Thread by @StefSimanowitz

1/. 18 years ago as the bombs rained down on #Iraq as Operation Shock & Awe began, Eric Levy was in Baghdad in a power station

He'd gone to #Iraq with hundreds of human shields to try & stop an illegal war & to protect Iraqi civilians by staying in civilian infrastructure sites.

2/. Eric - now 92 - was one of about 80 human shields who stayed throughout the #IraqWar

"The war was illegal & immoral. We may have failed to stop the invasion, but by putting ourselves in harm’s way, we sent a clear message to the world"

That's courage
vice.com/en/article/kw5…

3/. In 2003, a convoy of 3 double- decker buses left London for Baghdad

On board were 50+ human shields; the first hundreds of Western
anti-war activists to travel to #Iraq

None knew what lay ahead

All of them knew that they might not be coming back. zcomm.org/zmagazine/the-…

4/. “Combining the idealism & solidarity of the International Brigades with Gandhian principles of non-violent direct action, the human shields who travelled to Iraq to try & stop the war were a new incarnation in a long tradition of protest.”
@CNN👉 edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/mea…

5/. The human shield movement arose in response to a frustration at the efficacy of traditional forms of protest

Marches, petitions & candle-lit vigils remain crucial devices but are easily disregarded by politicians

So new brand forms of protest emerge.
redpepper.org.uk/the-ones-that-…

6/. The departure of the shields from London was covered by every major news network & coverage continued as hundreds of others of flew directly to Iraq

But as war drew nearer, media became more hostile

“Human shields? Call me if one of them gets killed,” one journalist told me

7/ Some years after the #IraqWar @johnpilger interviewed some key journalists

@ragehomaar admitted: “I didn’t really do my job properly. We didn’t push the uncomfortable buttons hard enough”

@DanRather went further: “The war made stenographers out of us"
medium.com/@stefanowitz/h…

8/ “If people really knew the truth, the war would be stopped tomorrow,” said CP Scott during WW1. “But of course they don’t know & can’t know”

It would be comforting to think that lessons have been learned from Iraq & other wars

But I doubt it

@Oprah👇

9/. “You call us courageous, but we’re only doing what we have to do. We have no more choice in doing what we do than the sun has choice to rise each day. Perhaps that’s what courage is” (E Warner)

Eric doesn’t view himself as courageous

“Have you met who was?”

“Paul Robeson”

10/. None of the human shields in #Iraq were killed or injured

Unlike in the 1991 Gulf war, none of the sites they were protecting were targeted

Tragically, Tom Hurndall (21), who left Baghdad for Palestine before the war, was killed by an Israeli sniper
theguardian.com/artanddesign/2…

11/. The #IraqWar lasted only 5 weeks but the fallout is still being felt, 18 years later

We know our govts & media don’t always tell us the full truth, but they never tell bigger, more blatant, more obvious lies than before, during & after times of war.

12/. “I saw things like this happen in Iraq”

In 2003 @JohnSimpsonNews, who was injured by ‘friendly fire’ while reporting from Iraq, accused US troops in Iraq of “trigger-happy" behaviour

Eleven years after @wikileaks published Collateral Murder, no one has been held to account

13/. After the #Iraq war, many journalists held up their hands & admitted they hadn’t done their jobs properly

“There was a fear in every newsroom. A fear of losing your job...the fear of being stuck with some label, unpatriotic or otherwise." Dan Rather

14/. “Journalist had very little choice but to accept our version of events & relay it more-or-less unedited to the public. Govt is an information machine. If journalists weren’t supportive we’d freeze them out” Ex civil servant @carneross

Sound familiar?

15/. Since the start of the #COVID19 crisis it’s felt like many journalists haven’t been “pushing the buttons hard enough”

At a time of national crisis, the media are inevitably called into line

But digging beneath the official line - asking “why” - is vital

Now more than ever

16/. On “the science”, why are Ministers not challenged on claims they “didn’t know” about asymptomatic transmission or asked where the unscientific concept of “behavioural fatigue” came from or why the UK went down a #HerdImmunity path or about the work of #Palantir & #GenomeUK?

17/. The #HerdImmunityScandal isn’t an accidental mistake that the govt “pivoted” away from on 16 March

It was - & perhaps remains - part of a deliberate strategy

This leads to the next “Why?”

Does the answer lie In the #PalantirPlan & #GenomeUK?

This THREAD👇has some clues

18/. The central role of #Palantir & their connection with genomics needs urgent scrutiny

Incredibly, #GeneomeUK - the new decade-long strategy that will transform the NHS & put genomics at the heart of the programme for govt - has had almost no coverage

19/. Why was #GenomeUK launched on a Sat with zero fanfare or coverage?

Why did the Dept of Trade sent out this “invitation to invest”?

“The UK offers companies...active life sciences & increasingly expanding access to rich longitudinal data from the NHS’s 65 million patients”

20/. So does this mean the govt is sharing private NHS health data for research purposes?

I asked the Dept of Health in Oct but haven’t had a reply

The initial deadline to opt out of the scheme was 30 Sept, but opt out isn’t possible during a pandemic.
nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-…

21/. “We have a duty to do more especially with data that the govt itself holds which can be used & shared for the benefit of society”

Govt's data strategy hints at the almost evangelical belief in removing all barriers to the unfettered use of genomics.
gov.uk/government/pub…

22/. This zeal for the transformative power of genomics or ‘positive eugenics’, won’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s followed Peter Thiel or read Cummings

Genomics are transformative

In the right hands & properly regulated, they’re a force for good

But in the wrong hands👇

23/. “You ask for forgiveness not permission” Peter Thiel

Genomics limited to somatic cells affects individuals, but germline technology means changes pass to future generations

It could reshape humans & transform society

It’s popular with the far-right

24/. We already know that Big Tech mine & sell our data, but the new frontier lies not in our consumer behaviour, but in our biological selves

It’s perhaps not surprising that such a project should be ‘top secret’ & overseen by the intelligence services on both sides of the pond

25/. This diagram👆suggests the US & have a joint/parallel #COVID19 strategy, giving military-backed data-mining company, #Palantir, access to heath data on a mass scale

Recognising the centrality of genomics throws a new light on the PM’s “Britain as Superman” #GreenwichSpeech

26/. This diagram also shows the move by the #PalantirThree to the Trump admin in Feb/March 2017

Kevin Harrington > Dep Asst to the President for strategic planning

Michael Kratsios > WH deputy Chief Tech Officer

Justin Mikolay > Special Asst to Sec of Defence

No coincidence!

27/. Those sounding the loudest warnings haven’t been journalists but political insiders who know all about govt lies (Powell/Campbell)

@jnpowell1 wrote “This looks like the beginning of a rolling coup. It starts with the civil service then moves on to the judiciary & the media”

28/. “We’ve arranged a society based on science & technology, in which nobody understands anything about science & technology. This combustible mixture of ignorance & power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces.” Carl Sagan

That time is now👇

29/. You mightn’t have heard of them, but #Palantir are running the NHS #COVID digital platform & the HHS platform in US

They’re also working with dozens of govts around the world on data-driven #coronavirus responses

Could Palantir hoover up genetic data of entire populations?