RAMZY BAROUD on how Israel’s narrative collides with military failure
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Stories in service of the empire: the WMD that never were
The US and British governments could not be too outlandish in their claims about the terror threat Iraq posed to hype up the 2003 invasion: the press, of course, could. SOLOMON HUGHES remembers its ignominious role
AGAINST THE GATHERING STORM: The Stop the War Coalition protests opposed military action against Iraq over allegations that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, central London, September 2002
ROGER McKENZIE explains how Ibrahim Traore has sparked the flames of hope across Africa, while the Western powers seek to extinguish all attempts to build true sovereignty in the long-exploited continent
DANIEL GOVER considers the procedural complexities awaiting a Private Member’s Bill in its passage through Commons and Lords
JAMIE TUCKNUTT reports on an initiative that brings together two epochs of the city’s anti-fascist struggles
Just as German Social Democrats joined the Nazis in singing Deutschland Uber Alles, ANDREW MURRAY observes how Starmer tries to out-Farage Farage with anti-migrant policies — but evidence shows Reform voters come from Tories, not Labour, making this ploy morally bankrupt and politically pointless
KEITH FLETT traces how the ‘world’s most successful political party’ has imploded since Thatcher’s fall, from nine leaders in 30 years to losing all 16 English councils, with Reform UK symbolically capturing Peel’s birthplace, Tamworth — but the beast is not dead yet
With turnout plummeting and faith in Parliament collapsing, BERT SCHOUWENBURG explains how radical local government reform — including devolved taxation and removal of party politics from town halls — could restore power to communities currently ignored by profit-obsessed MPs
NEXT year will be the 20th anniversary of the 2003 Iraq war. This means this year is the anniversary of multiple fake news stories about Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD). It took a whole year of untrue stories about Saddam Hussein’s secret germ bombs and nuclear weapons to promote the war.
We will get quite a lot of media attention around the war anniversary — much accepting that the Iraq invasion was a bloody failure built on lies and some trying to justify the disaster.
But we have very little media attention on the fake stories before the war — because that would mean the media looking at failures by the media, and that just won’t happen.
More from this author
Labour’s pop-loving front bench have snaffled up even more music tickets worth thousands apiece, reports SOLOMON HUGHES
Secret consultation documents finally released after the Morning Star’s two-year freedom of information battle show the Home Office misrepresented public opinion, claiming support for policies that most respondents actually strongly criticised as dangerous and unfair, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
SOLOMON HUGHES highlights a 1995 Sunday Times story about the disappearance of ‘defecting Iraqi nuclear scientist.’ Even though the story was debunked, it was widely repeated across the mainstream press, creating the false – and deadly – narrative of Iraqi WMD that eventually led to war
Despite Labour’s promises to bring things ‘in-house,’ the Justice Secretary has awarded notorious outsourcing outfit Mitie a £329 million contract to run a new prison — despite its track record of abuse and neglect in its migrant facilities, reports SOLOMON HUGHES
