through the declassified files looking at the evidence on british foreign policy over the last seventy eighty years since the end of the second world war is that britain is a systematic violator of human rights of the un principles is a systematic supporter of repressive regimes systematic promoter of wars and i think that this is been largely kept from the british public. you can go right the way back to the late one nine hundred forty s. when britain was engaged in of really brutal war in malaya terror bombing vast areas of a war which has been described as a kind of liberation for the for the malayan people right the way through to the current war in in yemen and many episodes in between i think highlight the fact that britain is not a promoter of human rights and not a not hold an international principles it is a serial violator of them and it's easy to find this out actually doesn't it's not rocket science to actually find out what britain is doing but it is largely kept

from us i think by media by the mainstream media and by a political system which doesn't seem to want to uncover the really important things that britain is actually doing in the world ok well many in the foreign office may agree with you and say it's rail politic and and it was diplomacy and people might know about the a gander coup chile in seventy three the iraq obviously one moment we surely have to be proud about is role not in going to get love the wilson labor government that seems to be a kind of article of faith you you've seen other documents it seems that the only thing that the media can ever say about britain's role in the vietnam war in the one nine hundred sixty s. is that britain didn't send troops to vietnam but actually britain did send troops in the in the early one nine hundred sixty s. there was a covert operation by the british in north vietnam to link up with rebels who were fighting against the north vietnamese regime admittedly that did end in around one thousand nine hundred. three and not very much information has come out about that

program but it is revealed in the declassified british files but in the late one nine hundred sixty s. in the wilson government although wilson didn't send troops the files show that britain did just about everything else to support us aggression in vietnam there were covert arms supplies from the british for example quite significant ones to the south vietnamese regime that was being backed by the us. there was a lot of up. apologies in the british media and in parliament for us policy there was there was very little outright condemnation by senior political figures in the ruling labor party of the massive bombing campaigns the us was undertaken undertaking in vietnam. so those final show that britain supported the us war not that it opposed it and yet it seems to have crept into the popular viewpoint to release the the elite viewpoint in the media the britain somehow opposed that us

war in vietnam when actually the opposite is the case and just do explain the enormity and the statistical little bitty in your book people you see the u.k. bears responsibility for between eight to thirteen million deaths how would you arrive at such a well i looked at all the wars in which britain had been involved as a participant or as a backup. and looked at all of the repressive regimes that have killed large numbers of people throughout that period since nine hundred forty five and it amounts to forty or fifty or so episodes from one hundred forty five up until two thousand and three i think is when i did the calculation of i came to the the number of deaths resulting from those conflicts and from those regimes was in that region of about ten million four million of those come from the vietnam war which was the most significant slaughter in the post second more post second mobile period a war which as i say i think is has was backed by the u.k.

but there were other slaughters throughout that period that the u.k. paid a role in for example in one thousand nine hundred sixty five the indonesian military tried to wipe out the indonesian communist party and most of the opposition to the rule of general so otto the files the declassified files show that britain covertly supported the operation it was providing secret messages to the general so otto's regime to enable it to continue. undertaking that slaughter in that same period in the late one nine hundred sixty s. the british also supported the nigerian. brutal onslaught against the people of biafra in nigeria's civil war between one thousand nine hundred sixty seven and one nine hundred seventy their work over arms supplies from the wilson government to the nigerian forces three million people died in that conflict and the nigerian federal military government which was perpetrating most of those atrocities probably could not have done that without british arms and british diplomatic

support the foreigners are incredible they actually show a stunning level of support for nigerian aggression as millions of people were being killed in biafra you know that episode has been pretty much written out of history in terms of the british role in that particular conflict give we spin forward now surely won't get said least as regards the world's worst humanitarian crisis in yemen we know that britain is supporting the military killing of of children by saudi bombing the saudis have caused as are all mistakes in warfare surely a sign of transparency although then there are these allegations that britain is in effect. supporting al-qaeda in yemen well actually i think that the yemen war shows the opposite i think it shows that the lack of transparency is still very much present in the mainstream media and in the political system because what we what we have in yemen is a british war it is not a sound the coalition led war that is being backed simply by british arm sales i

mean the british are supplying the weapons they're supplying the aircraft they're training the pilots there's storing the weapons that issuing the weapons to the saudi warplanes and probably most importantly of all the british and subcontracted personnel in saudi arabia on maintaining the warplanes that the saudis are using to bomb yemen that is a very particular and direct involvement in and a. prosody and i don't believe the british media is describing this as a british war i think what we see is some attention paid to arms sales in a few reports now and again on the media but not the systematic investigation of the fact that this is a direct british role in the war so i think it shows that we still have a real problem with the way that the media and the political system is holding is holding our leaders to account or rather failing to your groceries as an

irrelevance of britain as one of the because aid donors on top of its complicity in the war as it were but i just want to ask you this when even when terrorism was brought home like the on the ground a bombing in manchester is information to show us that in effect britain is defacto involved in the bullying innocence that doesn't come out even when innocent lives are lost here in britain the manchester bombing is is an incredible story in a way because we know that the perpetrator of the trials atrocity killing twenty two people last year forty in a british backed war in libya a few years before in two thousand and eleven and it has emerged that he may well have been part of a group of libyan radicals who were encouraged by the british security services to go and fight in libya at that time. the british i mean this war in libya in two thousand and eleven which was very much a british war actually very much david cameron's war even though it was formally

a nato conflict that has contributed to the rise of terrorism in in libya created ungoverned spaces and created the rise of islamic state in libya which never had a base in the country before. but what it also did was it empowered a generation of fighters to go on and fight elsewhere so to b.d. fought in libya in two thousand and eleven. he then comes back a few years later and perpetrate an atrocity against british people who many of the people he fought with alongside in libya in two thousand and eleven then went on to fight in syria. they may well have been trained by british backed forces in libya in two thousand and eleven before they then went on to fight in syria with the al qaeda affiliate in syria. the other thing about the libya conflict is that as well as being a disaster for the people of libya i mean basically destroying a country we're living with the effects of that now but it did create. a training

ground for terrorism the islamic state bases that were set up in libya after two thousand and eleven after gadhafi fell with a base for the training of several jihadists who went on to conduct atrocities in europe so if you look at the paris attacks brussels attacks some of the u.k. attacks. they they all have a link back to the i asked camps in libya and those those camps are the product of the disastrous british war that overthrew the gadhafi regime and created this this is fertile ground for the promotion of terrorism here but our intelligence agencies have apologized and there has been a report into this you see there is a great. change well the only thing that's come out of the intelligence agencies reporter least the anything that's been made public is that someone to be due was under surveillance by them and he was regarded as a person of interest for a while and then was no longer regarded as a as

a person of interest ok i mean whether whether you know let's let's say it was a mistake that he wasn't pursued for longer ok people make mistakes but that's that's understandable but the more interesting thing is what connection did sound to be the have to british covert policy going back to two thousand and eleven was he and his colleagues in the libyan islamic fighting group was he being directly supported indirectly supported by the british secret services at that time with a trained they receive arms and why were they allowed to return back to the u.k. after they'd fought in this war with no questions asked just allowed to come back into the community as it were to take up their life as an as normal only for a few years later to be involved in a terrorist atrocity on british soil these are really fundamental questions the other aspect of it of course is that at the time in two thousand and eleven the home secretary was to reason made so what was it actually to reason may that

authorize the dispatch of these libyan radicals to go and fight in libya in two thousand and eleven what is the idea that the brain ministry is linked to the killing of twenty two people at the golden globes but i'm sure you've you've probably sent a request they absolutely to any linkage whatsoever well there have been some power . questions are asked about what britain knew about the dispatch of libyan radicals in two thousand and eleven but the response is always the same the british government can't comment on intelligence matters and you know there's a wall of blankness. so nothing has come out about that so far but it's a line of inquiry which really needs to be pursued i mean i've argued that britain needs a public inquiry into the war in libya just like we had all sorts of public inquiry into the war in iraq that we had several many of them a white washes but we certainly need a public inquiry into the war in libya given what it went on to produce as i say

terrorism across europe terrorism in our own country really serious issues they can't be buried politicians ministers taking these decisions need to be held to account because we don't even think about all the thousands tens of thousands drowned in the mediterranean afterwards and look i'm going to stop you that. after this break. you know world of big partisan movies. and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the back and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now we're watching closely watching the

hawks. i've been saying the numbers mean something. they matter the u.s. has over one trillion dollars in debt more than ten white collar crimes happen each dish. eighty five percent of global wealth you longs to the ultra rich eight point six percent market saw a thirty percent rise last year some with four hundred to five hundred three per second per second and bitcoin rose to twenty thousand dollars. china is building a two point one billion dollar a i industrial park but don't let the numbers overwhelm. the only number you need to remember in one one business shows you can't afford to miss the one and only.

prosecution will need to become almost. a softball designed to take over you. just read the fines. by the number one place you do i mean yeah yeah i mean political pressure on that i need him on close to no clue security dimension knows what the kind of business models used by american corporations. he's sold them good mental disease has a new album use the controls on the scene and the solution. in association with the potato. i noted when he saw it is just somebody deleted an investigative documentary. ghost war on oxy.

welcome back i'm still with mark curtis what against all that wall of intelligence the wall you call it has been the figure of julian as arjan the wiki leaks organization that measure to get information out do you think that rather than criticizing the normal right wing press is the liberal so-called liberal media like the guardian newspaper for instance the bears most responsibility for disinflation people not being able to understand these issues these very noticeable that most of the british media certainly has been very hostile towards wiki leaks and julian assange you have to ask yourself the question why is that shouldn't the media be on the side of people who actually reveal secrets rather than on the side of states that try and cover them up. it is true that the guardian. has over the last i would say one or two years been probably the most hostile british media outlet

towards julian assange and wiki leaks it seems to be running in what's appears to be a campaign. a fairly desperate campaign if you ask me to try and link to the innocence to russia in any way possible and to trump actually in any way possible so what seemed to be two recent fabricated stories about a rush or escape plot and about a poor man a four trump campaign manager secretly meeting a songe in the embassy in london seem to be utterly preposterous i mean i think most reasonable thinking people will will know that those stories to simply don't add up and they strongly appear to be fabricated that raises all sorts of issues actually about how the media operates because everyone knows that the media nuance things and they are made certain things to promote certain political agendas. but fabricating a whole stories i think to me crosses a complete line and you know the red line that cannot be crossed by any media you

can't simply fabricate stories and get away with them so i think it raises all kinds of issues about how the media functions in the u.k. as of the time with this interview look at england catherine or the editor of the guardian did any fabrication but what you just said does raise the question that if jeremy corbyn was to be prime minister would be arguably suffer the same fate as trump in the sense that there is a secret state stopping him from doing the things he may want to jumpers against boeing syria he bombed syria and so i think there definitely would be a lot of kickback. was elected prime minister there would be an attempt on the part of the civil service and maybe the security services as well to prevent some of corbin's agenda being carried out i mean i think it's clear. the policies to restrict arms exports to saudi arabia the policies to recognize palestine for example. the policies which have question nato i mean labor's position is not to

pull out of nato or or anything as radical as that but labor is clearly less supportive of the anglo-american military alliance than labor parties have been in the past and these things that will put pressure on the deep state if you like and put pressure on the establishment and they're not going to take that lying down i mean that there will be there will be pressure and i think we can expect another severe media campaign smear campaigns against corbin in the media just like we saw in the run up to the last election well the guardian again that because it did a lot of the running would you say that coverage by the guardian of jeremy corbyn has been misleading or a separatism that's a fabricated story and i'm surely f. . every right thinking person knows that there's that see credible thing about this . i'm corbin and i don't speak for corbett i mean i'm not

a member of the labor party i'm not i'm not. i'm not a supporter of the labor party but to call jeremy called an anti semitic is just absolutely crazy this is a man who actually almost uniquely in the british parliament is an anti imperialist who is anti races has been fighting for human rights causes for his whole life and that's why i support him. and that's why i think many people support him because he is so fundamentally different to other labor leaders throughout the post-war period not just conservative leaders he does stand for something different. and the establishment aren't going to take that lying down but they are going to challenge corbin on that they are going to try and ridicule him because they don't like what he might do once in power but why does palestine so such a key issue which they are using to attack jeremy corbett a little late say you know he obviously has views about the city of london the power the city of london tax havens all sorts of much more structural deep seated.

complexities in britain and yet its exports and support for israel arms exports to israel perhaps one of britain's greatest success stories i should say tourism is that the disease should i mean the u.k. has become a very strong supporter of israel. and i mean it pretends to kind of sit in the middle between the israelis and the palestinians on the israel palestinian conflict government has addressed real numbers of deaths it has but at the same time it's been constantly providing arms to israel hasn't stopped sports and it's been signing trade deal of the trade deal with israel that has a load of cooperation agreements in place and british policy has not changed an iota since over two hundred people have been killed since march in the gaza demonstrations. the british government condemns the israeli settlements the illegal settlements in the occupied territories condemns them regularly but it doesn't

change policy as a result of that there's military cooperation naval corp for example between the two navies despite the fact that the israeli navy is the one blockading gaza the royal navy has been training with the israeli navy britain is supplying components for israel's nuclear submarines so it's kind of can you listen that well israel has never at least rigid its nuclear weapon it's never admitted them but it's an open secret that it's its nuclear arms are housed on its nuclear submarines. so there's a whole there's a raft of military cooperation and intelligence cooperation as well between the u.k. and its. and. that that has not been sufficiently investigated or outed in the british media or political system at all fact there's a bit of a cover up in my view about the extent of the british support for for israel arguably one of the big alliances on this seventieth anniversary of the un declaration of human rights. and israel surprise that the

cia is briefing senators it seems blaming saudi arabia when britain is more equivocal about saudi human rights abuses it is pretty incredible when you get the cia suggesting that the saudi leader was complicit in the death of the saudi journalist and the british government just carries on as though nothing really has changed i mean the government has said that it expects the saudis to conduct a thorough investigation and to hold to account whoever would resume didn't say that she spoke to her would been silent about jamal because you know they have they have said that. but the british have continued to sell arms they've continued to completely support the saudis in the war in yemen there's not been any element any sign of any actual policy change at all there's no pullback from britain's total support for saudi arabia so it remains that as we speak at the level of rhetoric. i

think what's happened is the british have become embarrassed by what the the killing of khashoggi has done because the british were expecting the saudis to finish off this war in yemen fairly quickly after it began in two thousand and fifteen it's dragged on and they haven't won the war out right they're getting bogged down and it's become more and more embarrassing for the british is that as the war has dragged on you think it's ironic with everyone talking about breaks it here that i think all around the world people knew that britain was guilty of human rights abuses in ireland and that it should be ireland. in the sense as we go to the key issue that border in my experience there is a real mismatch between what the british people think about their own country's role in the world and what many people around the world who have been on the receiving end of british policy actually know about what the british have done if you go to ireland or you go to india you go to parts of africa where you go to pot

in the middle east where people often know far more about what the british did in that country than we as as british citizens know and that that is the fault i think is the fault of on our culture it's the fault of our academic system our media system of our political system which is covered up what the british role in the world has actually been over the decades what one shocking thing is that there was a poll conducted a year or so ago showing that fifty six percent of britons were proud of the empire i mean i find that an utterly shocking statistic that just proves that we have been brainwashed actually as a society to believe that the role we've played in the world has been annoying when you know very regularly very consistently it genuinely has not been ok but all members of the u.n. security council the boat ramp is could be guilty of the crimes you allege and suggest a good strategy for britain to say that it's russia really that is evading the

rules based system singularly a good strategy to. disorient the public well certainly the british like to pin all the world's ills on other states and other states do that as well. history tells us that no great powers can really be trusted great powers act in malign ways traditionally has very few examples of influential world powers have acted in the nine ways so my view is that we should be skeptical about any great power in what they say. but the idea that russia or alone is somehow responsible for breaking the rules based international order is obviously nonsense i mean the british and the americans along with all the members of the permanent members of the security council are regularly responsible for violating international law but the british and americans i would say in particular i wrote an article recently

describing britain as a rogue state and running through seven areas in which britain is violating un policies and i'm talking about britain as a rogue state not in some sensational way but in a factual way that. the the violations of international law whether it's you know everyone knows about the invasion of iraq but the invasion of libya in two thousand and eleven was also a violation of international law the the ukase. playing along with the illegal israeli settlements and allowing trade between those is israeli illegal settlements in the u.k. that's also a violation of international law there are many other cases where britain is in contravention of un principles across the board i would argue almost in the middle east the u.k. role in syria the role that britain has had in syria in the forces are currently playing in syria but it's also illegal states can't simply intervene in other

states if you don't have the invitation of the government you're acting now illegally so covert operations are actually illegal and britain is involved in various covert operations whether it's in syria or in what has been involved in yemen and been involved in somalia it's been involved in afghanistan whether it's drone strikes old or actual boots on the ground you know many of these covert operations when they're not authorized by governments are illegal and they're violations of the u.n. principles fundamental ones so britain britain is itself a violator of the rules based into. oh system. thank you your that's over the show will be back on wednesday. predicted parliamentary defeat of a flagship policy of breaking up the united kingdom as paul broks agreement until the end. of the day the united nations framework convention on climate change paris agreement now undermined by president will trump after the withdrawal of the us.

hard order. dr vision between northern ireland. has economic consequences it has a lot of consequences for people particularly those who live along the border there's a lot of free movement at the moment people move back and forward there's a lot of economic activity there's a lot of social social activity and nobody wants to see got to. be a doozy saying. that there won't be cheap bust and then prove that countries don't

let's. get right to do is come he said if we give them every fifteen to. be discounted. this is what we don't understand how we are in such. a. similar. new. one. if the middle of kong or not they've got to leave again in the world with the phone to the computer with the plane. to come back to the three story you have to see.

if you. believe you. it was that. if it was a written form to. keep it in the. french president emanuel mccrum prepares to break his silence on some of the most violent protests in decades with some outlets blaming social media for feeling the press. france's foreign minister warns donald trump not to interfere in fund.