A biography of Lord Charles Guthrie, taken from a publication on the War on Terror to which he contributed:
Quote :
Charles Guthrie was Chief of Staff of Britain's armed services from 1997 to 2001. From 1977 to 1980 he commanded the Welsh Guards in Berlin and Northern Ireland. In 1980, he served briefly inthe South Pacific and as the Commander British Forces, New Hebrides, recaptured the island of Espirito Santo.
Apart from holding several senior staff appointments, he commanded an Armoured Brigade, an Infantry Division, the British Army of the Rhine and the Northern Army Group. Lord Guthrie served as Colonel Commandant of the Intelligence Corps for ten years and is currently Colonel of the Life Guards and Colonel Commandant of the SAS, as well as a director of the defence contractor Advanced Integrated Systems. In 2001 he retired from the army and received a peerage, becoming Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank.
Guthrie worked for years closely with the US armed forces.
Quote :
In his first term General Sir Charles Guthrie is said to have played a “pivotal” role in Blair’s formative prime ministerial years during which Blair cut his teeth, militarily, dealing with Kosovo through NATO. Guthrie “coaxed his young and still comparatively inexperienced Prime Minister through all the options” .
Guest Guest
Subject: Re: Libertas a pan European Project : Read OP Intro Carefully - Mod Sun Mar 08, 2009 10:44 pm
You couldn't make it up ..................... what kind of military intelligence filth are we dealing with. Ganley can not be doing this just to be provocative............what next?
This really proves how dangerous he is. Declan "I have no contacts with the CIA" Ganley appoints one of their 3 external advisors (Myers -cf note) to his board.
Pro Brit black ops who murdered catholics in NI and pro catholic, pro American war criminals and pro free market war profiteering, pro europe, anything else we can add to the Libertas manifesto?
Cynthia McKinney questions Myers on 9/11
Last edited by Frightened Albanian on Mon Mar 09, 2009 12:46 am; edited 2 times in total
Guest Guest
Subject: Re: Libertas a pan European Project : Read OP Intro Carefully - Mod Sun Mar 08, 2009 11:33 pm
An investigation into the systematic use of torture as an interrogation technique has found that Gen. Richard Meyers, while acting as Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, quashed legal review of the approved techniques. From an article by Mark Benjamin of Salon,
"In late 2002, documents show, officials from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps all complained that harsh interrogation tactics under consideration for use at the prison in Guantánamo Bay might be against the law. Those military officials called for further legal scrutiny of the tactics. The chief of the Army's international law division, for example, said in a memo that some of the tactics, such as stress positions and sensory deprivation, "cross the line of 'humane treatment'" and "may violate the torture statute."
However, General Myers put an end to the legal debate. When all four branches of the military have reservations, I would think, that maybe the commanding General would as well.
Guest Guest
Subject: Re: Libertas a pan European Project : Read OP Intro Carefully - Mod Sun Mar 08, 2009 11:40 pm
Remember that Richard Myers took over Oct 2001 as most senior military man in the USA he held the post until 30 Sept 2005> therefore most of the worst abuses of human rights, indiscriminate murder of civilians, leveling of cities eg Falluja, the kidnap and torture of people, all happened under his command. see Noam Chomsky on the general issues re War Crimes in Iraq for the period of Myers stewardship. Here
Guest Guest
Subject: Re: Libertas a pan European Project : Read OP Intro Carefully - Mod Mon Mar 09, 2009 12:55 am
FYI
Quote :
As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Myers is the top military adviser to President George W. Bush , to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld , and to the National Security Council. Myers, was appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs Oct. 1, 2001. He previously served as vice chairman for 19 months. He is a graduate of Kansas State University and holds an M.B.A. from Auburn University. He entered the Air Force in 1965 through the Reserve Officer Training Corps program. In 1991 he attended the Program for Senior Executives in National and International Security at the Kennedy School.
the below is classic of blame it on the younger officers My Lai anybody >
Quote :
Myers was one top official who did not understand the implications of what was being done. Sands, who spent three hours with the former general, says he was "confused" about the decisions that were taken.Myers mistakenly believed that new techniques recommended by Haynes and authorised by Rumsfeld in December 2002 for use by the military at Guantánamo had been taken from the US army field manual. They included hooding, sensory deprivation, and physical and mental abuse. "As we worked through the list of techniques, Myers became increasingly hesitant and troubled," writes Sands. "Haynes and Rumsfeld had been able to run rings around him."
Subject: Re: Libertas a pan European Project : Read OP Intro Carefully - Mod Mon Mar 09, 2009 1:33 am
meyers on the chicken dinner circut speech topic note that he shares much with Declan Ganley, katrina as an excuse to militarise civilian policing and the defeat of the "terror".
General Richard Myers's Speech Topic(s)
World War "X": What's at Stake in the Global War on Terror The Global War on Terror will last several decades. Al Qaeda and their affiliate organizations that span the globe have a 100-year plan to destroy the worldwide economy and defeat western democracies. As the architect of the global war on terror since its inception and the fifteenth chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, military speaker General Richard Myers sees the war on terror as an even greater threat to America's security than World War II. In this compelling speech, he describes what's at stake for America, her allies, and the world, and prepares audiences for the bold challenges that lie ahead. Myers also leaves them inspired in his deeply held conviction that this threat will ultimately be defeated.
Leadership at the Highest Level One of the most admired military commanders in America, General Richard Myers has been a leader all of his life, having been a fighter pilot in Vietnam, commander of NORAD, and both vice chairman and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Myers was installed as chairman of the Joint Chiefs just weeks after the September 11th and his tenure was marked by tumultuous change on the international and domestic stage. In this speech, Myers provides strategies for being an effective leader, shows how to take charge during times of change, and how teams can work toward achieving mission critical objectives.
Lessons from Katrina: The Role of the Military in Homeland Emergencies Whether the enemy is Mother Nature, a terrorist attack, or a worldwide flu epidemic, the US must be prepared to deal with security challenges on all fronts. General Richard Myers discusses how local, state, and federal officials need better communication and coordination strategies in times of emergency.
Subject: Re: Libertas a pan European Project : Read OP Intro Carefully - Mod Mon Mar 09, 2009 1:56 am
FA - this is veering way off topic here - "Libertas a Pan European Project .."
Guest Guest
Subject: Re: Libertas a pan European Project : Read OP Intro Carefully - Mod Mon Mar 09, 2009 3:32 am
Auditor #9 wrote:
FA - this is veering way off topic here - "Libertas a Pan European Project .."
Auditor this is bang on topic, Ganley in his political life denies CIA neo con involvenmnet , indeed he does on his website Libertas.eu, go to the press page and follow link on top left to "facts".
These people he has hired indicate the breath of his connections with the military industrial complex. he is fronting in politics but where he is coming from is important.
Ganley Iraq, neo con connections are all vaid and were raised in the EU parliament to cries from Libertas and Ganley of scaremongering.
You can't have your cake and eat it all the time in politics
Guest Guest
Subject: Re: Libertas a pan European Project : Read OP Intro Carefully - Mod Mon Mar 09, 2009 3:55 am
It has been a busy few weeks for Ganley. He has been coming under a lot of pressure from interviewers about relations with the Eurosceptic parties and the issue of money being offered and signatures denied. It is striking how many new parties are being set up - none of them following the Libertas line. Pro Europe Anti Lisbon is far too epheral a position to build a party on long term.
Guest Guest
Subject: Re: Libertas a pan European Project : Read OP Intro Carefully - Mod Mon Mar 09, 2009 4:12 am
A very busy week for Ganley, he is also promising some news in the UK on Tuesday
Guest Guest
Subject: Re: Libertas a pan European Project : Read OP Intro Carefully - Mod Mon Mar 09, 2009 4:45 pm
Sky blogger has a bit about Ganley's imminent UK launch here
This is getting like cats in a bag
Quote :
An announcement is due tomorrow. Ganley says it is the way to build a bigger collective of those who are happy enough to be in Europe but feel the treaty hands over too much power to Brussels.But it isn’t going to be easy. Libertas is embroiled in numerous controversies across Europe as it tries to assemble a network of candidates.It has already denied offering money to Swedish Eurosceptic party Junilistan if it changed its name to ‘Junilistan-Libertas’.
And as it launches Libertas spin-offs in countries like Germany and Slovakia, there have been questions about funding and registration. Libertas itself has lashed out at Brussels, accusing it of a dirty tricks campaign.
Funny it links to The European Citizen blog
Quote :
People Korps has flagged up a video on Ganley/Libertas' appearance before the Sub-Committee for Ireland's Future in Europe. It's very long, at almost 3 hours.
Subject: Re: Libertas a pan European Project : Read OP Intro Carefully - Mod Mon Mar 09, 2009 7:42 pm
I note the apologistas are silent on this latest neo con angle.
Guest Guest
Subject: Re: Libertas a pan European Project : Read OP Intro Carefully - Mod Tue Mar 10, 2009 5:14 am
Nice overview of Ganley's foriegn policy that should be read by a history phd student at UCD. See Libertas Nein Danke
Guest Guest
Subject: Re: Libertas a pan European Project : Read OP Intro Carefully - Mod Tue Mar 10, 2009 11:54 am
Mr. Uwakwe puts it well:
Quote :
A very clear picture is emerging, and one that begs us to look twice at the stated objectives of the Libertas manifesto, one of which reads; “For Europe to build a true and successful Union, that Union must include and involve you. The conditions must be subject to you. They must respect your identity and culture.”
One of the signatories of the Libertas application is Cyprian Gutowski, regional assembly member for the All-Polish Youth party. Was it respectful of the identity and culture of all Europeans when members of that party were filmed at in the company of neo-Nazi skin heads, listening to Nazi songs and saluting the swastika?
How indeed does Chairman Ganley propose to harmonise the opposition of the All-Polish Youth party to liberalism, tolerance and relativism, as stated in their founding manifesto, with Libertas’ own profession to “stand for tolerance and for the belief that every citizen has rights and limitless potential.”
How does their stated respect for an individual’s rights of culture and identity chime with the values held by the True Finns party, with whom Libertas are in talks about forming a parliamentary alliance? The Finnish State prosecutor is considering whether to press hate crimes charges against one of that party’s councillors, resulting from his daily anti-immigration blog.
Another supporter is Georgios Georgiou, a member of a Greek nationalist party called Laikos Orthodoxos Synagermos which released a statement when the mayor of the island of Tilos presided over a homosexual civil marriage deploring “the cruel reality that we are living in the society of faggots.”
But we need not look as far as Libertas’s colourful friends overseas to uncover apparent double standards between what the party says and what the party does. Libertas consistently calls for “a new, democratic, accountable and open European Union” whilst failing to account for its own sources of funding and finance to the satisfaction of the Oireachtas or the European Commission, a full eight months after the Lisbon referendum was held.
Until all of this is resolved, and Libertas reveal their actual candidates and policies the information that can be gleaned from the murky waters surrounding the organisation point to a series of contradictions; a purportedly centrist party that gladly enlists the support of anti-semites and homophobes, a supposedly Europhile party that has scoured the halls of Brussels for every Eurosceptic and secessionist to fill its ranks with and finally a party calls for accountability from others whilst refusing to disclose its own sources of funding.
This might all be put down to teething troubles or political naivety. Whatever it is, Ganley and co have a little over four months to prove they are not the far right Eurosceptics that they increasingly appear to be
Guest Guest
Subject: Re: Libertas a pan European Project : Read OP Intro Carefully - Mod Tue Mar 10, 2009 5:07 pm
Frightened Albanian wrote:
Nice overview of Ganley's foriegn policy that should be read by a history phd student at UCD. See Libertas Nein Danke
Frightened Albanian, I would like to thank you for uncovering all the information you have about Libertas. What you have shown over the recent weeks is scary and you have proved that Libertas are a disgrace to all right minded democratic Europeans. Thank you for standing up for democracy unlike most of the Irish media.
In my experience most Irish people now finally realise that Ganley and Co. are idiots but don't realise just how intentionally hypocritical and subversive they really are. I think you need to ramp up your campaign. I suggest that you provide a summary list on your website of all the problems with Libertas, I have lost track of them at this stage. Cookie could then be given the opportunity to defend against these points on this forum.
Guest Guest
Subject: Re: Libertas a pan European Project : Read OP Intro Carefully - Mod Tue Mar 10, 2009 6:39 pm
thanks Art, I think the issue does need to be ramped up and people who have heard enough about \Libertas should join together for a combined cross party campaign against them. The key to such a campaign is getting acurate information to as many people as posible. That proves to be a full time job with Libertas because everything they say or do must be investigated in order to establish the true story.
it is easy to lose track of the small thing but the key is Ganley is funded by parties unknown, his political agenda is unknown but he does have many supporters who are from the far right Ganley likes to work with military men Ganley and truth are two words that don't fit together without great psychic efforts at delusion.
NEWS
Ganley has launched in the UK and Lt Col Robin Matthews is the man chosen to lead.
Funny that he is an employee of Ganley's , recently hired to run their Brussels office.
Why has super cop Kevin O'connell withdrawn from this role? He said that he would consider running a few months back.
Subject: Re: Libertas a pan European Project : Read OP Intro Carefully - Mod Tue Mar 10, 2009 7:23 pm
Mark Mardell interviewed Mathews in his Euroblog:
Before the launch, I asked him why people should vote for him.
Quote :
"It sends a very clear message to those unelected elites and bureaucrats, who seek to daily interfere in our lives more closely, that this cannot go on without proper accountability. The EU needs to change. Libertas believes in a strong Europe but also believes unless democracy is at the heart of that we'll never be able to deliver," he said.
But how would they bring more democracy to the EU?
"Give people a clear platform and give them a chance to vote for you knowing that because of your pan-European approach, you can bring democracy to the heart of Europe," he explained.
But what does this mean? Electing the European Commission, or electing the new European Council president as Libertas founder Declan Ganley believes?
"What ever you do with elected commissioners or an elected commission, they must be accountable to the people. Libertas is seeking such a mandate at the ballot box and that is our first task before we look at exactly ways to reform the commission, president or what ever," Mr Mathews said.
There was a lot more in this vein. Mr Mathews's argument was that Libertas could deliver a vote across the entire EU, and that would bring more democracy into the system. But, he was unwilling or unable to suggest how do this.
This is interesting because while most people would probably support the idea of "more democracy in the EU", it is not clear what it means.
More powers for the European Parliament? An elected president? An elected commission? All of those would take power away from the people who we choose in general elections. I suspect most people who say it would mean less power for European institutions and more for national parliaments.
Which is fair enough, but it is not actually about increasing democracy in the EU as such.
National leaders may occasionally get irritated by the commission's ideas, but in the end the commission are their servants, if sometimes ones with Jeeves-like powers. National leaders wouldn't dream of giving them more legitimacy.
The same goes for a foreign affairs chief or president of the council. It is because Mr Ganley has supported an elected president that he has had little luck striking a deal with traditional conservatives. It would transform the EU, but maybe not in a way traditional Eurosceptics would relish.
I have been loath to focus on the funding issue, as the politics are primarily what interest me, but for a brand new party to fight each EP seat in the EU would require a middle sized fortune. In addition, it appears that very substantial financial inducement has been offered on at least one occasion to encourage a party to merge with Libertas. Matthews himself would not come cheap.
Declan Ganley is not Obama. He is trying to find space in a market crowded with national eurosceptic parties. He has attracted more suspicion that admiration as a politician. The line appears to be that this money, with the paid assistance of Joe Trippi, will raise Obama scaled funds via the internet.
Does anyone find the expectation that hundreds of thousands of enthusiasts are going to log on and give to Libertas at all convincing?
Is the launching of Matthews perhaps an act of desperation, as Ganley has found no credible candidate to run in the UK ?
Guest Guest
Subject: Re: Libertas a pan European Project : Read OP Intro Carefully - Mod Tue Mar 10, 2009 7:41 pm
there is no way that ciitizens are funding this en masse. No possible way. Libertas have 888 people on their facebook.
Matthews sounds very unsure of himself on the video posted to you tube on libertas Nein Danke
Ganley the Watford boy on home ground praise Matthews and his service record. Says the new renaissance will come from individuals la de la
Guest Guest
Subject: Re: Libertas a pan European Project : Read OP Intro Carefully - Mod Tue Mar 10, 2009 7:47 pm
At least he got the flags right.
Guest Guest
Subject: Re: Libertas a pan European Project : Read OP Intro Carefully - Mod Tue Mar 10, 2009 7:51 pm
Is he grumpy in it? I am in the library so no sound... but he looks grumpy.
Guest Guest
Subject: Re: Libertas a pan European Project : Read OP Intro Carefully - Mod Tue Mar 10, 2009 8:06 pm
You are as well off to be in the library Johnfás. I tried to listen to it but I got grumpy. Same old, same old. 'We will be attacked,..we will be called eurosceptics, the equivalent of witch in Brussels.....accountability, democracy....' He exhorts us to vote for a Libertas candidate but then we don't know who they are, do we?
Cookie said, I believe, that tomorrow was the date for the policy launch. More substance then perhaps?
Guest Guest
Subject: Re: Libertas a pan European Project : Read OP Intro Carefully - Mod Tue Mar 10, 2009 8:21 pm