cartoon: the rescue plan

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http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2011/oct/27/best-bennett-rescue-plan/?opinioncartoons

Clay Bennett
27th october 2011

freedom of assembly: 300,000 protest in montreal

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/may/24/quebec-truncheon-law-rebounds-student-strike

Quebec's 'truncheon law' rebounds as student strike spreads

Quebec's 'truncheon law' rebounds as student strike spreads  A draconian law to quell demonstrations has only galvanised public support for young Quebecois protesting tuition fee hikes

 Martin Lukacs 

 24 May 2012

(Manifestation à Montréal, le 22 mai - Ryan Remiorz/AP/SIPA)

At a tiny church tucked away in a working-class neighbourhood in Montreal's east end, Quebec's new outlaws gathered on Sunday for a day of deliberations. Aged mostly between 18 and 22, their membership in a progressive student union has made them a target of government scorn and scrutiny. And they have been branded a menace to society because of their weapons: ideas of social justice and equal opportunity in education, alongside the ability to persuade hundreds of thousands to join them in the streets.

Under a draconian law passed by the Quebec government on Friday, their very meeting could be considered a criminal act. Law 78 – unprecedented in recent Canadian history – is the latest, most desperate manoeuvre of a provincial government that is afraid it has lost control over a conflict that began as a student strike against tuition hikes but has since spread into a protest movement with wide-ranging social and environmental demands.

Labelled a "truncheon law" by its critics, it imposes severe restrictions on the right to protest. Any group of 50 or more protesters must submit plans to police eight hours ahead of time; they can be denied the right to proceed. Picket lines at universities and colleges are forbidden, and illegal protests are punishable by fines from $5,000 to $125,000 for individuals and unions – as well as by the seizure of union dues and the dissolution of their associations.

In other words, the government has decided to smash the student movement by force.

The government quickly launched a public relations offensive to defend itself. Full-page ads in local newspapers ran with the headline: "For the sake of democracy and citizenship." Quebec's minister of public security, Robert Dutil, prattled about the many countries that have passed similar laws:

"Other societies with rights and freedoms to protect have found it reasonable to impose certain constraints – first of all to protect protesters, and also to protect the public."

Such language is designed to make violence sound benevolent and infamy honourable. But it did nothing to mask reality for those who have flooded the streets since the weekend and encountered police emboldened by the new legislation. Riot squads beat and tear-gassed people indiscriminately, targeted journalists, pepper-sprayed bystanders in restaurants, and mass-arrested hundreds, including more than 500 Wednesday night – bringing the tally from the last three months of protest to a record Canadian high of more than 2,500. The endless night-time drone of helicopters has become the serenade song of a police state.

In its contempt for students and citizens, the government has riled a population with strong, bitter memories of harsh measures against social unrest – whether the dark days of the iron-fisted Duplessis era, the martial law enforced by the Canadian army in 1970, or years of labour battles marred by the jailing of union leaders. These and other occasions have shown Québécois how the political elite has no qualms about trampling human rights to maintain a grip on power. 

Which is why those with experience of struggle fresh and old have answered Premier Jean Charest with unanimity and collective power. There are now legal challenges in the works, broad appeals for civil disobedience, and a brilliant website created by the progressive CLASSE student union, on which thousands have posted photos of themselves opposing the law. (The website's title is "Somebody arrest me" but also puns on a phrase to shake a person out of a crazed mental spell.)

And Wednesday, on the 100th day of the student strike, Québécois from every walk of life offered a rejoinder to the claim that "marginals" were directing and dominating the protests: an estimated 300,000-400,000 people marched in the streets, another Canadian record, and in full violation of the new law. They brandished the iconic red squares that have now transformed into a symbol not just of accessible education but the defence of basic freedoms of assembly and protest. Late into the night, a spirit of jubilant defiance spread through the city. On balconies along entire streets, and on intersections occupied by young and old, the sound of banging pots and pans rang out, a practice used under Latin American regimes. 

The clarity that has fired the students' protest has, until now, conspicuously eluded most of English-speaking Canada. This is because the image of the movement has been skewed and distorted by the establishment media. Sent into paroxysms of bafflement and contempt by the striking students, they have painted them as spoiled kids or crazed radicals out of touch with society, who should give up their supposed entitlements and accept the stark economic realities of the age.

All this is said with a straight face. But young people in Quebec, followed now by many others, have not been fooled. They know the global economic crisis of 2008 exposed as never before the abuses of corporate finance, and that those responsible were bailed out rather than held to account. They know that meetings of international leaders at the G20 end by dispatching ministers home to pay the bills on the backs of the poorest and most vulnerable, with tuition hikes and a toxic combination of neoliberal economic policies. And with every baton blow and tear-gas blast, they perceive with ever greater lucidity that their government will turn ultimately to brute violence to impose such programs and frighten those who dissent.

To those who marched Wednesday, and the great numbers who cheered them on, the fault-lines of justice are evident. This is a government that has refused to sit down and negotiate with student leaders in good faith, but invites an organised crime boss to a fundraising breakfast; a government that has claimed free education is an idea not even worth dreaming about, when it would cost only 1% of Quebec's budget and could be paid for simply by reversing the regressive tax reforms, corporate give-aways, or capital tax phase-outs of the last decade; a government whose turn to authoritarian tactics has now triggered a sharp decline in support, and which has clumsily accelerated a social crisis that may now only begin to be resolved by meeting the students' demands. 

As the debate went on at the CLASSE meeting in the church last Sunday, the students' foresight proved wise beyond their years. "History doesn't get made in a day," one argued into the microphone. Not in a day, no doubt, but in Quebec, over this spring and the summer, history is indeed being made.

http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/dossiers/conflit-etudiant/201205/22/01-4527493-une-manifestation-monstre-souligne-100-jours-dimpasse.php

La Presse

22 mai 2012

Une manifestation monstre souligne 100 jours d'impasse

Émilie Bilodeau, Gabrielle Duchaine, David Santerre et Anabelle Nicoud

...

La CLASSE estime que 250 000 personnes ont participé à l'événement. Des sources policières ont plutôt avancé le chiffre de 100 000 manifestants. Peu importe, la circulation routière a été perturbée dans le centre-ville de Montréal.

La plupart des regroupements avait fourni un itinéraire de la marche. «Il est essentiel de ne pas exposer inutilement nos militants et nos organisations aux mesures répressives [du] projet de loi. Les autorités municipales seront informées [de notre itinéraire] comme nous le faisons à chacune de nos manifestations. De plus, nous aurons notre service d'ordre », explique le Syndicat de la fonction publique (SCFP) sur son site web.


La CLASSE, instigatrice de ce rassemblement, avait pour sa part choisi de ne pas divulguer son trajet. On s'attendait à ce que ses membres empruntent le même chemin que les autres participants.

Avant le départ, le porte-parole Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois a déclaré que le rassemblement pacifique prouvait que désobéissance civile n'est pas synonyme de vandalisme. Il croit que le succès de la manifestation est un geste «collectif, massif de désobéissance civile».

«Ce sont des dizaines de milliers de personnes qui sont dans les rues, dit-il. Si le ministre de la Justice est conséquent avec sa loi, il devra mettre à l'amende des dizaines de milliers de personnes.»

Ian Lafrenière, le porte-parole du SPVM, croit que les casseurs auraient pu être mieux contrôlés si les trois groupes avaient dévoilé et respecté leur itinéraire. «Quand tu dis : «nous autre, on va faire une marche, mais on va défier les autorité», en partant, tu invites des pas gentils à venir avec toi. La preuve, c'est que les deux grandes marches du 22 mars et du 22 avril derniers, les itinéraires étaient connus et il n'y a eu zéro problème», a-t-il dit. 

Des militants tous azimuts

Une foule bigarrée, composée d'étudiants certes, mais aussi de militants tous azimuts, de sympathisants, de familles, de poussettes, et d'ainés, s'était réunie vers 14h pour le départ à la place des Festivals. Le thème de l'événement est: «100 jours de grève. 100 jours de mépris. 100 jours de résistance.»

Les associations étudiantes sont au rendez-vous, tout comme plusieurs grands syndicats et des politiciens, dont Amir Khadir, habitué des manifs étudiantes. Gilles Duceppe, venu assister à la manifestation avec un carré blanc épinglé à sa veste, croit que le gouvernement n'a plus qu'une porte de sortie: retourner aux négociations avec la FECQ et la FEUQ.

Plusieurs manifestants ont des mots durs pour le gouvernement. «Ce ne sont pas les étudiants qui sont violents, c'est le gouvernement qui est violent», rage Christine Coallier, professeure de philosophie au cégep. Elle en veut particulièrement au gouvernement de Jean Charest d'avoir fait la sourde oreille depuis 100 jours.

Lorraine Boutin et Marc Guénette, eux, manifestent avec leur fils gréviste Antoine, étudiant au Cégep Bois-de-Boulogne. «Cette loi spéciale est le constat d'échec d'un gouvernement qui n'a pas réussi à dialoguer avec des jeunes très intelligents. Notre jeunesse est très impressionnante», raconte Mme Boutin.

«L'éducation est le plus beau cadeau pour nos jeunes. La hausse des frais n'est pas le débat, il y en a de l'argent. Mais la loi spéciale a fait de moi un citoyen engagé. Je suis sur les réseaux sociaux comme Twitter et je suis ce qui se passe», raconte Marc Guénette.

«La loi spéciale m'a fâché. Ça va me rendre plus militant. Au mieux, cette loi ne changera rien. Au pire elle va empirer les choses», croit Antoine.

Maxime, un étudiant de 24 ans, demande que les parties retournent à la table des négociations. «En trois mois de grève, on a eu 22 heures de discussion. Ça dit quelque chose». 

...

tripoli: les salafistes attaquent l'armee libanaise

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http://www.neworientnews.com/news/fullnews.php?news_id=62131

Tendances de l’Orient

14 mai 2012

Les salafistes tentent de prendre le contrôle de la ville de Tripoli

Des groupes salafistes takfiristes ont tenté de prendre le contrôle de Tripoli, la deuxième ville du Liban, en déployant des centaines de miliciens armés jusqu'aux dents, qui ont combattu l'Armée libanaise et attaqué le quartier alaouite de Jabal Mohsen. De violents combats aux armes automatiques et aux roquettes antichars ont secoué plusieurs quartiers de la ville, complètement paralysée ce week-end.

Les groupes extrémistes ont pris pour prétexte l'arrestation, par la Sûreté générale, d'un militant salafiste, Chadi Mawlaoui, soupçonné de "contacts avec un groupe terroriste". Au moins quatre personnes, dont un militaire abattu par un franc-tireur, ont été tuées, et 25 autres blessés, des civils pour la plupart.

Tout a commencé samedi soir, lorsque des dizaines d'hommes armés sont descendus dans les rues, tirant en l'air et semant la terreur dans la ville. Des groupes ont également bloqué toutes les entrées de Tripoli à l'aide de pneus brûlés, isolant la ville du reste du pays.

Dimanche, l'Armée libanaise a bloqué l'autoroute internationale de Zahiriya, alors que des unités des forces spéciales se sont déployées en force dans différents quartiers de la ville.

Des échange de tirs nourris entre les manifestants islamistes et l'armée se sont produits lorsque ces jeunes ont tenté de s'approcher d'un bureau du Parti syrien national social (PSNS), une formation laïque libanaise.

Les groupes salafistes se sont enhardis grâce à la couverture politique assureé par de nombreux députés du Courant du futur de Saad Hariri. Les autres composantes du 14-Mars et les notables de Tripoli adoptent des positions ambigües, qui encouragent les extrémistes à s'en prendre à l'armée. Le président de la République a convoqué le Conseil supérieur de la défense à une réunion pour prendre des mesures susceptibles de ramener l'ordre et la sécurité dans cette ville.

L'armée y a envoyé des renforts en hommes et en matériels.

15 to 20 us soldiers committed civilian massacre

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updated march 17, 14:27 CET

http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2012/03/17/probe-team-women-sexually-assaulted-before-killing-in-panjwai.html

http://www.pajhwok.com/en/2012/03/17/probe-team-women-sexually-assaulted-killing-panjwai

Probe team: Women sexually assaulted before killing in Panjwai ...

before the gun attack, US soldiers physically manhandled the two women and later turned their weapons on the helpless residents

By Absin Zaheer

In shock: Relatives sat in shock in a van carrying the bodies of their kin wrapped in blankets. (Photo: EPA)

US soldiers were alleged to have sexually assaulted two female victims before they were killed in the Panjwai massacre in southern Kandahar last Sunday, a high-level Afghan probe team revealed.

The Wolesi Jirga’s, or lower house of Parliament, delegation investigating the Kandahar shootings by US troops said besides killing 16 civilians, the soldiers sexually assaulted them.

On the ill-fated Sunday, US troops shot 16 civilians, including nine children and three women, and injured five others when they opened fire on houses in Zangabad village, in Panjwai district.

Some of the victims’ bodies were later set on fire.

The Wolesi Jirga members jointly probing the Panjwai episode, along with a government team, on Saturday presented their chilling findings to the general session of the Parliament.

MP Hamidzai Lali, representing Kandahar province and a delegation member, said before the gun attack, US soldiers physically manhandled the two women and later turned their weapons on the helpless residents.

Shakiba Hashami, another delegation member, confirmed the vicious attack, adding about 15 to 20 American soldiers were involved in the killings and even helicopters were seen hovering the areas.

Quoting local residents, Hashami, said ahead of the Sunday tragedy, there was a blast in the area and foreign troops had warned of revenge killings.

The Afghan Parliamentarians strongly condemned the incident and demanded a public trial for the perpetrators.

US officials had claimed a mentally unstable soldier was responsible for the killings and pledged to put him on trial. Recent media reports said the suspect, in his late 30s, was initially transferred to Kuwait and later flown to the US where he is being interrogated.

http://www.pajhwok.com/en/2012/03/15/20-us-troops-executed-panjwai-massacre-probe

Up to 20 US troops executed Panjwai massacre: probe

Bashir Ahmad Naadim
Mar 15, 2012 - 21:33

KANDAHAR CITY (PAN): A parliamentary probe team on Thursday said up to 20 American troops were involved in Sunday’s killing of 16 civilians in southern Kandahar province.

The probing delegation includes lawmakers Hamidzai Lali, Abdul Rahim Ayubi, Shakiba Hashimi, Syed Mohammad Akhund and Bismillah Afghanmal, all representing Kandahar province at the Wolesi Jirga and Abdul Latif Padram, a lawmaker from northern Badakhshan province, Mirbat Mangal, Khost province, Muhammad Sarwar Usmani, Farah province.

The team spent two days in the province, interviewing the bereaved families, tribal elders, survivors and collecting evidences at the site in Panjwai district.

Hamizai Lali told Pajhwok Afghan News their investigation showed there were 15 to 20 American soldiers, who executed the brutal killings.

“We closely examined the site of the incident, talked to the families who lost their beloved ones, the injured people and tribal elders,” he said.

He added the attack lasted one hour involving two groups of American soldiers in the middle of the night on Sunday.

“The villages are one and a half kilometre from the American military base. We are convinced that one soldier cannot kill so many people in two villages within one hour at the same time, and the 16 civilians, most of them children and women, have been killed by the two groups.”

Lali asked the Afghan government, the United Nations and the international community to ensure the perpetrators were punished in Afghanistan.

He expressed his anger that the US soldier, the prime suspect in the shooting, had been flown out of Afghanistan to Kuwait.

He said the people they met had warned if the responsible troops were not punished, they would launch a movement against Afghans who had agreed to foreign troops’ presence in Afghanistan under the first Bonn conference in 2001.

The lawmaker said the Wolesi Jirga would not sit silent until the killers were prosecuted in Afghanistan. "If the international community does not play its role in punishing the perpetrators, the Wolesi Jirga would declare foreign troops as occupying forces, like the Russians," Lali warned.

President Hamid Karzai on Thursday asked the US to pull out all its troops from Afghan villages in response to the killings.

mds/ma

Pajhwok Afghan News

Pajhwok Afghan News is Afghanistan’s largest independent news agency. With headquarters in Kabul, eight regional bureaus and a nationwide network of reporters and correspondents, Pajhwok delivers an average daily output of three dozen stories in Pashto, Dari and English. Pajhwok also provides photographs, video footage and audio clips to international wire agencies, television and radio stations.

From its beginnings as a small project to report on the 2003 Constitutional Loya Jirga, Pajhwok has become the main provider of daily news to the country’s media and the most trusted source of news about Afghanistan from an Afghan perspective. Pajhwok is wholly owned and operated by Afghans and has no political affiliations.

gulf arabs offered russia & china $5b for unsc vote

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http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20120227

Gulf Arabs offered bribe to Russia for yes vote on Syria

by courtesy of Wayne Madsen
February 27-28, 2012

Informed diplomatic sources have reported to WMR that Bahrain, representing the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), offered Russia a bribe of $5 billion if it did not use its veto in the Security Council to defeat an Arab League-sponsored resolution calling for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down. In the February 4 vote on the resolution, Russia, along with China, used their vetos to shoot down the resolution. U.S. ambassador to the UN Susan Rice called the vetoes "disgusting" and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referred to the Russian and Chinese action as "despicable," with Germany's UN ambassador Peter Wittig calling the vetoes a "disgrace."

But in what could be termed disgusting, despicable, and disgraceful was the reported offering of a $5 billion bribe for Russia's yes vote by Bahrain's Foreign Minister Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa during a trip to Moscow prior to the UN Security Council vote. Our sources report that the Russian government flatly turned down the offer of the money, which was bundled by Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman.

WMR has also learned that a similar bribe by the GCC was offered to China in return for its yes vote on the Syria resolution. The offer, which was scoffed at by the Chinese government, was reportedly made during a visit by Chinese Prime Minister Wei Jiabao to Doha, the Qatari capital, on January 18.

Under U.S. law, specifically, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the involvement of any GCC financial institutions in arranging for bribe offers to Russia or China could be construed as a violation of the law. If Rice or other U.S. officials were involved with the GCC in making such offers, they could also be found in violation of federal law.

Wayne Madsen

Investigative journalist, author and syndicated columnist. His columns have appeared in a wide number of newspapers and journals. Madsen is a regular contributor on Russia Today. He has written The Handbook of Personal Data Protection (London: Macmillan, 1992); Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993-1999 (Edwin Mellen Press, 1999); Jaded Tasks: Big Oil, Black Ops & Brass Plates and Overthrow a Fascist Regime on $15 a Day and co-authored America’s Nightmare: The Presidency of George Bush II (Dandelion, 2003).

jean giraud, aka gir, aka moebius 1938-2012

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http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=37456



http://eoleblog.com/2010/07/29/moebius-cest-du-lux/



http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/03/10/moebius-aka-jean-girard-aka-gir-has-passed-away/

Jean Giraud, aka Gir, aka Moebius 1938-2012

March 10, 2012
Brendon Connell

The pioneering comic book creator and movie concept artist Moebius, aka Jean Giraud, aka Gir, has passed away at the age of 73.

I expect Rich will want to add something more in respect of his comics work in particular, so I think I’ll share some of his incredible movie work.

I believe the first film produced with designs by Giraud was Alien, though this was after he had worked for some years on projects that stalled or were cancelled, most infamously, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune.

Not only did Jodorowsky complete the usual costume and set designs for Dune, he appears to have been the principle storyboard artist on the project. Had it come to be, the course of genre film making would have taken a sharp turn… even still, the influence seeped out, and a film that never went before cameras still managed to change everything.

The image to the right is one of Giraud’s space suit images for Alien. His work gelled perfectly with that of Ron Cobb, and stood in brilliant contrast to the biomechanics of HR Giger.

Throughout the years Giraud contributed to any number of visually striking pictures, pictures that impressed with no small thanks to himself: Tron, The Abyss, and The Fifth Element in particular. Just as notable, in another respect, are his unused designs for films that ended up looking rather impoverished instead.

A good case in point is Willow. It wound up being quite a drab, murky and witlessly designed picture – I’m sure everybody was just following instructions – but here’s what it might have looked like instead:

During the development of the animated Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, while talent as varied as Ray Bradbury, Brad Bird and Brian Froud came and went, one draft of the script was written by Giraud. On the final film he’s given a story credit, and you can see, from time to time, pieces of his design work in the animation.

His more successful animated work would be Les Maitres du Temps, or Time Masters, created with the director Rene Laloux. The storytelling both frays and gets tied up into knots but the film has some very memorable visuals, and often packs a powerful punch from just the way it looks.

Here’s a French trailer for the film.

Giraud’s contribution to the sci-fi aesthetic of modern movies can’t easily be overstated but for all of his imitators, it’s still true that nobody did it better.

Thanks, Moebius, and goodbye.

syria poll: 55% want assad to stay!

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/17/syrians-support-assad-western-propaganda

français: http://www.voltairenet.org/Les-syriens-sont-une-majorite-a

Most Syrians back President Assad, but you'd never know from western media

Assad's popularity, Arab League observers, US military involvement: all distorted in the west's propaganda war

Jonathan Steele,
17 January 2012

A demonstration in support of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, in Damascus.
'Some 55% of Syrians want Assad to stay, motivated by fear of civil war.'
Photograph: Hussein Malla/AP

Suppose a respectable opinion poll found that most Syrians are in favour of Bashar al-Assad remaining as president, would that not be major news? Especially as the finding would go against the dominant narrative about the Syrian crisis, and the media considers the unexpected more newsworthy than the obvious.

Alas, not in every case. When coverage of an unfolding drama ceases to be fair and turns into a propaganda weapon, inconvenient facts get suppressed. So it is with the results of a recent YouGov Siraj poll on Syria commissioned by The Doha Debates, funded by the Qatar Foundation. Qatar's royal family has taken one of the most hawkish lines against Assad – the emir has just called for Arab troops to intervene – so it was good that The Doha Debates published the poll on its website. The pity is that it was ignored by almost all media outlets in every western country whose government has called for Assad to go.

The key finding was that while most Arabs outside Syria feel the president should resign, attitudes in the country are different. Some 55% of Syrians want Assad to stay, motivated by fear of civil war – a spectre that is not theoretical as it is for those who live outside Syria's borders. What is less good news for the Assad regime is that the poll also found that half the Syrians who accept him staying in power believe he must usher in free elections in the near future. Assad claims he is about to do that, a point he has repeated in his latest speeches. But it is vital that he publishes the election law as soon as possible, permits political parties and makes a commitment to allow independent monitors to watch the poll.

Biased media coverage also continues to distort the Arab League's observer mission in Syria. When the league endorsed a no-fly zone in Libya last spring, there was high praise in the west for its action. Its decision to mediate in Syria was less welcome to western governments, and to high-profile Syrian opposition groups, who increasingly support a military rather than a political solution. So the league's move was promptly called into doubt by western leaders, and most western media echoed the line. Attacks were launched on the credentials of the mission's Sudanese chairman. Criticisms of the mission's performance by one of its 165 members were headlined. Demands were made that the mission pull out in favour of UN intervention.

The critics presumably feared that the Arab observers would report that armed violence is no longer confined to the regime's forces, and the image of peaceful protests brutally suppressed by army and police is false. Homs and a few other Syrian cities are becoming like Beirut in the 1980s or Sarajevo in the 1990s, with battles between militias raging across sectarian and ethnic fault lines.

As for foreign military intervention, it has already started. It is not following the Libyan pattern since Russia and China are furious at the west's deception in the security council last year. They will not accept a new United Nations resolution that allows any use of force. The model is an older one, going back to the era of the cold war, before "humanitarian intervention" and the "responsibility to protect" were developed and often misused. Remember Ronald Reagan's support for the Contras, whom he armed and trained to try to topple Nicaragua's Sandinistas from bases in Honduras? For Honduras read Turkey, the safe haven where the so-called Free Syrian Army has set up.

Here too western media silence is dramatic. No reporters have followed up on a significant recent article by Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer who now writes for the American Conservative – a magazine that criticises the American military-industrial complex from a non-neocon position on the lines of Ron Paul, who came second in last week's New Hampshire Republican primary. Giraldi states that Turkey, a Nato member, has become Washington's proxy and that unmarked Nato warplanes have been arriving at Iskenderum, near the Syrian border, delivering Libyan volunteers and weapons seized from the late Muammar Gaddafi's arsenal. "French and British special forces trainers are on the ground," he writes, "assisting the Syrian rebels, while the CIA and US Spec Ops are providing communications equipment and intelligence to assist the rebel cause, enabling the fighters to avoid concentrations of Syrian soldiers …"

As the danger of full-scale war increases, Arab League foreign ministers are preparing to meet in Cairo this weekend to discuss the future of their Syrian mission. No doubt there will be western media reports highlighting remarks by those ministers who feel the mission has "lost credibility", "been duped by the regime" or "failed to stop the violence". Counter-arguments will be played down or suppressed.

In spite of the provocations from all sides the league should stand its ground. Its mission in Syria has seen peaceful demonstrations both for and against the regime. It has witnessed, and in some cases suffered from, violence by opposing forces. But it has not yet had enough time or a large enough team to talk to a comprehensive range of Syrian actors and then come up with a clear set of recommendations. Above all, it has not even started to fulfil that part of its mandate requiring it to help produce a dialogue between the regime and its critics. The mission needs to stay in Syria and not be bullied out.

guantanamo forever

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updated december 24

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/budget/201245-obama-says-he-wont-be-bound-by-guantanamo-gun-control-portions-of-omnibus

President Obama said friday he will not be bound by at least 20 policy riders in the 2012 omnibus funding the government, including provisions pertaining to Guantanamo Bay and gun control.

After he signed the omnibus into law friday, the White House released a concurrent signing statement saying Obama will object to portions of the legislation on constitutional grounds.

Signing statements are highly controversial, and their legality is disputed.

"I have advised the Congress that I will not construe these provisions as preventing me from fulfilling my constitutional responsibility to recommend to the Congress's consideration such measures as I shall judge necessary and expedient," Obama said in a statement as he signed the bill into law.

The signing statement says that on the issue of accused terrorist detainees, Obama will interpret and apply provisions that bar the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, "in a manner that avoids constitutional conflicts."....

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/opinion/guantanamo-forever.html?_r=4&scp=1&sq=Guantanamo%20forever&st=cse

Op-Ed Contributors

Guantánamo Forever?

CHARLES C. KRULAK and JOSEPH P. HOAR
December 12, 2011

IN his inaugural address, President Obama called on us to “reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.” We agree. Now, to protect both, he must veto the National Defense Authorization Act that Congress is expected to pass this week.

This budget bill — which can be vetoed without cutting financing for our troops — is both misguided and unnecessary: the president already has the power and flexibility to effectively fight terrorism.

One provision would authorize the military to indefinitely detain without charge people suspected of involvement with terrorism, including United States citizens apprehended on American soil. Due process would be a thing of the past. Some claim that this provision would merely codify existing practice. Current law empowers the military to detain people caught on the battlefield, but this provision would expand the battlefield to include the United States — and hand Osama bin Laden an unearned victory long after his well-earned demise.

A second provision would mandate military custody for most terrorism suspects. It would force on the military responsibilities it hasn’t sought. This would violate not only the spirit of the post-Reconstruction act limiting the use of the armed forces for domestic law enforcement but also our trust with service members, who enlist believing that they will never be asked to turn their weapons on fellow Americans. It would sideline the work of the F.B.I. and local law enforcement agencies in domestic counterterrorism. These agencies have collected invaluable intelligence because the criminal justice system — unlike indefinite military detention — gives suspects incentives to cooperate.

Mandatory military custody would reduce, if not eliminate, the role of federal courts in terrorism cases. Since 9/11, the shaky, untested military commissions have convicted only six people on terror-related charges, compared with more than 400 in the civilian courts.

A third provision would further extend a ban on transfers from Guantánamo, ensuring that this morally and financially expensive symbol of detainee abuse will remain open well into the future. Not only would this bolster Al Qaeda’s recruiting efforts, it also would make it nearly impossible to transfer 88 men (of the 171 held there) who have been cleared for release. We should be moving to shut Guantánamo, not extend it.

Having served various administrations, we know that politicians of both parties love this country and want to keep it safe. But right now some in Congress are all too willing to undermine our ideals in the name of fighting terrorism. They should remember that American ideals are assets, not liabilities.

Charles C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar are retired four-star Marine generals.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on December 13, 2011, on page A35 of the New York edition with the headline: Guantánamo Forever?.

see also:

Military given go-ahead to detain US terrorist suspects without trial

House Lawmakers Pass Defense Bill

From America to Amerika: The End Game

Suspend habeas corpus and enact martial law?

printemps syrien: pure fiction!

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http://www.letempsdz.com//content/view/67301/182/

Thierry Meyssan, journaliste et fondateur du Réseau Voltaire

«L'expression printemps syrien est une pure fiction»

12-12-2011
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Le Temps d'Algérie : Vous êtes un des rares journalistes à être présent en Syrie et à apporter un témoignage décalé sur la situation sur le terrain. Qui croire, M. Meyssan, et quelles sont, selon vous, les raisons du décalage entre la version dominante sur les événements en Syrie et celle de témoins neutres, dont vous faites partie, dont la voix ne porte pas et semble frappée de soupçons de complaisance, y compris au sein même de la corporation des journalistes ?

Thierry Meyssan : Les Occidentaux dominent l'information. Dans les années 1970, l'Unesco a remis en cause cette domination provoquant la furie des Etats-Unis et du Royaume-Uni. Cette tentative a échoué et, au fil du temps, la situation a empiré : aux agences de presse se sont ajoutées des chaînes satellitaires. Désormais, AP, Reuters, AFP, BBC, CNN, France24, Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya ont une telle puissance qu'ils peuvent intoxiquer l'ensemble du public.

Ces médias se citent et se répondent, donnant l'impression fallacieuse d'une information recoupée, confirmée. La situation en Syrie est simple : les puissances occidentales et leurs alliés ont décidé de renverser le gouvernement de Bachar El-Assad et de détruire son pays.

Ils livrent, actuellement, une guerre non-conventionnelle avec des combattants infiltrés qui tentent de provoquer une guerre civile confessionnelle de manière à ouvrir la voie à une intervention militaire conventionnelle. Durant cette période, les Occidentaux montent un dossier juridique contre la Syrie pour légaliser la guerre qu'ils veulent entreprendre. A cette fin, leurs médias inventent une histoire effrayante de révolution et de répression de masse.

Il n'y a aucun rapport entre la fiction développée par les médias impérialistes et la réalité sur le terrain. Ce n'est pas que ces médias ont exagéré des faits, c'est qu'ils les ont inventés.

Comment analysez-vous la situation actuelle de la crise syrienne ? Estimez-vous que les revendications de la population sont d'ordre démocratique où social ?

Il y a en Syrie une opposition intérieure qui milite pour des changements profonds et une alternance démocratique après des décennies de pouvoir du parti Baas. Cette opposition, qui a été réprimée par le passé, participe aujourd'hui au «Dialogue national» : des tables rondes avec le gouvernement qui sont retransmises en direct à la télévision. Les deux parties profitent de la crise pour éliminer l'influence de la vieille garde : pour les leaders de l'opposition comme pour le président El-Assad, c'est le moment des réformes.

Il y a, également, en Syrie un courant takfiriste, très marginal, mais très violent. Il exige que le pays soit gouverné par des sunnites orthodoxes. A l'appel de prédicateurs saoudiens, il entend égorger les «usurpateurs alaouites». Il affirme que, s'il le faut, un tiers des Syriens doit mourir (les chiites, alaouites, druzes, ismaélites, chrétiens…) pour que les deux autres tiers gouvernent sans partage.

Il est probable que s'ils arrivaient au pouvoir après avoir massacré les autres confessions, ils poursuivraient leur épuration en jetant l'anathème sur les autres écoles théologiques sunnites.
Il existe, enfin, une opposition fabriquée à l'étranger et sponsorisée par les Occidentaux pour habiller un «changement de régime». Ces gens ne font pas mystère de leurs ambitions ni de leurs stratégie. Ainsi Abdelhakim Khaddam a déclaré à la presse israélienne qu'il rentrerait en Syrie «sur la tourelle d'un char américain» (sic).

La Ligue arabe a initié une voie de dialogue avec le gouvernement syrien, mais elle a échoué, selon certaines parties, en raison du refus de Damas à appliquer les principes de cette démarche. Quelles sont, selon vous, les raisons qui ont empêché la réussite de la démarche entreprise par la Ligue arabe ?

La Ligue arabe est aux mains de ceux qui la financent : les Etats du Conseil de coopération du Golfe. Elle agit ici comme elle avait commencé à le faire avec la Libye. Elle ouvre la voie à la recolonisation de la région. Si la Ligue arabe avait voulu sincèrement le dialogue, elle n'aurait pas suspendu la Syrie de son organisation avant la fin de la période convenue pour la mise en application des engagements mutuels. La chronologie est indiscutable : ce n'est pas la Syrie qui a rompu le dialogue, c'est la Ligue qui a violé ses propres engagements, puis ses propres statuts.

Quelles seront, d'après vous, les conséquences des sanctions prises par l'Organisation panarabe sur la Syrie. Le peuple syrien sera-t-il touché et à quel degré ?

Ce qui est appelé «sanctions» ne sanctionne rien du tout. C'est un ensemble de mesures pour assiéger la Syrie et l'affaiblir avant de l'attaquer. Elles ne ressortent pas de la diplomatie, mais de l'action militaire préalable.
Les Occidentaux ne peuvent réaliser ce siège seuls.

Ils ont besoin de l'aide des Etats riverains et ils l'ont en partie obtenue. Les mesures de la Ligue arabe s'ajoutent à celles de l'Union européenne et des Etats-Unis. D'ores et déjà, on assiste à un effondrement du niveau de vie, mais à aucune pénurie. En effet, l'import-export est devenu presque impossible avec l'Europe et l'Amérique du Nord, mais la Syrie est autosuffisante en de nombreux domaines, dont l'alimentation. En réponse, la Syrie est en train de créer de nouvelles voies commerciales avec la Chine.

Compte tenu de l'interdiction bancaire, ces échanges ont lieu sous forme de troc. Les besoins des deux pays ne correspondant pas tout à fait, l'Iran joue le rôle de troisième partenaire dans ce troc. Le choc du siège devrait donc être en grande partie amortie dans les prochains mois, seul le tourisme restera sinistré.

Selon vous, pourquoi certains partis d'opposition n'ont pas voulu s'inscrire dans la démarche de réforme entreprise par le gouvernement syrien ? S'agit-il d'un manque de confiance ?

La seule force d'opposition représentative, qui ne milite pas pour une alternance politique, mais pour un «changement de régime»,

ce sont les Frères musulmans. La branche syrienne de la confrérie marche sur les pas de la branche libyenne : dans sa quête du pouvoir, elle a noué une alliance objective avec l'impérialisme. Son programme vise prioritairement à l'établissement d'un régime islamique, tandis qu'elle remet à plus tard la libération du Moyen-Orient, en général, et de la Palestine, en particulier.

Des analystes n'hésitent pas à remettre en cause le «printemps syrien» estimant que le problème syrien, d'ordre interne, est amplifié par des pays connus pour leur volonté de nuire à la stabilité de la Syrie. Quel est votre avis à ce sujet ?

L'expression «printemps syrien» vise à faire croire en l'existence d'un mouvement populaire révolutionnaire. C'est une pure fiction. Il n'y a eu aucune manifestation importante en Syrie contre le «régime». On assiste, par contre, à de petites manifestations de quelques centaines de personnes au cri de «A mort Bachar !». Elles ne sont pas le fait de démocrates, mais de takfiristes. Et elles ne sont pas réprimées.

Les médias étrangers, notamment les chaînes satellitaires, sont accusés par le gouvernement syrien d'être à l'origine de l'amplification de la révolte populaire. Peut-on croire à cette accusation ? Quelle est justement la part de responsabilité des médias dans la crise syrienne ?

Ce n'est pas exactement cela. Le gouvernement n'accuse pas les médias pro-impérialistes de pousser le peuple à la révolte. Il les accuse de mettre une fiction en image. La plupart des vidéos de téléphones cellulaires qui sont diffusées par ces médias sont des images de fiction.

Souvenez-vous que lors de la guerre contre la Libye, j'avais révélé à l'avance qu'Al-Jazeera avait fait construire un studio à ciel ouvert pour reproduire la Place Verte. Lors de la bataille de Tripoli, Al-Jazeera a effectivement diffusé des images de fiction, tournées dans ce studio, pour faire croire que les «rebelles» étaient entrés dans la ville, alors qu'on en était à la phase de bombardements intensifs et que les «rebelles» ne sont arrivés que trois jours plus tard.

Et vous vous souvenez qu'entre les images de propagande d'Al-Jazeera et la chute de la capitale, Seif el-Islam a été acclamé sur cette place par ses partisans qui ne l'avaient jamais quittée.

Dans cette affaire, les médias pro-impérialistes – dont Al-Jazeera – ont acquis un savoir-faire technique pour créer des mensonges. Et ils ne s'en privent pas.

Selon certaines analyses, les deux véritables révolutions dans le monde arabe sont celles de la Tunisie et de l'Egypte. Dans ces deux cas, les pays occidentaux n'ont pas appelé au départ de Ben Ali et de Moubarak, encore moins à l'intervention étrangère. Les communiqués et les déclarations des officiels occidentaux étaient tellement prudents que des médias ont dénoncé, sinon leur complicité, au moins leur attentisme. A ce propos, il y a lieu de rappeler les déclarations de l'ex-ministre française des Affaires étrangères Michel Alliot-Marie de soutien au régime de Ben Ali dans la répression des manifestants, jusqu'à vouloir dépêcher des avions pleins de bombes lacrymogènes et autres moyens de répression. Qu’en pensez-vous ?

Les Etats-Unis souhaitaient se débarrasser de Ben Ali et de Moubarak qui n'étaient plus assez dociles. Ils ont donc créé les conditions de ces révolutions. Mais lorsqu'elles ont eu lieu, ils ont été dépassés par la colère populaire. Ils ont essayé par tous les moyens de la canaliser, mais les événements leur ont échappé.

Le déclencheur profond de ces révolutions, c'est la spéculation sur les denrées alimentaires organisée par Washington dans les années précédentes jusqu'à provoquer des famines localisées dans ces deux pays. A ce moment, tous les commentateurs politiques ont pronostiqué une révolution. Pourtant, tout le monde a été surpris quand cela a eu lieu parce que personne n'avait anticipé la manière dont les gens réagiraient. La CIA a immédiatement envoyé ses équipes de «révolutions colorées» pour reprendre en main la situation, mais tout cela était plaqué, improvisé, et a échoué.

Dans ce contexte, peut-on dire que les révoltes tunisienne et égyptienne, d'essence populaire, ont été exploitées pour renverser le gouvernement libyen et tenter de reproduire le même scénario en Syrie ?

Oui, les médias occidentaux font croire à leurs spectateurs que le monde arabe est un bloc homogène. S'il y a une révolution dans deux pays, il doit y en avoir partout. Ils nous expliquent que les Européens ont eu tort de ne pas soutenir les Tunisiens et les Egyptiens et voulu se rattraper en soutenant les Libyens et les Syriens.

Mais la vérité, c'est qu'ils ont tout fait pour écraser les révoltes en Tunisie et en Egypte dès qu'ils ont vu qu'elles menaçaient leur domination, et qu'ils font tout en Libye et en Syrie pour imposer leur domination

Quel est également le poids de la Russie et de la Chine dans le règlement de la crise syrienne ? Pensez-vous que les deux puissances seront capables de faire face à la pression des pays occidentaux exercée sur le gouvernement syrien, d'autant plus que Moscou s'est dit favorable à la solution proposée par les pays du Golfe au président Saleh du Yémen ?

Les intérêts de la Russie sont directement menacés par l'agression occidentale contre la Syrie. Pas du tout parce que Moscou se sentirait concerné par la lutte contre le sionisme, mais pour deux raisons fondamentales.
Premièrement, Moscou ne dispose que d'une seule base navale en Méditerranée : le port de Tartous. Si la Russie perd cette facilité, elle perd toute liberté dans cette mer et sa flotte de la mer Noire, bloquée derrière les détroits, sera l'otage de la Turquie.

Deuxièmement, si les Occidentaux contrôlent la Syrie, ils y feront passer un gazoduc qui permettra aux Européens d'acheter le gaz du Golfe et d'Asie centrale au lieu du gaz russe. Ce sera l'effondrement de Gazprom et de l'économie russe.

Qu'est-ce qui empêche, selon vous, le président Al Assad d'organiser une élection présidentielle anticipée dans laquelle il sera candidat au même titre que les autres opposants ?

Pour le moment, le pays affronte une guerre non conventionnelle. Des milliers de combattants, principalement étrangers, tentent de le déstabiliser. Ce n'est guère propice à un scrutin démocratique. Le président el-Assad a été élu sous l'emprise de l'ancienne constitution. Je suis certain qu'il remettra son mandat en jeu lors d'une élection présidentielle anticipée ou lors d'un référendum, dès que la situation sera stabilisée.

Quel est justement le poids des figures de l'opposition syrienne ? Sont-elles capables de diriger le pays et de sauvegarder leur indépendance, sachant que la Syrie a été toujours secouée par des tentatives de déstabilisation ?

Il est tout à fait possible que l'opposition syrienne intérieure dispose de leaders capables de diriger le pays et d'assumer une alternance politique, il est trop tôt pour en juger. Par contre, quand ils ont été reçus à Moscou le mois dernier, ces leaders ont d'abord remercié les Russes pour avoir usé de leur veto au Conseil de sécurité et fait échec à la guerre conventionnelle. Ils ont donc fait preuve de leur patriotisme.

Comment analysez-vous également le rôle de la Turquie dans la gestion de ce conflit ?

Pour certains spécialistes, la Turquie est devenue le porte-parole des Etats-Unis d'Amérique dans la région. Les Américains considèrent d'ailleurs le mouvement d'autonomie du Kurdistan comme une organisation terroriste au même titre qu'Ankara...

Une altercation à Davos et quelques phrases à propos de la Flottille de la Liberté ont suffi à faire oublier que la Turquie est membre de l'OTAN. L'élimination du réseau Ergenekon n'a rien changé à la domination en sous-main des Etats-Unis dans ce pays. La preuve : la Turquie vient d'accepter le transfert sur son sol des bases militaires que l'OTAN entretenait en Espagne.

De plus, elle laisse construire sur son sol de nouvelles installations radars dirigées contre l'Iran.
Quand aux organisations kurdes, tout le monde joue avec elles. L'Armée turque garde Öcallan sur une de ses bases et l'agite dès que le pouvoir civil lui tient tête. Des écoutes téléphoniques dans l'affaire Ergenekon ont largement illustré les complicités secrètes entre l'état-major turc et le PKK. Les Israéliens utilisent aussi les Kurdes.

Je vous rappelle par exemple que Netanyahu avait pu donner l'ordre d'attaquer simultanément la Flottille par Tsahal et une base navale turque par le PKK. Ankara n'a toujours pas compris que ses alliés historiques, Washington et Tel-Aviv, ont besoin d'une Turquie solide pour défendre leurs intérêts au Proche-Orient, mais ne veulent pas qu'elle soit forte.

Si on devait mettre en perspective les événements qui secouent le monde arabe et musulman, quelle lecture en faites-vous ? Faut-il penser qu'il y a une stratégie derrière tout cela ? Si tel est le cas, pourquoi ? L'habillage de ces mouvements est qu'il répond à un désir de démocratie. Dans ces conditions, comment expliquez-vous que des pays comme les monarchies du Golfe soient épargnées ?

Où est la liberté ? En Europe avec la bureaucratie bruxelloise anonyme, la pensée unique et le musellement des médias ? Aux Etats-Unis avec le Patriot Act, la torture et Guantanamo ? Non.

Nous sommes sous le joug d'un système de domination globale et les seules révolutions authentiques sont celles qui luttent d'abord pour la souveraineté nationale. La démocratie, telle qu'elle fonctionne aujourd'hui en Occident, n'a plus grand rapport avec le projet des penseurs du XVIIIe siècle. Elle est corrompue par les lobbys et les ingérences de toutes sortes. Elle n'est plus qu'un leurre. L'Occident n'est plus un modèle démocratique et assoie sa domination sur le reste du monde en combattant la démocratie partout où des peuples lui tiennent tête.

Les révolutions en Tunisie et en Egypte ont été des mouvements à la fois sociaux et politiques. Les Tunisiens et les Egyptiens s'en sont d'abord pris aux présidents Ben Ali et Moubarak, mais ils ont parfaitement intégré que ce n'étaient que des fantoches et que rien ne changera tant que les structures de dépendance ne seront pas renversées.

Les monarchies du Golfe sont hétérogènes. Cependant, les plus puissantes tirent exclusivement leur fortune du commerce d'hydrocarbures qu'elles entretiennent avec l'Occident. Elles n'ont donc pas besoin d'être occupées militairement pour être vassalisées, il suffit qu'elles préfèrent le confort à la liberté. Là encore, le système de domination privilégie les gouvernements les plus impopulaires (Arabie saoudite, Bahreïn…) parce qu'ils sont les plus dépendants.

F. B.

cairo: army uses extreme violence against demonstrators (video)

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iboFV-yeTE&&skipcontrinter=1

http://www.rue89.com/2011/12/18/egypte-tahrir-feu-et-sang-pour-les-un-du-printemps-arabe-227621 

Image de la répression place Tahir

Texte en préambule : A ceux qui défendent les militaires, aux absents qui pensent que l'armée et le peuple n'ont font qu'un, à Kamal Al Janzouri (Premier ministre) : est-il vrai que tu disais que c'est la plus belle armée de la terre ?

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the city of london: plutocracy pure and simple

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 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/31/corporation-london-city-medieval

The medieval, unaccountable Corporation of London is ripe for protest  

Working beyond the authority of parliament, the Corporation of London undermines all attempts to curb the excesses of finance

George Monbiot

31 October 2011

It's the dark heart of Britain, the place where democracy goes to die, immensely powerful, equally unaccountable. But I doubt that one in 10 British people has any idea of what the Corporation of the City of London is and how it works. This could be about to change. Alongside the Church of England, the Corporation is seeking to evict the protesters camped outside St Paul's cathedral. The protesters, in turn, have demanded that it submit to national oversight and control.

What is this thing? Ostensibly it's the equivalent of a local council, responsible for a small area of London known as the Square Mile. But, as its website boasts, "among local authorities the City of London is unique". You bet it is. There are 25 electoral wards in the Square Mile. In four of them, the 9,000 people who live within its boundaries are permitted to vote. In the remaining 21, the votes are controlled by corporations, mostly banks and other financial companies. The bigger the business, the bigger the vote: a company with 10 workers gets two votes, the biggest employers, 79. It's not the workers who decide how the votes are cast, but the bosses, who "appoint" the voters. Plutocracy, pure and simple.

There are four layers of elected representatives in the Corporation: common councilmen, aldermen, sheriffs and the Lord Mayor. To qualify for any of these offices, you must be a freeman of the City of London. To become a freeman you must be approved by the aldermen. You're most likely to qualify if you belong to one of the City livery companies: medieval guilds such as the worshipful company of costermongers, cutpurses and safecrackers. To become a sheriff, you must be elected from among the aldermen by the Livery. How do you join a livery company? Don't even ask.

To become Lord Mayor you must first have served as an alderman and sheriff, and you "must command the support of, and have the endorsement of, the Court of Aldermen and the Livery". You should also be stinking rich, as the Lord Mayor is expected to make a "contribution from his/her private resources towards the costs of the mayoral year." This is, in other words, an official old boys' network. Think of all that Tory huffing and puffing about democratic failings within the trade unions. Then think of their resounding silence about democracy within the City of London.

The current Lord Mayor, Michael Bear, came to prominence within the City as chief executive of the Spitalfields development group, which oversaw a controversial business venture in which the Corporation had a major stake, even though the project lies outside the boundaries of its authority. This illustrates another of the Corporation's unique features. It possesses a vast pool of cash, which it can spend as it wishes, without democratic oversight. As well as expanding its enormous property portfolio, it uses this money to lobby on behalf of the banks.

The Lord Mayor's role, the Corporation's website tells us, is to "open doors at the highest levels" for business, in the course of which he "expounds the values of liberalisation". Liberalisation is what bankers call deregulation: the process that caused the financial crash. The Corporation boasts that it "handle[s] issues in Parliament of specific interest to the City", such as banking reform and financial services regulation. It also conducts "extensive partnership work with think tanks … vigorously promoting the views and needs of financial services." But this isn't the half of it.

As Nicholas Shaxson explains in his fascinating book Treasure Islands, the Corporation exists outside many of the laws and democratic controls which govern the rest of the United Kingdom. The City of London is the only part of Britain over which parliament has no authority. In one respect at least the Corporation acts as the superior body: it imposes on the House of Commons a figure called the remembrancer: an official lobbyist who sits behind the Speaker's chair and ensures that, whatever our elected representatives might think, the City's rights and privileges are protected. The mayor of London's mandate stops at the boundaries of the Square Mile. There are, as if in a novel by China Miéville, two cities, one of which must unsee the other.

Several governments have tried to democratise the City of London but all, threatened by its financial might, have failed. As Clement Attlee lamented, "over and over again we have seen that there is in this country another power than that which has its seat at Westminster." The City has exploited this remarkable position to establish itself as a kind of offshore state, a secrecy jurisdiction which controls the network of tax havens housed in the UK's crown dependencies and overseas territories. This autonomous state within our borders is in a position to launder the ill-gotten cash of oligarchs, kleptocrats, gangsters and drug barons. As the French investigating magistrate Eva Joly remarked, it "has never transmitted even the smallest piece of usable evidence to a foreign magistrate". It deprives the United Kingdom and other nations of their rightful tax receipts.

It has also made the effective regulation of global finance almost impossible. Shaxson shows how the absence of proper regulation in London allowed American banks to evade the rules set by their own government. AIG's wild trading might have taken place in the US, but the unit responsible was regulated in the City. Lehman Brothers couldn't get legal approval for its off-balance sheet transactions in Wall Street, so it used a London law firm instead. No wonder priests are resigning over the plans to evict the campers. The Church of England is not just working with Mammon; it's colluding with Babylon.

If you've ever dithered over the question of whether the UK needs a written constitution, dither no longer. Imagine the clauses required to preserve the status of the Corporation. "The City of London will remain outside the authority of parliament. Domestic and foreign banks will be permitted to vote as if they were human beings, and their votes will outnumber those cast by real people. Its elected officials will be chosen from people deemed acceptable by a group of medieval guilds …".

The Corporation's privileges could not withstand such public scrutiny. This, perhaps, is one of the reasons why a written constitution in the United Kingdom remains a distant dream. Its power also helps to explain why regulation of the banks is scarcely better than it was before the crash, why there are no effective curbs on executive pay and bonuses and why successive governments fail to act against the UK's dependent tax havens.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/nov/01/city-london-spending-income

City of London spending and income: where does the money come from, and where does it go?  

The Occupy protests have focussed attention on the City of London. What do we know about the Square Mile?

Get the data

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