Those of us in the West must resist our own governing systems, or we are complicit.
Counter protests, for and against Israel in London, May 25, 2024. (Alisdare Hickson, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
By Craig Murray
CraigMurray.org.uk
In Murder in Samarkand I describe how as a British ambassador, when I discovered the full extent of our complicity in torture in the War on Terror, I thought it must be a rogue operation and all I had to do was make ministers and senior officials aware and they would stop it.
When I was reprimanded and officially told that receipt of intelligence from torture in the “War on Terror” was approved from the prime minister and foreign secretary down, and it became clear to me that there was a deliberate promoting of false intelligence narratives through torture, which exaggerated the Al Qaida threat to justify military policy in Afghanistan and Central Asia, my worldview was severely shaken.
Somehow I mentally compartmentalised this as an aberration, due to overreaction to 9/11 and the unique narcissism and viciousness of then Prime Minister Tony Blair.
I did not lose faith in Western democracy or the notion that the Western powers, on the whole, were a positive force when contrasted with other powers.
It is a hard thing to lose the entire belief system in which you were brought up — probably particularly hard if like me, you had a very happy life right from childhood and were highly successful within the terms of the governmental system.
I have however now finally shed the last of my illusions and I am obliged to acknowledge that the system of which I am a part – call it “the West,” “liberal democracy,” “capitalism,” “neo-liberalism,” “neo-conservatism,” “imperialism,” “the New World Order” — call it what you will in fact, it is a force for evil.
Gaza has been an important catalyst. I am not lacking in empathy, but my knowledge of the horrid butchery by the Western powers in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya was an intellectual knowledge, not a lived experience.
Technology has brought us the Gaza genocide – which has so far killed fewer people than any of those earlier NATO- member perpetrated massacres – in gut wrenching detail.
I have just been looking at 75kg bags of mixed human meat handed over to relatives in lieu of an identifiable corpse, and am in shock.
A journalist asked me how I "feel" about Gaza today. How am I supposed to feel in the face of a Western-sponsored army relentlessly butchering people trapped in what resembles a circle of Dante's Hell?
I feel sick. https://t.co/ts5Cc1ay9u
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) August 10, 2024
That is not the worst we have seen in Gaza.
Mosul & Fallujah
If only the people of Mosul and Fallujah had had modern mobile phone technology, what horrors we would know.
Incidentally, I tried to find you some images of the massive U.S. destruction of Mosul and Fallujah in 2002-2004 and Google won’t give me any. It will, however, offer thousands of images from fighting there with ISIL in 2017. Which rather underlines my point about the extraordinary lack of imagery of the Second Iraq War.
Of the current genocide in Gaza, again I found myself naively thinking at some point this will stop. That Western politicians would not in fact countenance the total destruction of Gaza.
That there would be a limit to the number of Palestinian civilian deaths they could accept, the number of U.N. facilities, schools and hospitals destroyed, the number of little children torn into shreds.
I thought that at some stage human decency must outweigh Zionist lobby cash.
But I was wrong.
The Ukrainian Attack on Kursk
In July 1943, U.S.-supplied tanks of the Red Army infantry division advance to the frontline of the Battle of Kursk. (Mil.ru, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)
The Ukrainian attack into Kursk also has a profound emotional resonance. The Battle of Kursk was arguably the most important blow struck against Nazi Germany, the largest tank battle in the history of the world by a wide margin.
The Ukrainian government has destroyed all the monuments to the Red Army which achieved this, and denigrates the Ukrainians who fought against fascism.
By contrast, it honours the very substantial Ukrainian components of the Nazi forces, including but not limited to, the Galician Division and their leaders.
[See: On the Influence of Neo-Nazism in Ukraine]
Kursk is therefore a place of great symbolism for Ukraine to attack now into Russia, including with German artillery and armour.
German politicians seem to have an atavistic urge to attack Russia, and support the genocide of Palestinians to an astonishing degree.
Germany has effectively ended all freedom of speech on Palestine, banning conferences of distinguished speakers and making pro-Palestinian speech illegal. Germany has intervened on Israel’s side in the genocide case before the ICJ, and intervened at the ICC to object to an arrest warrant against Netanyahu.
I do not know how many civilian dead would assuage German lust for the expiatory blood of Palestinians — 500,000? 1 Million? 2 Million?
Or perhaps 6 Million?
The West are not the good guys. Our so-called “democratic systems” give us no ability to vote for anybody who may get into power who does not support the genocide and imperialist foreign policy.
It is not an accident and it is not genius that makes a man-child like Elon Musk worth $100 billion. The power structures of society are deliberately designed by those with wealth to promote massive concentration of wealth in favour of those who already have it, exploiting and disempowering the rest of society.
The rise of the multi-billionaires is not a fluke. It is a plan, and the misallocation of more than adequate resources is the cause of poverty. The attempt to shift blame onto the desperate constituents of waves of immigration forced into life by Western destruction of foreign countries, is also systematic.
There is no longer any free space for dissent in the media to oppose any of this.
We are the Bad Guys. We resist our own governing systems, or we are complicit.
In the United Kingdom it falls to the Celtic nations to try to break up the state which is a subordinate but important imperialist engine. The paths of resistance are various, depending where you are.
But find one and take one.
Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010. His coverage is entirely dependent on reader support. Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
This article is from CraigMurray.org.uk.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Thank you Craig. You are right, we are not the good guys we thought we were. This is an uncomfortable conclusion to arrive at, but it is the inevitable conclusion of any honest right-minded person who manages to throw off the blanket of Western propaganda and censorship under which they were raised.
The English speakers and their colonial descendants sure have kept intact the traditional devastating aggressiveness and deep class divisions, haven’t they? While at the same time trying to convince the world that their motivation has always been their superior Enlightenment ideals.
I believed in those ideals, too. But when a neolib elite usurped the U.S. Dem party, then dumped the New Deal and abandoned the entire majority working class, I couldn’t keep ignoring the truth.
Thanks for explaining why Kursk. However, there’s nothing “neo” about it–celebration of the WWII Ukrainians allied with the Nazis has been going on ever since. Openly so since the fall of the USSR.
“…it is a force for evil.” That’s the terrible reality. We’re in thrall to a western neolib/neocon cabal. These few have no limits as to what they will do to preserve their failing empire.
The U.S. Dem party has used ‘the lesser of two evils’ argument for decades. The adage when someone shows you who they are, believe them certainly fits here. Consider what the Dem claim really means–they’re part of the evil! The title of Chris Hedges’ 2022 book says it clearly: “The Greatest Evil Is War.” No ‘lesser’ about it. Yet too many citizens of western countries are still in denial; they actively avoid looking at the horror.
While courageous journalists who report the truth are deplatformed or imprisoned.
Thank you for your superb recognition of our tribalist delusions, which are so painful to cast off.
The social and economic dependencies of most upon their tribe makes them fear dissent, the perfect opportunity for the tyrant personalities of every tribe, who demand power as defenders, and start wars to elevate themselves and reward supporters.
Those who dedicate our lives to truth and justice are rarely appreciated and often demonized as tribal enemies.
As H.L. Mencken put it “The average man avoids the truth as diligently as he avoids arson, regicide, and piracy on the high seas, and for the same reasons: it is dangerous, no good can come of it, and it doesn’t pay.”
I am American not British, and I never worked within my government other than my time in the U.S. Marine Corps. Nevertheless, I resonated with the emotions expressed in this article. To lose completely the faith one had in “the system,” the Western way, has been difficult. But the evidence is to compelling. Yes, we are the evil ones.
I submit that Western governments are all banker colonies. They have nothing to do with democracy or any of the warm and fuzzy pronouncements from on high we are subjected to ad nauseam. Foreign policy has always been about increasing profits for the ruling class. It took me until I reached my 40s to finally reach the conclusion that western governments were not governments at all. They throw us a few crumbs in order to prop up the illusion that we have representation. We are learning the hard way that this master class has no compunction about slaughtering millions if they think it will maintain their supremacy over humanity. With the advent of nuclear weapons, it is near impossible to restrain their blood lust. It is going to take something like a sustained global worker strike to shut this death machine down. Make them go bankrupt. Not an easy thing to plan and carry out. I just don’t see any other solution. Although the BRICS may assist in that effort by de-dollarizing the global economy.
Germany’s support for Israel partly, if not fully, stems from it being an occupied nation. Both the USA and UK refused to sign a peace treaty with ANY German regime since 1945. Thusly, the German government is nothing more than a puppet regime, brutally held down by those who are the attack dogs for the evil ones in City of London and Wall Street. Their long-held aim is to keep Germany down and Russia out.
For many decades Britain, a member of the Five Eyes since the end of WWII has been a pawn, a vassal and complicit in war crimes and other delicacies along with the other members of that unholy brotherhood. Therefore not only America but all of them qualify for the gallows. Only regime change will bring about a settling of accounts to the guilty parties.
I agree, but I would say the UK is not a vassal, it is a Jr. Partner in the continuation of the Anglo-US hegemony and empire. The British Empire’s baton was handed off to the new superpower after WWI and WWII financially bankrupted the UK. The US in many ways is continuing a long tradition of British foreign policy. Many of the same interests in the UK benefit, just ask the folks at BAE systems and Tony Blair
As usual, I agree with you, Jonny. When you learn that the Brits had everything to do with the creation of the CIA — when the OSS was supposed to be disbanded after WWII — are still exploiting their former colonies for whatever they can steal, when they allow their government to be under the fist of the ethno-state just like the US is, I think “vassal” is a little weak. USUK is a joint venture.
I agree that the UK is not a vassal, it is a partner. People think that because the UK is a small island with a small military, compared with the US, that it must not be an important player. But the UK remains a major player in the financial realm. All that wealth that flows upwards to the elites, much of it is flowing through the City of London and out to the 15 or so tax havens the UK still owns around the world.
We the people of the USA are being run not by the good guys. What happened on 9/11/01 was an inside job to begin with. A corporation is not a person. Russiagate was a false flag. The genocide of Palestinians is evil. Russia was provoked in invading
Ukraine by US staging 2014 coup.
How many times does the vast American nation have to read or hear of the criminality of its government before SOP is no longer a consideration? Americans are presented two inadequate choices to lead by a contemptible billionaire class that is high on its own fines.
Too many still refuse to accept that humanity is being stared down by an injured planet, and vigorous ideologists who can’t refuse an opportunity to profit from hate.
thank you so much, mr murray!
i draw much courage from your
outspokenness and i very much
agree with your assessments.
if the insatiable [settler] colonial west/north
doesn’t change course immediately we will lose
what little might still be left of our credibility
as advocates of “freedom and deMOCKracy”.
in the eyes of people in the global south we
have probably lost that credibility long ago.
hypocrisy, double-standardry, heart- and
soulless greed ‘n’ arrogance are all we flaunt.
i’m particularly shocked that current f.lawmakers
in my EU country, which initiated two world wars,
are as hell-bent on bloodshed [and fact twisting]
as their forebears were. how on earth can that be?
how utterly hollow calls for “NIE WIEDER!” ring.
“never again!” is happening again and again and
yet again …
Thank you. Indeed.
Not far back enough. Atrocities in Turkey, Africa, certain islands with valuable spices. Not just UK. I wish the lessons about carefully defending husbandry could be learned. Growing highly valued plants, animals, and other life forms threatens the lives of persons skilled at husbandry. Japanese groups trained in fighting worked for both farmers and for those wishing to steal from farmers. My favorite film about defending is Gods Must Be Crazy, the African/Australian fusion-defense story.
“If only the people of Mosul and Fallujah had had modern mobile phone technology, what horrors we would know.”
Robert Fisk had a website around that time with photos of the horrific abnormalities in newborn babies, resulting from the depleted uranium bullets the US used.
As for Germany, i believe they supply 30% of weapons to Israel.
And already they have convicted a pro-Palestinian activist:
Xxxx//www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/06/german-court-due-to-rule-on-from-the-river-to-the-sea-case-in-test-of-free-speech
You are not alone in your disillusionment Mr. Murray.