“I have absolutely no illusions in the Guardian, none whatsoever. My mum brought me up to read the Guardian. She said, ‘It’s a good paper you can trust’. You can’t. After their treatment of me, I do not trust the Guardian.” declassifieduk.org/exclusive-jere…
Corbyn:
"There are good people who work in the Guardian... but as a paper, it’s a tool of the British establishment. It’s a mainstream establishment paper. So, as long as everybody on the left gets it clear: when you buy the Guardian, you’re buying an establishment paper."
“The meeting with the entirety of the [Guardian] staff was fine. We then had a meeting with the editorial team. Bit different,” he adds, raising his eyebrows. “It was like I was being warned; like I was being warned by this team of actually incredibly self-important people.”
'Energy and attention should be focused on where we can do most good. With regard to international affairs that typically means focusing on the actions of one’s own state.'
'That’s particularly true in more or less democratic societies where citizens have some role in determining outcomes. To say that actual practice fails to conform to this elementary principle would be a vast understatement.'
'There is a comment attributed to Gandhi who was asked what he thought about western civilisation. His response was he thought it would be a good idea. Regrettably, the same response holds for international law. It would be a good idea if states had some interest in it.'
The type of heart-rending picture the BBC did *not* use in reporting the equally illegal 2003 US-UK invasion of Iraq. Not even when 70% of the buildings in the third city, Fallujah, were being demolished in 2004. medialens.org/2010/beyond-hi…
On November 30, 2004, the UN’s Integrated Regional Information Network reported on Fallujah, Iraq:
‘Approximately 70 percent of the houses and shops were destroyed in the city and those still standing are riddled with bullets.’ (irinnews.org)
Fallujah, 2004:
'We’ll unleash the dogs of hell, we’ll unleash ’em… They don’t even know what’s coming – hell is coming. If there are civilians in there, they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.' (Sergeant Sam Mortimer, US marines, Channel 4 News, November 8, 2004)
‘The most crucial [fact] is that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a major war crime, ranking alongside the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the Hitler-Stalin invasion of Poland in 1939, to take only two salient examples.’
‘In brief, the crisis has been brewing for 25 years as the U.S. contemptuously rejected Russian security concerns, in particular their clear red lines: Georgia and especially Ukraine.’
‘The options that remain… are grim. The least bad is support for the diplomatic options that still exist, in the hope of reaching an outcome not too far from what was very likely achievable a few days ago: Austrian-style neutralization of Ukraine, some version of Minsk II.’
The Guardian has a ‘complete visual guide’ to #UkraineRussiaCrisis that is...incomplete.
Missing:
* US helped overthrow Ukraine’s elected president in 2014
* Role of neo-Nazis in Ukraine’s politics and military
* US funded $2.5 billion of arms to Ukraine
'In nearly every case we looked at, the reports omitted the US’s extensive role in the 2014 coup that preceded Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Focusing on the latter part only serves to manufacture consent for US intervention abroad.'
The West Wants Investor-Friendly Policies in Ukraine
'The backdrop to the 2014 coup and annexation cannot be understood without looking at the US strategy to open Ukrainian markets to foreign investors and give control of its economy to giant multinational corporations.'