and Edmund Matyjaszek be the same person? But hang on wasn't Denis MacShane originally called Denis Matyjaszek? Could they be related, perhaps brothers? There is a resemblance http://www.tongues-and-grooves.org.uk/poets/edmund-matyjaszek.htm
So why do the EPI, European Marketing Systems and the poet Edmund Matyjaszek, all share the same telephone number, and who at the EPI is being paid by Denis MacShane/Matyjaszek to carry our 'research and translation'. Whoever it is has received more than £10,000 of tax-payers money. I think this deserves more investigation
Gregor- agreed. it's a scandal.
Coventrian: well done for some great work! Many thanks for sending it in. The 'EPI' certainly does deserve further investigation.
As phoney as the US investigation into 9/11 which had more holes in it than swiss cheese.
Thanks Neil
I've sent the info to the Guardian, Telegraph and Mail - we'll see who uses it.
I think MacShameless has used his NUJ contacts to keep his name out of Troughgate so far. The exception was the Mail with their exposure of his 'office'/garage.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1183548/The-MP-claimed--125k-garage-used-constituency-office-paint-peeling.html
which was an old story
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2001/dec/21/uk.labour
Minister may have to repay office expenses
Kevin Maguire and Steven Morris
The Guardian, Friday 21 December 2001 01.27 GMT
He didn't, he just kept on claiming!
die Post ist sich für nichts zu schade
"Post für US-Soldaten im Irak:
Seit 2003 liefert die Deutsche Post im Auftrag des Militärs der USA täglich mehrere Dutzend Tonnen Feldpost in den Irak. Von Bahrain aus wird die Post über gefährliches Terrain mit Flugzeugen nach Bagdad gebracht." Aus:
http://www.global-ethic-now.de/gen-deu/0d_weltethos-und-wirtschaft/0d-04-verantwortung/0d-04-204-deutsche-post-kritik.php
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