Cameron’s ‘public service reforms’ would mean a privatised but publicly subsidised NHS – without any electoral mandate

Prime Minister David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ ‘public service reforms’ would be PFI on steroids – the end of free healthcare paid for by taxes and it’s replacement with private healthcare only for those who can afford it, but subsidised by all tax payers and effectively paid for twice by those who can get it – once in taxes and once in charges.

Cameron in his recent speech on ‘public service reform’ and ‘The Big Society’, claimed that ‘Sometimes, a charity or social enterprise trying to come into public services will find strong forces trying to keep them out…vested interests, people who want to stick to the status quo…We need a level playing field so that anyone with a good idea can get involved.’ (1)

Here Cameron pretends that the main bidders for health service contracts will be charities or not-for-profit groups. In fact most bidders will be private healthcare firms such as ‘Assura’ a firm he also referred to in his speech as one which could provide ‘NHS walk in clinic’ services, or privatised GP consortia profit sharing with these firms.’

The Bureau for Investigative Journalism found that ‘At least half the board members of some GP consortia, the new bodies that will take over commissioning, have links with… Assura Medical, majority controlled by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group… Most were GP members of Assura, meaning their practice had formed a joint company with it…. with profits split 50:50 between Assura Medical and member practices.’ (2)

One of Cameron’s principal advisers on healthcare ‘reform’ is Mark Britnell, who is employed in the Healthcare division of accountancy firm KPMG. He has told private healthcare firms that “GPs will have to aggregate purchasing power and there will be a big opportunity for those companies that can facilitate this process” and that “The NHS will be shown no mercy”. (3) – (4)

Britnell also wrote in the Health Service Journal that the NHS’ ‘funding mechanism is no longer resilient’ and that in future patients will be charged for treatment. (5)

The GP who headed the government’s review of it’s ‘healthcare reform’ policy- Professor Steve Field – has said that introducing internal competition into the NHS would be ‘destroy key services’. He’s also said that allowing private sector patients to be treated in NHS hospitals would open up the NHS to EU competition law, potentially allowing private firms the legal right to be allowed to bid for contracts for all NHS activity. (6) – (7)

Cameron also claimed in the speech that “A study published by the London School of Economics found hospitals in areas with more choice had lower death rates.”

This is true – the study was made by Zack Cooper, an LSE researcher, but it is far from undisputed. Professor Allyson Pollock, an expert on NHS funding, found serious problems with the methodology and the data it used . Pollock concluded that based on Cooper’s study ‘the only safe conclusion is that if you live near an NHS hospital or have many NHS hospitals in your area, you may get care quicker and be less likely to die from an acute heart attack. This is hardly a ringing endorsement for competition, or the Department of Health policy of centralisation and hospital closures under the expensive private finance initiative.’ (8) – (9)

Pollock, on the proposed healthcare ‘reforms’ in general writes that ‘The bill, as designed, will allow commissioners (purchasers of healthcare or insurers) to pick and choose patients and services. It abolishes the duty to secure or provide comprehensive care, and permits GP consortiums to recruit members, and introduce charges and private health insurance, as well as enter into joint ventures with private companies. In a market, insurers and commercial providers must be able to limit their risks by carefully selecting members on the basis of ability to pay and predictable costs.’ (10)

In other words it would mean the end of guaranteed free public healthcare and instead returns to a system where people can only get what healthcare they can pay for. Even worse, the private healthcare firms and privatised or ‘mutualised’ GP consortia would be getting huge taxpayer subsidies without any limit on how much they can charge or any requirement for them to treat people who can’t pay what they demand. (This would repeat the disaster of privatised but publicly subsidised railways).

This would not be greater efficiency or greater choice, but the worst kind of privatisation, including a public subsidy for private firms. It’s not reform, but PFI on steroids.

It will also lead to chaos, with many people lacking vital services in their areas due to the government letting hospitals and schools go under if they fail to compete in internal markets. In fact government ministers have been encouraged by their advisers to allow public sector hospitals to fail in order to hasten “reform” and the entry of the private sector (expect budget cuts to public services like the NHS with claims of lack of the money to fund them, followed by greater levels of public funding appearing for private healthcare firms) (11)

If all this goes ahead we’ll see cases like the one of the American man who had no way to get the healthcare he needed, so in desperation staged a bank robbery of one dollar in order to get sent to jail so he could get treatment (12).

Devolution in Scotland could prevent this happening North of the border, assuming the government don’t try to impose it here by cutting funding or making future funding conditional on such ‘reforms'. That might boost support for independence and Cameron and the Conservatives might want to encourage that to remove a lot of Labour MPs from the British parliament. However while many voters in Scotland would like to avoid involvement in more Iraq and Afghanistan wars by independence, just as many may be nervous of independence after the financial crisis brought down RBS, fearing ending up like Iceland. So with independence no certainty the British government's policies on public services may still affect Scotland's.

Cameron also claimed that New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina provides a model for British public services.

What’s actually happened in New Orleans since Katrina is that people have been forced out of much public housing which was never flooded by armed private mercenary companies like Blackwater and the properties sold off to private developers to build luxury flats to rent. This resulted in mass protests against the enforced evictions and homelessness. To stop this and to stop them trying to return to homes many of them had lived in for decades, many have been sent to trailer parks, surrounded by razor wire fences and guards, effectively imprisoned and not allowed to leave (13) – (16).

That is not a good model to follow. It certainly provides profits for some, but as with Cameron’s plans, at the expense of the majority and especially the poorest. The same goes for government plans for ‘mutualised’ and ‘for profit’ ambulance and fire fighting services (17)

Cameron and the Coalition have no electoral mandate whatsoever for their plan for a privatised, publicly subsidised healthcare system. The plan did not appear in his election campaign or his party’s manifesto – in fact he made election pledges to end the endless and disruptive reorganisation of the NHS (18). A YouGov poll in January showed only 34% support the ‘reforms’ and only 5% ‘strongly’, while 37% oppose them (16% strongly opposing them). The other 30% didn’t know (19)

The more people hear of the details of the ‘reforms’ the more people who supported them are becoming "don't knows" and the more ‘don’t knows’ are becoming opposed. A Comres poll in June found 49% of people thought the NHS reforms should be scrapped, with only 19% supporting them and 32% unsure (20). Only 27% of British voters support allowing private companies to provide NHS services (21). If Cameron goes ahead and attempts privatisation he is virtually certain to be a single term Prime Minister – if he even survives that long.

Finally, Cameron repeatedly made bizarre comparisons to buying mundane services or goods from private firms – for instance ‘You wouldn’t pay for a gym membership and then get told you’re only allowed to use the running machine or only allowed to come in on a Tuesday’ and ‘Imagine you’re buying a mobile phone. You go to the shop – only one shop – and there they’re selling one model of phone. You can guarantee the service wouldn’t be what you’d expect, the quality wouldn’t be great.’

He also claimed that ‘choice’ and ‘competition’ in healthcare will ‘get real value for money’

Cameron ignores the incompatibility of motives between maximising profit by treating only those patients who can pay and those illnesses that are profitable to treat (the primary and often sole aim of private firms) and providing good healthcare, education or social care based on providing it to everyone equally according to need.

Heart operations or cancer treatment or fire-fighting or ambulances are not mobile phones or gym memberships, nor are they comparable to them. Mobile phones are incredibly cheap compared to healthcare and no-one selling mobile phones needs to have had many years of training and experience to sell a mobile phone to someone without endangering their health or life by recommending the wrong phone. A gym membership can affect your health over the longer term, but you won’t die if you can’t afford the gym membership you want. You will die if you can’t afford health care and have a serious illness. Choosing whether to use a running machine does not require years of training, education and experience to avoid someone dying. Healthcare does. As a result private health care will always be more expensive than public sector healthcare as private firms have to make a profit. It also follows that the more share of the healthcare provision market is given to private healthcare firms, the more costs will rise, especially as public services will end up short of fully qualified and trained doctors and nurses.

(1) = 10 Downing Street Press Office 11 Jul 2011 ‘Speech on Open Public Services’,http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/speech-on-open-public-services/

(2) = Bureau of Investigative Journalism 15 Jun 2011 ‘Conflict of interest fears in NHS shakeup plans’ by Emma Slater and Sophie Clayton-Payne , http://thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/06/15/half-on-some-consortia-have-links-to-virgin-group/  ; ‘At least half the board members of some GP consortia, the new bodies that will take over commissioning, have links with a single private healthcare company, an investigation by Bureau of Investigative Journalism, published in the Independent and Pulse Magazine can reveal.

Assura Medical, majority controlled by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, has links with 50 per cent or more of the board members at three of the 52 first-wave GP pathfinders… More than 60% of those with private links were associated with Assura Medical. Most were GP members of Assura, meaning their practice had formed a joint company with it…. with profits split 50:50 between Assura Medical and member practices….At the Sutton Consortium in Surrey, 19 out of 25 board members are linked to Assura Medical. In the South Reading Consortium, three out of five board members are GP members of Assura, and two are employees of an Assura member practice. At the Calleva Consortium in Basingstoke, Hampshire, six out of 11 voting members on the consortium board have links with Assura, as does the non-voting board secretary..’

(3) = Health Service Journal 11 Jan 2009 ‘Mark Britnell quits NHS for private sector’,http://www.hsj.co.uk/news/policy/mark-britnell-quits-nhs-for-private-sector/5002713.article

(4) = guardian.co.uk 14 May 2011 ‘David Cameron's adviser says health reform is a chance to make big profits’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/may/14/david-cameron-adviser-health-reform

(5) = Health Service Journal 11 May 2011 ‘Mark Britnell: the NHS funding model is no longer 'resilient'’,http://www.hsj.co.uk/comment/opinion/mark-britnell-the-nhs-funding-model-is-no-longer-resilient/5029675.article

(6) = guardian.co.uk 13 May 2011 ‘Andrew Lansley's NHS reforms are unworkable, says review chief’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/may/13/andrew-lansley-nhs-reforms-unworkable ; ‘Prof Steve Field, chairman of the NHS Future Forum – set up last month to undertake the coalition's "listening exercise" – flatly rejects the health secretary's plan to compel hospitals to compete for patients and income, which he says could "destroy key services". The proposal, contained in Andrew Lansley's health and social care bill, has led key medical organisations to warn that it will lead to the breakup of the NHS and betray the service's founding principles.’

In an interview with the Guardian, Field says Lansley's plan to make the NHS regulator Monitor's primary duty to enforce competition between healthcare providers should be scrapped. Instead it should be obliged to do the opposite, by promoting co-operation and collaboration and the integration of health services.

(7) = guardian.co.uk 28 Jun 2011 ‘NHS forum GP admits private patient doubts’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jun/28/nhs-private-patients-doubts ; ‘The government is facing renewed pressure over its health bill after the GP who led its "listening exercise"…Steve Field acknowledged that the government would leave hospitals vulnerable to European Union competition law due to the presence of private patients in NHS hospitals.’

(8) = London School of Economics working health paper No.16  Does Hospital Competition Save Lives? Evidence from the English NHS Patient Choice Reforms’,  by Zack Cooper http://www2.lse.ac.uk/LSEHealthAndSocialCare/LSEHealth/pdf/Workingpapers/WP16.pdf

(9) = guardian.co.uk 16 Jun 2011 ‘A return to pre-NHS fear’, by Professor Allyson Pollock,http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/16/nhs-fear-tory-reforms-competition

(10) = See (9) above

(11) = Guardian 11 Jul 2011 ‘Ministers urged to let schools and hospitals fail to hasten reforms’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jul/11/nhs-health

(12) = guardian.co.uk 21 Jun 2011 ‘US man stages $1 bank robbery to get state healthcare’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/21/verone-one-dollar-robbery-healthcare

(13) = Klein, Naomi (2007), 'The Shock Doctrine' , Penguin , London, 2007, Chapter 20

(14) = Greg Palast 29 Aug 2007 ‘“They wanted them poor niggers out of there.” – New Orleans Two years after’, http://www.gregpalast.com/%E2%80%9Cthey-wanted-them-poor-niggers-out-of-there%E2%80%9D/

(15) = Mail & Guardian (South Africa) 21 Dec 2007, 'Housing protests grip New Orleans', http://mg.co.za/article/2007-12-21-housing-protests-grip-new-orleans

(16) = Greg Palast 24 Aug 2010 ‘Five Years and Still Drowning - The New Orleans CNN Would Never Show You’,http://www.gregpalast.com/five-years-and-still-drowning-the-new-orleans-cnn-would-never-show-you/

(17) = guardian.co.uk 09 Nov 2010 ‘Ambulance drivers and firefighters could break away from national service under new plans’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/nov/09/ambulance-firefighters-mutualise-plans ; ‘Ambulance drivers, paramedics and firefighters could be given the right to breakaway from the national rescue service to form for-profit groups and run their services themselves, the Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has said.

The government is to unveil a white paper that will give nearly all public sector workers a right to "mutualise" services, along the lines of a John Lewis model whereby employees own the service they work for, and can profit if it makes money.

Maude said that almost all public services – bar the police and the armed forces – could be mutualised. One ambulance service had already expressed an interest and he would also look at options for the fire service, he said.’

(18) = New Statesman blog 14 Apr 2011 ‘Video: Cameron slams “pointless reorganisation” of the NHS - The Prime Minister – then in opposition – addresses the Royal College of Nursing conference in 2009’, http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/04/royal-college-opposition

(19) = YouGov 20 Jan 2011 – Politics – The National Health,http://today.yougov.co.uk/politics/national-health

(20) = Comres 13 Jun 2011,http://www.comres.co.uk/systems/file_download.aspx?pg=796&ver=2

(21) = guardian.co.uk 21 Jan 2011 ‘Poll reveals widespread suspicion of NHS reforms’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jan/29/nhs-private-companies-yougov-poll

Kelvin Mckenzie and the Murdoch press pretending to support ordinary people against the establishment is a joke

Kelvin McKenzie had a very amusing piece on the Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’ website. While I have to admire his chutzpah in putting it to such a hostile audience his claims about Murdoch and his media empire are as much hot air as usual.

He claims

‘In the two decades he[Murdoch] has owned the channel [Sky], not one editor or journalist has suggested that he has interfered or even made suggestions about news coverage.’

Why would he need to when he can pick people like you, whose political views are his own exactly like his own as editors? (i.e spread hatred of immigrants, the unemployed and foreigners, plus talking up whichever of the two main parties he has a deal on further media deregulation and targeting the one he’s not currently made a deal with)

He then launches into an advert for Sky TV.

‘Sky is the giant of television. Sure it has the football but it has so much more. Even a cultural philistine like me finds myself drawn to Sky Arts, National Geographic and the History Channel. All have unexpected gems that you cannot find anywhere else.’

It’s hard to understand why the Guardian is giving Sky free advertising space here.

Kelvin then starts praising Murdoch’s supposed services to reducing unemployment in the UK.

‘Thank God for the Rupert Murdochs of this world. I wish there were hundreds more in our country. Unemployment would be wiped out at a stroke.’

Not sure what his evidence for that is. Murdoch backed Thatcher from the start. In opposition the Conservatives put out an election poster showing a dole queue with the words ‘Britain isn’t working’. At that point unemployment was over 2 million. By three years into Thatcher’s first term in office (helped there by the support of Murdoch and his Sun newspaper) unemployment was over 3 million. That doesn’t seem like a great job if you’re judging by results.

 If everyone was like Murdoch we’d certainly have no tax base at all due to his companies managing to pay almost nothing in tax on their vast profits and would go bankrupt like Greece.

His companies used tax avoidance to pay no net taxes at all in the UK in the 1990s  (no-one found this out till 1999). News Corporation recently paid $77mn in taxes to one Australian regional government after claiming for 7 years that it hadn’t been avoiding taxes.

I’ll grant that Murdoch’s firms do certainly provide employment for some dodgy ‘private investigators’ like Glenn Mulcaire, who has suddenly done a massive u-turn on his belief that no-one has any right to privacy, now that it affects him, asking reporters to respect his family’s privacy

McKenzie has more praise for Rupert

‘Why has Rupert a monopoly? Simple: nobody else had the guts, the nerve or the stunning management skill to take on the establishment.’

Allying himself with the leaders of the two main political parties alternately and getting his papers to tell people to vote for the one he currently has a deal on deregulation of media ownership with is “taking on the establishment”.

David Cameron and his other Bullingdon Club boys aren’t the establishment? Few people have been as close to "the establishment" as Rupert Murdoch and Kelvin McKenzie.

There’s also his media empire’s use of phone hacking and unusually long ranged mikes to target anyone who goes up against them.

Finally Kelvin says

‘Sky is not Fox News and I have my doubts that in leftwing, socialist, clapped-out Britain, the latter would work commercially or audiencewise.’

It wouldn’t work because it’s blatant propaganda and has had shows by people like Glenn Beck claiming Obama is racist against white people; and has edited out the applause from News reports on his speeches.

That’s apart from the fact that the last time the UK had a government that could be described as socialist was the Atlee government in 1945-1950.

I wonder what Kelvin might have said about a left wing or even vaguely liberal person saying Britain is “clapped out”. I’m guessing the phrase “Brit bashing” would be involved.

Why Gaddafi running out of fuel or money or being killed would not guarantee an end to the war in Libya

There have been reports that Gaddafi’s forces may be close to running out of fuel altogether, mostly assuming that this will force his side to surrender. This assumption is based on the North African campaigns in World War Two, in which Rommel was eventually forced to surrender due to lack of fuel for his tanks (1).

However, while that’s possible, there is no guarantee of Gaddafi’s forces surrendering if this happens. They might, but it’s as or more likely that without a negotiated peace they would switch to using guerrilla, insurgent, terrorist or resistance tactics (choose whichever term you prefer), as happened in Iraq after the defeat of it’s military. The fact there are no large numbers of foreign troops occupying Libya (only a few special forces trainers and spotters for airstrikes)  might make this less likely or a smaller insurgency than in Iraq, but it’s still a possibility that has to be taken into account.

Gaddafi’s forces seem to only control one functioning refinery – at Zawiyah – and the oil pipeline to it has been cut by the rebels (2). This should certainly mean that sooner or later his forces will run out of fuel for their tanks, truck mounted Grad rocket launchers, mobile artillery and pick up trucks. How soon (or not soon) is still anyone’s guess, as no-one knows how much oil Gaddafi has stored in reserve in barrels in Tripoli that could be sent to the refinery. (This also raises the question of why NATO hasn’t bombed the refinery and why it tried to persuade the rebels not to cut the pipeline – issues I’ll cover in a separate post).

The claims by Libyan defectors that Gaddafi was running out of fuel and money were made before the 13^th of June though (and seem to mostly have been made by one defector – the former head of Libya’s central bank). He claimed that this would happen within days or a couple of weeks (3). So either it’s going to happen very soon, or else these claims are just based on guesses, wishful thinking, or are propaganda designed to encourage any of Gaddafi’s people hearing it to defect.

Fuel prices have certainly gone up massively in the parts of Libya controlled by Gaddafi’s forces (starting even in May), but it’s possible this is partly due to Gaddafi prioritising supplies to his armed forces (4) – (5).

Similarly reports that Gaddafi is running out of money are no guarantee of his regime falling, nor would an airstrike killing him (a strategy which has failed for over 100 days now and has never worked anywhere else). The assumption that Gaddafi running out of money will lead to the surrender of his forces assumes their primary motivation is money. That may well not be the case.

Assuming killing Muammar Gaddafi alone will end the civil war may be an assumption that turns out to be true, but could equally be as false as the assumption in Iraq that all the insurgents were Sunni and Ba’athist ‘dead enders’ who supported Saddam and that they would surrender when he was gone. In fact most of the insurgents weren’t hardline Ba’athists at all and many of them were Shia.

Bombing carried out by the US air force and the British RAF from 1991 to 2002, combined with sanctions, repeatedly failed to either kill Saddam or generate a military coup against him, so hopes of Gaddafi’s own forces, generals or ministers overthrowing him may be wishful thinking too.

US and NATO military planners are generally meant to plan for the “worst case scenario”, but instead most of their plans (and those of the governments giving them orders) are hugely optimistic and ignore the possible pitfalls and false assumptions involved. As a result most of them either fail, or only succeed at great cost in lives.

Saif Al Gaddafi has repeated that his father will accept elections overseen by international observers in return for a ceasefire (6) – (7). He may or may not be telling the truth, but given all the potential ways this war could drag on with heavy civilian casualties without a peace settlement, taking up the offer might be a sensible course for the rebels and NATO.

Even if it doesn’t work they at least get more Libyans and more people and governments around the world on their side by showing they were willing to try for a peaceful solution. Currently their refusal to accept any offer of negotiations that doesn’t include Gaddafi and his sons giving up power entirely before negotiations even begin is making a long civil war more likely. They have plenty of justifiable reasons to be angry at the Gaddafis’ dictatorship and to want rid of them, but the reality is that at least giving negotiations a try would be the best option.

(1) = The Economist 16 Jun 2011 ‘The colonel is running on empty’,http://www.economist.com/node/18837167?story_id=18837167

(2) = Channel 4 News 29 Jun 2011 ‘Tripoli Pipeline Attack ‘endgame’ for Gaddafi’, http://www.channel4.com/news/tripoli-pipeline-attack-signals-endgame-for-gaddafi

(3) = Bloomberg Business Week 5 Jul 2011 ‘Qaddafi Running Out of Money, Fuel, Ex-Central Bank Head Says’, http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-06-13/qaddafi-running-out-of-money-fuel-ex-central-bank-head-says.html

(4) = See (1) above

(5) = Guardian.co.uk 05 May 2011 ‘Libya faces fuel crisis as oil supplies dwindle’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/05/libya-fuel-crisis-oil-supplies

(6) = Guardian 4 Jul 2011 ‘Gaddafi's son says western powers attacking Libya are 'legitimate targets'’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/04/gaddafi-son-western-powers-legitimate-targets

(7) = Independent 16 Jun 2011 ‘Gaddafi would agree to supervised election, says son’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/gaddafi-would-agree-to-supervised-election-says-son-2298234.html

US, Israeli and Greek governments try to intimidate and block Gaza aid flotilla including US ship and crew

A new international aid flotilla is preparing to sail from Greece to Gaza to provide aid to Gazans and protest the Israeli blockade which has been in force to collectively punish the people of Gaza since Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections.

It includes a US flagged ship carrying American citizens and named ‘The Audacity of Hope’ after Obama’s book. However one of the activists – former CIA man and peace activist Ray McGovern -  says he’s been told by people with contacts in the US National Security Council that White House officials “would be happy if something happened to us.” and “perfectly willing to have the cold corpses of activists shown on American TV.” (i.e if McGovern and other flotilla members were shot dead by Israeli forces as nine members of the 2010 Gaza aid flotilla were, including 19 year old US citizen Turkan Dogran ) (1) – (2).

 When Craig Murray (the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan and human rights activist) asked some of his own sources with contacts in the US State Department they confirmed this. Murray writes

‘I was told that Obama will welcome an Israeli attack on the US ship, as giving him a chance to confirm his pro-Israeli credentials and improve his standing with AIPAC ahead of the Presidential election race. Fatalities would be “not a problem”.’

(Of course it’s possible that some White House officials are merely saying this in the hope it will deter McGovern and other Americans from going at all so the administration can avoid the political risks of ending up in a quandary over whether to criticise killings of Americans at the risk of AIPAC then attacking them, or not criticise them and look like they don’t care whether American peace activists are killed)

CNN reports that Secretary of State Clinton has said she doesn’t think the flotilla “is useful or productive or helpful to the people of Gaza.” and that “We have certainly encouraged that American citizens not participate in the flotilla…to avoid any kind of confrontation.” while ‘State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland criticized what she called "irresponsible and provocative actions that risk the safety of their passengers."’ (3).

As Murray (who spent years dealing with the international law of the sea in the British Foreign Office) pointed out at the time the Israeli boarding and attack on civilian vessels crewed by unarmed civilians in international waters was a breach of international law and an act of war.

Surviving passengers on the ships said Israeli forces fired on them before and during boarding contradicting Israeli military claims that their forces only fired after being fired on (4).

The UN investigation into the Israeli boarding of the 2010 flotilla vessels confirmed this, finding that Israeli forces fired live ammunition at the ships’ passengers from helicopters which they boarded from. It also found that while some of the crew of the Mavi Marmara attacked the Israeli troops as they boarded and stabbed one, they did not fire on Israeli forces with pistols stolen from them, as claimed by the Israeli military, but emptied some of ammunition and threw others in the sea. Israeli forces responded with a mixture of live fire from the boarders and helicopters and paint ball fire.  Some “non-lethal” weapons such as “bean bag” guns and plastic bullets were in fact responsible for some of the deaths, having been fired at point blank range at the faces or heads of flotilla members by Israeli forces (5).

Amnesty International found the Israeli military investigation of it’s own operation was ‘a whitewash’ (6).

While a minority of the Mavi Marmara’s crew fought Israeli forces with lengths of wood, metal railings from the ships and in one case possibly a knife there is no evidence to back up Israeli claims they were fired on or that there were guns on board the ships, or that Israeli forces supposedly came under fire first. (7).

If the Israeli government’s intention is to influence world opinion in favour of it’s blockade of Gaza it’s attack on the Gaza aid flotilla in 2010 backfired badly, resulting in Obama saying that the Gaza blockade was against Israel’s interests. If they do the same this time and some of the dead are Americans it may backfire even more badly.

After the Israeli attacks, the head of Mossad, Meir Dagan, told an Israeli Knesset committee that “Israel is gradually turning from an asset to the United States to a burden” (8). Dagan is no wild liberal. He was appointed by the notorious serial war criminal Ariel Sharon, who found no faults with him. Netanyahu has since sacked Dagan for saying his and Defence Minister Ehud Barak’s policies of refusing any compromise with the Palestinians and threatening war on Iran are “reckless” (9).  

Other former heads of Mossad and Shin Bet (Israeli military intelligence) and a former Israeli foreign minister have been even more critical of Israeli governments under Labour and Likud, saying they should be negotiating with Hamas without preconditions)

There is a real risk Netanyahu and Barak will order armed attacks on the new Gaza flotilla anyway though.

Murray has suggested that the attitudes in the Obama administration revealed by his and McGovern’s contacts shows that the Obama administration ‘wants more dead Rachel Corries’.

American human rights activist Rachel Corrie was run over and killed by the driver of an Israeli bulldozer in March 2003 in Gaza when she lay down in front of the home of a Palestinian pharmacist to try to prevent it’s destruction by Israeli military forces. Multiple eyewitnesses from the International Solidarity Movement of which she was a part said the driver could clearly see her and Israeli soldiers in a nearby tank had shouted to her by name and swore at her repeatedly. All this is confirmed by Human Rights Watch’s investigations. Yet the Israeli government then reported after and “investigation” that Corrie had not been run over by a bulldozer (in direct contradiction of the autopsy) (10).

The IfAmericansKnew website has a very well sourced and researched article on myths and facts about Corrie and her death here.

(Israeli destruction of Palestinian homes has accelerated since, especially in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, but also on the borders of Gaza) (11) – (13). A ship named after Corrie followed after the 2010 flotilla to try and sail to Gaza. It was boarded by Israeli forces but no-one was hurt (14))

She was one of many foreign human rights activists, UN staff and aid workers from countries whose governments are allies of Israel who have been killed by Israeli forces, others including British International Solidarity Movement member Tom Hurndall, who was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper while trying to protect children who were at risk of being hit by the snipers (15).

The Greek government has claimed that the US flagged and crewed ‘Audacity of Hope’ is not seaworthy to sail in order to try to prevent it sailing (16). It seems likely this is the result of either US government pressure via it’s influence with the IMF, with which Greek’s government is negotiating a bail-out, or else the result of Greek government fears that if it doesn’t go out of it’s way to try to please the US government the IMF will be even harsher in debt negotiations.

The Guardian reports that the Israeli government has also told journalists planning to travel with the flotilla that their equipment would be confiscated and they will be banned from Israel for 10 years if they do so ; and circulated a faked video which was supposedly about a gay rights activist being banned from joining the flotilla due to Hamas’ homophobia (17).

This propaganda campaign echoes supposed Israeli recordings of Gaza flotilla members in 2010 making anti-Semitic references to Auschwitz and September 11^th  before the boardings, which the UN investigation found to be fakes (see page 24 of the report) (18).

They have also made statements about a secret group of violent activists who have infiltrated the flotilla, providing no evidence to back up their claims (19).

For more on the Israeli blockade of Gaza, which allows some supplies in, but not nearly enough and prevents Palestinians exporting agricultural or other produce – and on the facts about Israel, Hamas and Fatah - see this post and this page and  this one and this one and this one and this one.

(1) = BBC News 31 May 2010 ‘Deaths as Israeli forces storm Gaza aid ship’,http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10195838

(2) = ABC News 03 Jun 2010 ‘American, 19, Among Gaza Flotilla Dead’, http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Media/american-killed-gaza-aid-flotilla/story?id=10814848

(3) = CNN 26 Jun 2011 ‘Israel denies fiscal pressure on Greece to block flotilla boats’, http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/06/26/israel.gaza.flotilla/index.html

(4) = guardian.co.uk 01 Jun 2010 ‘Israelis opened fire before boarding Gaza flotilla, say released activists’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/01/gaza-flotilla-eyewitness-accounts-gunfire

(5) = UN Human Rights Council 27 Sep 2010 ‘Report of the international fact-finding mission to investigate violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, resulting from the Israeli attacks on the flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian assistance’, pages 25 – 31 , http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,,COUNTRYREP,ISR,,4cd3a8e32,0.html   ; Also see this link and numbered sources at the bottom of it

(6) = Amnesty International 31 May 2010 ‘Israeli killings of Gaza ship activists must be investigated’,http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/israeli-killings-gaza-ship-activists-must-be-investigated-2010-05-31

(7) = See (5) above

(8) = Haaretz 01 Jun 2010 ‘Mossad chief: Israel gradually becoming burden on U.S.’, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/mossad-chief-israel-gradually-becoming-burden-on-u-s-1.293540

(9) = guardian.co.uk 03 Jan 2011 'Israel government 'reckless and irresponsible' says ex-Mossad chief', http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/03/israel-government-reckless-mossad-chief

(10) = Human Rights Watch 2005 ‘Promoting Impunity - The Israeli Military’s Failure to Investigate Wrongdoing’ Part VI, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2005/iopt0605/8.htm#_Toc106249199

(11) = Guardian 15 Jun 2009 ‘Report highlights increasing Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/15/israeli-demolitions-palestinian-homes

(12) = Independent 23 Jun 2011 ‘Razing of Palestinian homes picking up speed’,http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/razing-of-palestinian-homes-picking-up-speed-2301367.html

(13) = Guardian 07 Mar 2009 ‘Israel annexing East Jerusalem, says EU’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/07/israel-palestine-eu-report-jerusalem

(14) = Guardian.co.uk 05 Jun 2010 ‘Israeli forces board the Rachel Corrie’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/05/israel-rachel-corrie-gaza-ship

(15) = See (10) above

(16) = CNN 26 Jun 2011 ‘Israel denies fiscal pressure on Greece to block flotilla boats’, http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/06/26/israel.gaza.flotilla/index.html

(17) = guardian.co.uk 28 jun 2011 ‘Israel steps up campaign to stop flotilla sailing to Gaza in defiance of blockade’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/28/israel-gaza-flotilla-campaign

(18) = UN Human Rights Council 27 Sep 2010 ‘Report of the international fact-finding mission to investigate violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, resulting from the Israeli attacks on the flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian assistance’, page 24 , http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,,COUNTRYREP,ISR,,4cd3a8e32,0.html

(19) = See (13) above

Private creditors and banks' refusal to write down Greek debts likely to lead to Argentina style default

The Guardian has reported that German Chancellor Angela Merkel tried to get Greece’s private sector creditors, including the banks, to forgive some of Greece’s debts to them as part of a bail-out package for the Greek government. Some IMF and other economists argued for the same thing (1) – (2). The banks and other private creditors refused (3).

If they continue in their greed in refusing to give up any of the money owed to them Greece will most likely default on it’s debts and they will get not one penny.

French President Nicholas Sarkozy has claimed that leaving the Euro is not an option for either France or Greece as if they did their debts would still be denominated in Euros, the Greek and French currency would be worth far less than 1 euro per unit of currency and so their debt would effectively increase (4).

However if Greece has defaulted on all it’s debts this would not be a problem for them. It might affect their balance of payments negatively (i.e increase the value of what they import compared to what they export) but compared to the harsh conditions set for bail-out and the massive size of Greece’s debts this might seem like a minor problem.

The IMF and Greece’s governmental creditors in the EU have set the usual conditions of privatisation of public services and assets, sacking of public sector employees and cuts in welfare payments (5).

The privatisations demanded include the privatisation of water, which will price many of the poorest out of being able to afford water at all. Privatisation of water supplies led to cholera epidemics when it was done in South Africa as many people couldn’t afford piped water any more; and to riots in Cochabamba in Bolivia after the foreign water firms who bought up Bolivian water infrastructure started charging for the entire cost of new investments by raising prices in advance to cover the whole cost of major investments up front (6)  - (9).

They also include electricity (10). This would remove the revenues of one of the few public services that could turn a profit from government.

If the Greek government agrees to all this the likelihood is that the country will be tipped into a second even worse ‘double dip’ recession. Given that and massive public opposition to the rescue package conditions, since most Greeks don’t see why they should pay for the decisions of bankers and politicians who caused the crisis through lobbying for and implementing deregulation of the financial sector across most of the developed world, it seems likely the Greek government will either have to default, partially or entirely, on it’s debts, or else it will fall and whatever government replaces it will be forced to.

The IMF and EU conditions on the bail out are not addressing the main cause of Greece's debts either. This is tax avoidance through corruption. Many people and companies who can afford to, bribe officials or politicians to allow them to evade taxes altogether, resulting in the gap between tax revenues and government expenditure and placing the tax burden on those who can least afford it - the people and small businesses who can't afford to pay bribes (along with those who could but decide it would be wrong to) (11).

Defaulting on a large percentage of their other foreign debts did not work out badly for Argentina, in fact leading to it finally getting out of a situation of mass unemployment and massive debt. The debt default and repudiation of IMF conditions was followed by rapid growth which was interrupted briefly in 2009 by a recession caused by the global financial crisis, followed by more rapid growth. (The table on this link shows Argentina’s growth rate since 2002 if you change the start year to 2002.)   (12) – (14).

 Argentina did have help from Venezuela’s government, which had a surplus when oil prices were high due to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and tension over whether there’d be war with Iran. Venezuela funded Argentina paying off it’s debts to the IMF. Foreign creditors were then forced to accept 25% of the money initially owed to them (15) – (16).

As a result last year Argentina was  able to pay off  it’s debts at a rate equivalent to creditors getting 51% of what was initially owed to them despite suffering a recession due to the global financial crisis and having to default on debt payments again in 2009 (17) – (18).

Development economist Ha Joon Chang has pointed out that many developing countries have defaulted on their debts without disaster ensuing in the past and they were rapidly able to get new loans from new investors (19).

The IMF is usually far more concerned with what is good for foreign creditors than what’s good for the people of countries it’s imposing conditions on for loans and grants, because it’s funded by the richest countries and they appoint it’s head.

 

(1) = guardian.co.uk 17 Jun 2011 ‘Germany climbs down over Greece bailout demands’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/17/greece-bailout-germany-private-banks

(2) = guardian.co.uk 03 Jun 2011 ‘Anger mounts in Greece as eurozone ministers edge nearer to bailout deal’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jun/03/greece-debt-crisis-second-bailout-talks

(3) = See (1) above

(4) = EU business 27 Jun 2011 ‘Sarkozy says France will propose new plan to aid Greece’, http://www.reuters.com/video/2011/06/27/greece-debates-new-austerity-plan?videoId=216516632

(5) = Reuters 14 May 2011 ‘EU,IMF pushing Greece to fully privatise utilities – reports’,http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/14/greece-economy-idUSLDE74D02920110514

(6) = See (5) above

(7) = J. Pauw (2003)‘The politics of underdevelopment: metered to death-how a water experiment caused riots and a cholera epidemic’ in  Int J Health Serv. 2003;33(4):819-30. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14758861

(8) = Water Justice 19 Oct 2004 ‘The UK Government and Water Privatisation’,http://www.waterjustice.org/analysis.php?componentID=2&articleID=83

(9) = The Nation 28 Jan 2005 ‘The Politics of Water in Bolivia’,  http://www.thenation.com/article/politics-water-bolivia

(10) = See (5) above

(11) = BBC Radio 4, 11 Feb 2010 'From Our Own Correspondent - No Tax Please we're Greek', http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8509244.stm

(12) = BBC News 21 Nov 2002 ‘Crisis-hit Argentina defaults on debt’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2471617.stm

(13) = Guardian 02 Apr 2009 ‘Argentina heads for return of debt default that 'left it out of the world' seven years ago’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/02/argentina-debts-economic-crisis

(14) = Trading Economics -  ‘Argentina GDP Growth rate’, http://www.tradingeconomics.com/argentina/gdp-growth

(15) = guardian.co.uk 19 Dec 2005 ‘Goodbye and Good Riddance’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2005/dec/19/argentina.internationalnews

(16) = See (11) above

(17) = Guardian.co.uk 16 Apr 2010 ‘Argentina to repay 2001 debt as Greece struggles to avoid default’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/16/argentina-to-repay-2001-debt

(18) = See (12) above

(19) = Ha Joon Chang (2010) ‘23 Things they don’t tell you about capitalism’, Allen Lane, 2010

Amnesty finds Libyan rebels lied about Gaddafi rape orders, mercenaries and anti-aircraft guns - and says some protesters might have been armed

In case anyone else hasn’t seen it yet there’s an article in the Independent newspaper quoting Amnesty International investigators saying they’ve found no evidence to support the Libyan rebels’ claims that Gaddafi ordered his troops to rape women and that much of the rebels’ supposed evidence for it was manufactured, along with some of their other claims.

Rebel claims that Gaddafi was using black African mercenaries have also been found false by Amnesty, with those ‘mercenaries’ shown to journalists by the rebels being migrant workers. Some black migrant workers in Benghazi were murdered as a result of the rumours.

Amnesty’s investigation also found it’s possible some of the protesters killed by Gaddafi’s forces in Benghazi and Baidi at the start of the uprising may have been armed (though they’re not certain of this) and that there was no evidence of anti-aircraft weapons being used against the protesters, only kalashnikovs (that last one isn’t a big difference but is more evidence that the rebels’ claims include at least as much propaganda as Gaddafi’s claims do)

This confirms my earlier suspicions that both sides were putting out a lot of false propaganda and that we should take claims about what was going on in Libya with a pinch of salt.

It also makes me even more certain that US Defence Secretary Robert Gates’ claim that Gaddafi’s people are killing people and then moving the bodies about from one place to another to pretend they were all killed in NATO air strikes is recycled propaganda similar to that he used (and later admitted was false) in relation to the Taliban and US air strikes in Afghanistan.

I don’t doubt Gaddafi is involved in some propaganda too. It seems highly unlikely that all the rebels are Al Qa’ida, as he claims they are ; and one member of a hospital’s staff gave journalists a note saying that a baby who Gaddafi’s spokesmen said had been injured by a NATO air strike was actually hurt in a car crash.

NATO has admitted it was responsible for other air strikes attempting to assassinate Gaddafi and members of his government and military by airstrike – and in those cases children were, very predictably, killed.

We should beware of claims about the war in Libya made by Gaddafi’s people, the rebels and NATO government and military spokespeople unless corroborated by journalists (doing more than just repeating them) or human rights groups. None of them are all that reliable – and even Amnesty has sometimes been fooled for a few months till it got to investigate further on the ground, though not often.

Of course this doesn't mean Gaddafi and his forces haven't committed any war crimes against civilians. For instance Amnesty has reported Grad rocket attacks by his forces on Misratah from April through to this month by his forces, which is indiscriminate fire which they know will kill civilians whether they're aiming to hit rebels or not - and Amnesty also reported evidence of sniper fire on civilians in Misrata in April (3) – (4).

(1) = Independent 24 Jun 2011 ‘Amnesty questions claim that Gaddafi ordered rape as weapon of war’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/amnesty-questions-claim-that-gaddafi-ordered-rape-as-weapon-of-war-2302037.html

(2) = Channel 4 News (UK) 09 Jun 2011 ‘Gaddafi ordered rape attacks as weapon of war- ICC’, http://www.channel4.com/news/gaddafi-ordered-rape-attacks-as-tactic-of-war-icc

(3) Amnesty International 05 May 2011 ‘Libya: Attacks against Misratah residents point to war crimes’,http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/libya-attacks-against-misratah-residents-point-war-crimes-2011-05-05

(4) = Amnesty International 23 Jun 2011 ‘Libya: Renewed rocket attacks target civilians in Misratah’,http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/libya-renewed-rocket-attacks-target-civilians-misratah-2011-06-23

More on the oil motive for NATO's intervention in Libya

The difference between the Gaddafi government’s oil policies and those that oil importing governments (such as NATO countries) and companies based in them would prefer are one of the main motives for NATO’s military intervention in Libya – and certainly more of a real motive than protection of civilians.

(A previous post covered some of this and the parallels between US intervention in Libya and in Iran and Venezuela – all primarily due to disputes over oil profits and control of production levels.)

Libya experts like Geoff Simons and Ronald Bruce St. John have described the Gaddafi government’s oil policy as one of playing foreign oil companies off against one another to ensure the best returns for Libya, in deals that get the country the investment and expertise it requires for oil exploration and production. From the beginning Gaddafi’s government used the threat of possible nationalisation in negotiations – a threat that has remained credible as they have sometimes carried it out (e.g in September 1973). (1) – (2).

St. John wrote that ‘In retrospect it seems obvious that the RCC [Revolutionary Command Council including Gaddafi] was determined from the start to reduce oil production to conserve supplies, increase oil revenues by maximising the price, develop upstream and downstream capabilities, and use oil revenues to diversify the economy’ (3).

(‘Upstream’ refers to exploration to find oil and production (i.e extraction) , ‘downstream’ usually means storage, refining e.g oil into petrol, distribution and sale.)

While the details of Gaddafi’s policy have varied, the key aims have remained the same. These aims have often conflicted with the aims of oil importing countries (including all NATO countries) and the oil companies based in them. In his book ‘Fuel on the Fire’ Greg Muttit quotes a report by the US Center for Strategic and International Studies, written by former members of the CIA, US government and American oil companies in 2000. They concluded that, with the increase in demand from developing economies like China, India and Brazil, the ideal scenario from the point of view of oil importers and oil companies based in them would be a 50% increase in production by 2020 to allow oil companies to profit fully from the growing demand and to maintain oil prices at a level low enough to allow continued economic growth in oil importing countries (4).

It’s also likely that Libya developing it’s own refineries (and it’s acquisition of the European oil refining firm Tamoil in 1986 (5)) cut into profits the oil companies could make from refining oil and selling the more valuable final products such as petrol back to Libya, as they do in some oil rich countries (e.g Nigeria ) (6).

The three countries who the CSIS report said would have to maximise production to achieve the 50% increase were Iraq, Iran and Libya – whose production levels were all limited by US government and/or UN sanctions (7). Lifting these sanctions without getting governments who had defied the US either replaced or made to make big concessions would result in huge loss of face and influence for the US government. So the US and it’s allies invaded Iraq and got contracts with their oil companies negotiated while the occupation and insurgency continued, forcing the Iraqi government to negotiate from a position of weakness. They’ve imposed sanctions on Iran and continue to threaten possible military action against it; and they’ve imposed Iraq style sanctions on and carried out air strikes in Libya.

The overthrow of Saddam Hussein failed to promote democracy in the Arab world, but it certainly promoted the interests of US and British oil companies. They got contracts on very favourable terms with the government of Iraq, while hundreds of thousands of their troops and mercenaries were still there (8) – (9). A week after Saddam Hussein was captured by US forces Gaddafi agreed to inspections of it’s nuclear facilities which would be accompanied by the return of US oil companies to Libya, later followed by BP (10) – (12).

While Gaddafi had allowed western oil companies contracts in Libya before the current fighting he was also haggling for a higher share of oil profits from them and hinting at the possibility of nationalisation if they refused. American oil companies became worried he might kick them out (13) – (14).

Oil profits, prices and supplies are one of the real motives for NATO’s intervention in Libya.

(1) = Ronald Bruce St. John (2008) ‘Libya From Colony to Independence’,  Oneworld Paperback/Oxford, especially Chapter 8, p145 -148; Chapter 7, p174 – 177;Chapter 9, p250-254, p 260

(2) = Geoff Simons (1996) ‘Libya the struggle for survival’ 2^nd edition, MacMillan, London, 1996, paperback

(3) = St. John (see 1 above), Chapter 6, page 145

(4) = Center for Strategic International Studies  (2000) ‘The geopolitics of energy into the 21st century’ cited by Gregg Muttitt (2011) ‘Fuel on the fire’, The Bodley Head, London, 2011; chapter 3, pages 35 and 370

(5) = St. John (see 1 above), Chapter7, page 176

(6) = BBC News 6 Jul 2010 ‘China to build $8bn oil refinery in Nigeria’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10527308

(7) = See (4) above

(8) = Gregg Muttitt (2011) ‘Fuel on the fire’, The Bodley Head, London, 2011

(9) = AP 1 Jul 2009 ‘Iraqi government approves BP oil field offer’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/iraqi-government-approves-bp-oil-field-offer-1727287.html

(10) = Jordan Times 23 Dec 2003 ‘Libya could provide intelligence bonanza’,http://www.aljazeerah.info/News%20archives/2003%20News%20archives/December/23n/Libya%20could%20provide%20intelligence%20bonanza.htm

(11) = See sources (55) to (59) on this link

(12) = CNN Fortune 28 Jun 2004 ‘Libya's Black Gold Rush With sanctions lifted, Big Oil is lining up to do business with Qaddafi’, http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004/06/28/374397/index.htm

(13) = CNBC 03 Mar 2009 ‘Libya Wants Greater Share of Its Oil Revenue’, http://www.cnbc.com/id/29494495

(14) = Forbes Magazine 01 Jan 2009 ‘Is Libya Going To Boot U.S. Oil Companies?’,http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/22/libya-gaddafi-oil-biz-energy-cx_ch_0122libya.html

Libya: NATO governments actions and inactions elsewhere show the intervention in Libya can't be about protecting civilians or promoting democracy

The claim constantly made by NATO governments that they have intervened militarily in Libya to protect civilians and promote democracy is obviously untrue when compared with their actions (and lack of them) in other countries.

Gaddafi’s forces certainly seem to have been killing civilians, but if that was the real motive for NATO intervention, rather than a useful pretext to cover other motives, why is there no intervention in Syria, where around 1,300 civilians are estimated to have been killed so far by snipers and tanks? (1). Why did the US and various EU governments continue to back Saleh’s dictatorship in Yemen as his snipers daily killed unarmed protesters, including children? (only stopping when it was clear Saleh wasn’t going to survive in power). Why do they continue to back the government of Bahrain after it did the same and attacked hospitals, ambulances, nurses and doctors; disappeared at least 500 people ;  and charged doctors with treason for treating the wounded? Why did they continue training Bahraini military officers in the UK during the killings? Why is the British government continuing to provide British military training to Saudi snipers, especially when Saudi troops have moved into Bahrain, with many people (including Robert Fisk) believing the harshness of the crackdown and the reversal of King Al Khalifa’s previous reforms are the result of the Saudis now being the real rulers of Bahrain, in a quiet military ccupation which may have made Al Khalifa a powerless puppet of the Saudi monarchy? At the least, Saudis snipers trained by UK forces have been training Bahraini snipers – and Bahraini snipers have targeted civilians (2) – (5).

The targeting of civilians and ambulances by US snipers in the assault on Fallujah during the Iraq war; and systematic torture by Coalition forces in Iraq and US forces in Afghanistan (albeit under Bush rather than Obama), along with US backing for the ‘El Salvador option’ in Iraq via training for police commando and ‘counter-terrorist’ death squads there, also severely undermine the idea that the US is likely to intervene militarily to protect civilians, prevent human rights abuses and promote democracy (6) – (11).

Clearly the NATO intervention in Libya is not primarily motivated by human rights or democracy or concern to protect civilians. It’s primarily about NATO governments getting votes back home by being seen to defend civilians against one dictator who has been presented as the man behind the Lockerbie bombing; and about securing oil contracts for their firms on more favourable terms; as well as trying to ensure oil prices don’t rise to the point that economic growth in their own countries is threatened, which would be likely to lose them elections.

(1) = BBC News 19 Jun 2011 ‘Syria troops 'raid town' near Turkey border’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/world-middle-east-13822249

(2) = PA 16 Jun 2011 ‘Bahrain medics accused of treason’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/bahrain-medics-accused-of-treason-2293728.html

(3) = Independent 30 May 2011 ‘UK trained Bahraini army officers even after crackdown began’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-trained-bahraini-army-officers-even-after-crackdown-began-2290781.html

(4) = guardian.co.uk 28 May 2011 ‘UK training Saudi forces used to crush Arab spring’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/28/uk-training-saudi-troops

(5) = Independent 14 Jun 2011 ‘Robert Fisk: I saw these brave doctors trying to save lives – these charges are a pack of lies’, http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-i-saw-these-brave-doctors-trying-to-save-lives-ndash-these-charges-are-a-pack-of-lies-2297100.html

(6) = Guardian 17 Apr 2004 ‘'Getting aid past US snipers is impossible'’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/apr/17/iraq

(7) = BBC News 23 Apr 2004 ‘Picture emerges of Fallujah siege’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3653223.stm

(8) = On torture in Afghanistan and Iraq see sources on this link

(9) = BBC News 27 Jan 2005 ‘‘Salvador Option’ mooted for Iraq’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4209595.stm

(10) = NYT magazine 01 May 2005 ‘The Way of the Commandos’, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/magazine/01ARMY.html

(11) = The Nation 03 Jun 2009 ‘Iraq's New Death Squad', http://www.thenation.com/article/iraqs-new-death-squad ,(Shane Bauer, the journalist who investigated and wrote the article is currently being held in jail by the Iranian government on the ludicrous charge that he is a ‘US agent’)

Libya : The homes of members of Gaddafi's government are not legitimate military targets or command and control centres

No amount of calling the houses of members of Gaddafi’s government and his advisers ‘Command and control centers’ will change the fact that in bombing them NATO know they’re likely to kill members of their families, like the airstrike that killed not only Gaddafi’s youngest son, but his three young children at the start of May ; and the more recent strike that missed one of Gaddafi’s advisers, but killed members of his family, including children – again in the family’s home (1) - (2). Those ordering attacks on the homes of members of Gaddafi’s government know they are likely to kill civilians.

If our enemies were attacking the homes of British officers or generals or members of government and killing members of their family, giving the justification that these people were part of the British command structure attacking Libya and killing civilians, would anyone take their claims that the attacks were legitimate attacks on military targets? Not for a second.

The homes and families of members of Gaddafi’s government are not the only people being killed by NATO air and missile strikes either – Libyan civilians with no connection to Gaddafi’s government or armed forces are being killed too (3).

The argument that the deaths are the fault of Gaddafi and members of his government for not sending their families somwhere safe are also empty. There is nowhere else safe for their families to go and no safe way to get there even if there was. There is fighting in the civil war and NATO air strikes across Libya. If they try to leave by plane they are likely to be shot down on suspicion that members of the regime are aboard. If they try and travel to other parts of Libya by car where will they go that's safe? - and how will they get there safely when NATO jets have even bombed convoys of rebel pick up trucks by mistake (and frequently civilians by mistake in Afghanistan)?

Strikes on ‘command and control centers’ defined as anyone involved in Gaddafi’s government or military, in the field or in their homes, should end. Rocket launchers, artillery and tanks are indisputably military targets. Houses are not. There has been a pattern in past US and NATO air campaigns from the 1991 Iraq war to Kosovo and Serbia in 1999 and Afghanistan today to redefine almost everything as a military target on spurious grounds. If this is not ended more civilians will die and no amount of deep regret expressed after each set of deaths will hide the fact that those ordering them knew the orders they had given were likely to result in deaths of civilians who would be alive if they had done the right thing and only targeted military targets. The mistaken identification of civilian targets as military is enough of a problem already – adding in civilian or grey area targets is too much.

Air strikes are almost never decisive in wars without ground forces stronger than those of the enemy to support them. Generals banned from using ground forces, as in Libya, are often tempted to forget this and think that by expanding the types of targets hit they can make air and missile strikes decisive. They can’t.

Even if civilian casualties are accidental, as in one Tripoli missile strike, they remain a reason to give a ceasefire and elections a chance – and to only target strictly military targets like tanks and artillery if the war continues (4).

(1) = Channel 4 news (UK)  01 May 2011 ‘Gaddafi’s youngest son killed in NATO airstrike’http://www.channel4.com/news/gaddafis-youngest-son-killed-in-nato-air-strike

(2) = Reuters 20 Jun 2011 ‘Fresh Libya civilian deaths pile pressure on NATO’,http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110620/wl_nm/us_libya

(3) = AFP 22 Jun 2011 ‘NATO backtracks on denials over killing of Libyan civilians’, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/nato-backtracks-on-denials-over-killing-of-civilians/story-e6frg6so-1226079527332

(4) = Sky News 20 Jun 2011 ‘Nato Admits Missile Killed Tripoli Civilians’,http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Libya-Weapon-Missed-Target-And-Killed-Civilians-In-Tripoli/Article/201106316014956

Libya - NATO and the rebels should accept Gaddafi's offer of elections as a chance to avoid a long war with more civilians killed by both sides

Gaddafi last week offered elections supervised by international observers if the rebels and NATO would agree to a ceasefire (1). Given even the chance that this might resolve the civil war and bring a transition to democracy under whoever wins those elections, this should be preferable to continuing a war in which both Gaddafi’s artillery and tank attacks and NATO airstrikes are killing civilians – and in which both Libyan civilians and migrant workers are suffering shortages of food, water and medical treatment (2) – (3).

Even if arms and training provided to the rebels by Qatar, the Saudis and NATO allow them to start defeating Gaddafi's forces they would probably have to take Tripoli in the same kind of assaults Gaddafi's forces have made on other cities, with heavy civilian casualties inevitable

Libyan rebels and the US government refused the offer of elections almost instantly (4). It’s completely understandable that, if Gaddafi did order troops to kill unarmed demonstrators, many of the rebels refuse to consider accepting any deal that does not involve the Gaddafis first giving up power, but if the aim is to provide a transition to democracy without many more civilian deaths, the offer of elections may be the best chance of getting this and they should reconsider.

There is no way any war will be over quickly or without many more deaths and it’s likely that even if one side did win, the losing side would resort to guerrilla or terrorist tactics, like the insurgency or resistance in Iraq. Taking up the offer of elections at least offers a chance of a way forward that avoids this.

(1) = Independent 16 Jun 2011 ‘Gaddafi would agree to supervised election, says son’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/gaddafi-would-agree-to-supervised-election-says-son-2298234.html

(2) = Amnesty International 06 May 2011 ‘Misratah – Under Siege and under fire’http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=19443

(3) = AFP 22 Jun 2011 ‘NATO backtracks on denials over killing of Libyan civilians’, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/nato-backtracks-on-denials-over-killing-of-civilians/story-e6frg6so-1226079527332

(4) = Al Jazeera 16 Jun 2011 ‘Libyan rebels reject election offer’,http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/06/201161621397118437.html