As is often noted, we all have a tendency to fight the previous war. Just as the ‘quagmire’ of Vietnam led to reluctance to intervene in Bosnia (at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives), so too the successes of Kosovo led to the peremptory and ill planned interventionism of Iraq.
But Libya is not Iraq. As jubilant crowds fill Green Square, the fall of Tripoli to the rebels is a victory on many counts
My FINAL UPDATE for US readers. In case this seems like a parochial issue, you ought to know that the Chief Executive of News International at the time when all these scandals took place was Les Hinton (pictured below), who is now is the publisher of the Wall Street Journal for Murdoch. Follow his scandalous coverup in Media Matters. Also Andy Coulson, former editor of News of the World and Prime Minister David Cameron’s former Head of Communications will be arrested tomorrow.
AMAZING NEWSFLASH! The News of the World (commonly known as ‘News of the Screws’ because of its salacious coverage) is to be axed for good. Though it was the biggest selling English language paper in the world, many major companies including Tesco had refused to advertise in it and the brand was damaged for good. This of course is a blow for the Murdoch Empire, but a tactical retreat. The pressure isn’t off. But it’s killed his main Sunday Paper in the UK
Full transcript of James Murdoch’s statement is here. But John Prescott, former Deputy PM whose phone was allegedly hacked too has said on BBC:
“a typical management stunt of Mr Murdoch. None of the management are going, all the poor old workers are going”.
Meanwhile the current Justice Minister, Kenneth Clarke has just said when doorstepped:
“All it will be is a rebranding exercise”
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It’s just been announced that because of over 100,000 submissions against Rupert Murdoch’s acquisition of the satellite channel BSkyB, government approval by our Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt – largely expected this week – will have to be deferred several months. The Government are still arguing that revelations of illegal activity among senior News executives should not affect the principle of the takeover – but everything is to play for.
(Left to right, Les Hinton, Andy Coulson, Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks together in 2005)
This could be a crucial moment for press freedom and media plurality in the UK. Murdoch’s takeover the largest broadcaster (by revenue) in the UK, would have given him a unique cross platform monopoly. Thanks to series of favours by cowed and appeasing politicians (especially Margaret Thatcher) Murdoch’s News International has been allowed to accumulate nearly 40 percent of the newspaper market. He also has key sports and film rights in the UK. A combination of BSkyB and News International would have made him much more powerful in the UK than Berlusconi is in Italy – and at least Berlusconi is an Italian citizen.
Steve Richards in the Independent puts it better than I could in his piece today ‘Politicians are finally free from Murdoch’s tyranny‘
The tyrants lose their swagger and those that lived in fear dare to speak out. The dynamics of the News International saga are similar to the ones that shape the fall of dictatorial regimes, except in this case it is some mighty media executives who are suddenly fearful and the politicians who are liberated.
Yesterday’s exchanges in the Commons were ones I thought I would never witness. They are of historic importance. Senior elected politicians dared to challenge the powerful Murdoch empire and there was an air of catharsis as they did so.
For more on Murdoch’s corrosive and corrupting effect on British journalism, and and his coarsening of public life and politics in the UK, follow me below the flip.
Everyone has a 9/11 story. I won’t bore you with mine. But I’ll just remind you all of the hundreds of non Americans who died at ground zero including 69 Brits, more than have ever been killed in any other terrorist atrocity, more than the 7/7 London tube bombings in 2005
NYC is a capital of the world. It belongs to the world. And our whole lifestyle, liberalism and internationalism were under attack. It was literally an attack on modern western secular values – and we all have a stake in them.
But while I can’t forget those 3,000 victims, the spiral of reaction and counter reaction has amplified those deaths many times over, all the victims of other Al Qaeda atrocities in Bali, Madrid, Baghdad, Lahore, Tanzania. And of course the civilians caught in the cross fire of counter-insurgency and invasion, hundreds of thousands in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I’m happy this morning, but I don’t feel like partying. I feel like breathing again…
It feels like a ten year nightmare might finally be over…
While I have made quite clear my passionate support for the democratic revolutions throughout the Arab World, and my firm belief that UN Security Council Resolution is vital to protect the people of Libya from a ruthless armed dictator, let me just be clear that I will not support any Neo-Con takeover of the international mission.
There are already signs of this happening in the UK; with the military Chiefs at odds with the Prime Minister on the UN mandate over targeted assassinations and regime change. Add to this the optics of Tomahawk missiles and Pentagon briefings, and we have uncanny and worrisome echoes of the Iraq War, which finally – almost fatally – hi-jacked UN principles of humanitarian intervention for Neo-colonialist Neo-conservative ends. The abiding message of the multinational force assembled should be….
To allow the Libyan people their rights of self determination.
For two years the Lithuanian government had banned the public display of Soviet and Nazi symbols, but suddenly lifted the ban on Swastikas last May. This Friday a large Neo Nazi demonstration marched through the streets of an EU capital with Government permission and police escorts.
Hundreds marched through the streets of Vilnius with swastikas and SS insignia. Many people wore badges with swastikas sewed onto their clothing. Some were wearing white armbands with flames (that essentially resemble a swastika, a symbol that was also on some of the flags).
But this was no normal fringe Neo Nazi movement. Among the participants were Ricardas Cekutis, current head of PR at the state-sponsored Genocide Research Center – a government subsidised institution which tries to make an equivalence between the horrors of Stalinism and the horrors of the holocaust, seen here (on the right) with Mindaugas Murza, the infamous neo-Nazi. More astonishing still, MP Kazimieras Uoka, a member of parliament from the ruling Homeland Union faction was at the front of the March.
Something is going very wrong in Lithuania.