b.b.c. with afterburners glowing and loaded with storm shadow cruise missiles for tornados take to the skies as britain's contribution to raids launched overnight in response to syria's alleged use of chemical weapons the word alleged there taking a lot of the weight in b.b.c. reporters breathless coverage because this week the un security council again focuses on the alleged chemical attack after last week's china convened meeting to investigate wiki leaks and other revelations of alleged chemical weapons dirty tricks at the international o.p.c. w organization mandated with the task of verifying outlawed chemical weapons use even henderson the former inspector of the o.p.c. w. who produce a b. to the duma for the mission please look at the screen. on a section. chinese

mission. unfortunately and for certain circumstances around yes. as i was. henderson claimed at the un security council that the whole basis of the fact finding mission or f.m. report that catalyze u.k.'s strikes was flawed the findings in the final report were contradictory or a complete turnaround with well. understood. electorally. during to do. and by the time. release of the interim report in july 2008. understanding was that we had serious misgivings that

a chemical attack had occurred well amidst an apparent news blackout in nato nations over recent o.p.c. w. revelations that evidence was buried to justify british airstrikes around damascus in 2018 and apparent u.s. attempts to prevent the evidence being given in person at the un panel has taken place at the house of commons ahead of this thursday's further un meeting it raises critical questions over what the u.k. funded white helmets claim was a chemical atrocity by the assad government chairing the panel is the former director of britain's special forces retired major general john holmes joins me now thanks so much major general for coming on the show i mean the former head of the o.p.c. w organization knows it was johnny may agree with you about questions over any alleged chemical attack by the as a government as a pretext for britain to bomb syria acting u.s. ambassador to the u.n. chair that challenged said that the chinese convene missed meeting at the u.n. this is all brazen dissent from

a should leave him yesterday in 10 beers agreed why are there any questions over a subject. of chemical weapons in syria from your perspective i think i should state of the at the beginning that i'm a firm believer in o.p.c. w. what it stands for and i believe that it should be able to act transparently and independently i joined a panel of 9 people to listen to the original. for a day in brussels in october last year and what he had to say was extremely convincing there are questions to be answered that perhaps the issued report did not reflect the findings on the ground. i m of of a firm believer it o.p.c. w. and if its procedures are seem to be at fault and open to. influence that is wrong because p.c. w.

will lose. any. any said any or the word of any sense of credibility credibility remind us of this whistleblower how to exist testimony because the wiki leaks revelations seem to point to alleged suppressed reports unanimous along with on acceptable practices and preordained conclusions in the. report is that the carnage as we really mean i think being we could leaks they perhaps used. a slightly exaggerated legalese to the terms from the actual. woodward did what i would agree about this was a book. native english speaker he was a senior member of. he was extremely well qualified for the job and i cannot think of a reason why he became other than he felt very strongly that

the final report had not reflected the findings and you know what he says he's a scientist of course so to a scientist that's. that that's a death knell he stood for 5 hours and had proof of all his allegations and it was very convincing just drilling down into some of the allegations what what convinced you that there may be some truth in the allegations of the o.p.c. w. report into chemical weapons was or i think for me was the fact that in all the various clauses of the report or an investigation of that kind toxicology are you witness statements eccentrics cetera about 6 or 7 of those in each one there was cause to doubt that the report did not reflect the investigation take the canisters that is one canister that. the

investigators couldn't quite work out how it ended up on a bed not being. silly but it ended up on a bed and the trajectory to get to that just didn't suck up when british authorities have an image as a spy or working for the enemy presumed dead and we governments over the crime but certainly eliot higgins the belling cat organization he said that in the end is testimony which was discussed at the security council. he wasn't trusted to even be part of the fact finding mission so there's been quite a lot of rubbishing of this going to testimony here i would expect nothing less. in the sense that if an institution an international institution is being held to account perhaps its 1st line of defense is to try to rubbish those that are holding to account and of course what we're talking about here are the reasons reasons why

. in the end there were bari of squadron 6 and 9 they were deployed from cyprus to bomb a damascus science research center 2 in the morning on the 14th of april 28th. can you really see how this could have. led to lead to british bombers bombing another country with stakes suppression of truth i think you'd have to go back into statements by the british government over the previous 5 years in terms of how it would react to the continued use of chemical weapons in syria. my stance is that the report has been question very genuinely very accurately. and i'm not interested in why that's done and dusted the important thing to me is that you should look at its internal regulations eccentrics cetera to see how they can

prevent such a thing happening again get it its value it is its independence and cannot be influenced by outside actors broadening this out a little. memory has been britain's enemy i says to ash. how do you view what happened what was happening in syria with hindsight now the war the main body of the war appeared to be over. i think you. a civil war that goes on for what 8 gives 9 years. can start for the most legitimate of reasons and i i think in this case it did it was part of the arab spring the aftermath of that and syria is a country made up of many ethnic groups of people and perhaps it was in the inevitable that something like this happened but the longer a civil war goes on the gnostic of it becomes and the more subgroups

full stop with the 1st year or 2 years it's black and white that it becomes an amorphous mass i think that perhaps some of the reporting on some of the alleged. crimes by the cid regime. probably either untrue or unbalanced i'm not pro syria or oprah anything given my rank i do war and civil wars in the us the host kind because critics of british foreign policy and american foreign policy did compare. foreign policy of these gundry's foreign policy in afghanistan when britain reserve corps supporting what would become al qaeda in afghanistan the mujahideen see any parallels there i think if you go back over post colonial british history. and the last years of the

empire state to speak you might find numerous examples like that nowadays the the difficulty for governments of any kind is the mass of information that is out there and the speed with which it reaches the public and perhaps in some cases they have to reach. very quick decisions or say nothing at all and there are a 1000 questions i could ask about other subjects because of your career in the army but if you ever witnessed a cover up of this kind involving a multilateral organization that could have made. the r.a.f. bomb another country no. that is unless i'm unaware of it. that's read up on this so this is this is actually quite unique what he has and that's one of the reasons i joined the panel because i am a firm believer in no p.c. . and this is the panel of curing it. in westminster do you think the

u.k. needs to offer restitution to syria if it all turns out that the questions were just a myth in fact the o.p.c. w reported the chemical had to do but with no bold very political question i'm not a politician major general thank you. after the break from u.k. illusions in syria to the illusions of world war 2 and the so-called cold war 75 years since stalin's liberation of auschwitz we investigate the reframing of history both of them all coming up about through him going underground. i'm going to fulfill the repeated promises of politics to the people i promise you know we've all bots to. break.

free. if you want to 1st. know. join me every thursday on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to guests of the world of politics small business i'm show business i'll see you then.

welcome back racism and anti-semitism are reportedly on the rise of course nature nation countries this is today the world commemorates holocaust memorial day on the 75th anniversary of the liberation of auschwitz birkenau by the us is but to me it's a resurgent new liberal rightwing let alone a holocaust denial of them some are questioning not only the rewriting of history but the reframing of world political culture joining me now from new york is columbia university's professor joseph thanks so much of a coming on the show professor that we had last week and this year from trump's lawyer alan dershowitz denying that conflating israeli policy with all a cause could have cathal as anti semitic troops what do you think of. the prism through which we are looking at history today's the 75th anniversary of russian russia's liberation of auschwitz well i think of course israel has always used all

kinds of arguments to justify the many of its crimes against the palestinian people including including it's illegal occupation of the west bank or gaza or of the syrian golan heights or even parts of southern lebanon historically and choose the history of the oppression of jews in europe often historically and as adults today to justify many of its crimes and i think if anyone who's a projected steps to be taken i think in the next few days only occasion of holocaust memorial day to attack and sanction the international criminal court for daring to investigate israel's war crimes a decision the i.c.c. made in the somber to use this occasion to actually rally support for israel to condemn and sanction the i.c.c. for daring to question israeli war crimes that it has decided to investigate i think makes the forests of this horrifying tragedy that is being commemorated this

year so however this is hardly new for the israelis my understanding also from the israeli press is that anyone who is seeking to impose on a world leader is the option of the new definition by the international alliance the international holocaust remembrance alliance which has recently in its definition of anti-semitism included any criticism of the state of israel or zionism so in many ways this is reframing the meaning of zionism as collapsing it into judaism and jewishness something which of course the majority of jews historically have opposed. in a history shows us the majority of jews since the beginning of the rise of zionism . the end of the 19th century have opposed this movement and they did so in fact and many of many other movements that competed for support of the jewish people of

eastern europe especially including the born which oppose dion ism nonetheless a large number of jews would sort of come around to supporting as i and as i'm after the holocaust as a result of this great tragedy and. sort of the horrific murder of the majority of european jews and 90 percent of whom were killed during the holocaust by the nazi criminal regime so there's a use this occasion today i think to try to impose a sort of israel's will the whitewash its crimes rather than seeing this occasion as the instance that should remind us all that criminals those who commit war crimes those who commit wars of aggression. should be opposed that should be brought to justice. as i think quite ironic but of course all the labor leadership candidates here in britain who will be replaced in germany corbin have adopted that very definition that you denigrating do you think they're going to have

a hard time getting a person running for the democratic president president candidates the ability saunders who of course has relatives who died in auschwitz. giving him to stick by that definition i suspect he may be also critical but historically it remember there's always been a distinction between zionism jewishness and judaism and the israeli government has sought since the 1950 s. to collapse all these terms and all these references end to one so in that sense we see this beginning in the 1970 s. as an explicit strategy at the time spearheaded by the israeli politician even who was a foreign minister and before that the united nations representative of israel who insisted. give a speech in the early seventy's and system that in fact we must equate zionism was jewishness and jews and that any opposition to zionism should be cost in the frame

of anti-semitism now remember. as i'm was looked at by many jews especially from its inception in the 880 s. and ninety's as in many ways fostering anti-semitism after all as i and as i'm shared with anti-semitism the goal of emptying europe of its jews claiming that in fact i said others of us caused by the presence of jews and gentiles societies and that the only way to end some of the ism according to the zionists and the anti semites is to take jews out of gentile communities and this is the main reason why jewish communities and intellectuals including the british jewish officials in the 19 teens and twenty's of poe's design ism fostering anti-semitism aiding anti semitic arguments that jews themselves cause anti-semitism rather than anti semites causing anti-semitism so we see this continuing today every time

there's a new anti-semitic attack on jews and france or in the us we see israeli leaders including netanyahu insisting the french jews should come to israel of their homeland as a france is not their home and worth not to that if it is the prime minister of israel and the other person who would call on french jews or american jews to abandon their homelands and go to israel rather than face up and fight back against anti semites such a person would be called explicitly anti-semitic however and who gets away with this scot free well we invite the israeli ambassador to london mcgregor on the program to refute would you just claim the but if israel is exceptional is that maybe the un security council resolutions you've been writing for weeks. to lose them as regards the trump regime saying it began quite some time ago even looking back through recalling obama and clinton speaking i think it was cleared through

spoke of the united states as being the oldest democracy in the world what has happened to the understanding of history itself we see an attempt to sort of refashion sort of world political culture and this has been part of u.s. policy since the dawn of the cold war although it had not been quite successful i mean there's been a lot of scholarly revelations and historical revelations of the role of the cia in funding newspapers and magazines across the world to influence intellectual production. in terms of adopting american definitions of political principles so and i think so the so the concept for example that the u.s. democracy exists in 776 deliberately sidesteps limited history of that democracy perhaps one could call it a mosque the race that mosque or sex democracy since between 776 and the mid 19th seventy's or rope from 160 s.

onwards only white americans had access to this democracy certainly american women did not until they got the vote after world war one. we saw you know the u.s. history being divided between a century of slavery followed by a century of apartheid yet all this seems to be irrelevant to the definition that the us has been a do a lot of democracies and $776.00 and that someone like president obama or the candidate clinton would in the us these notions notions of democracy that xclusive them a priori that they would not have had access to the walker c. 1776 yet they would parrot this kind of a us dictum that the us had been a democracy since 7876 tells you of. a large amount of american nationalism that has been successful in reframing its history of very very limited democracy to a few as if it had been

a democracy for all of this would be tantamount to an outside mandela. but before he died coming up and saying that the founding fathers of race of south africa are in fact the founding fathers of south african democracy which evolved slowly to include black people after $994.00 of course i mean such a person making such a declaration would be laughed out of the room yet in the us the spouses for objective truth if obama arguably cloaked is imperialism in. rhetorics he was beautiful by history media can you give trump some credit for removing that clue serving as a wake up cool to the imperialism your religion very much so i think in fact trump not done many of the horrific things that obama had committed and this includes for example obama's deportation of 3000000 so-called illegal immigrants in the us which has a number larger than all refugees or all immigrants that have been expelled by all

previous iraq and presidents combined certainly while trump is seeking to expel and deport more he has not been able to expel 3000000 illegal immigrants as a whole has obama done this just gives you one example of how the kind of more cosmetic language used by obama made sure that the media did not focus on many of his. sort of less. salutary or even less delectable policies trump actually speaks his mind and does not mince words about what his policies are so while of course i'm very critical of trump i do all come on a city as opposed to obama as the situation. and so when you rights of united states to be realism you normally lump britain in as if britain just follows what do you make of the fact that the newly elected lawrence johnson is just has to

wonder why do the recognized leader of venezuela by the european union the united states what do you make of london hosting one go i do venezuela there well it's just of course following of the footsteps of us imperial policy i think the british since world war 2 having creasing lee and especially since the late 19th fifty's began to follow american policy very very closely they're kind of i guess 2nd lieutenants and this sort of foreign policy game which in many ways accepts american imperial hubris around the world and endorses these policies as does the european union so the fact that an unelected virtually unknown opposition i dare not even call them a leader of an opposition figure in venezuela has been elevated to legitimacy as the president or the leader of a nice way while the elected leaders who are there running the country are

considered illegitimate gives you an idea of how vocabulary how principles how concepts of legitimacy have been reframed to accord with u.s. imperial policy on the british and the european sort of follow suit since they are sort of junior lieutenants in iraq as imperial policy and goals around the world and how do you see the role of propaganda in reframing history as we look back 75 years that as i said the soviet liberation to auschwitz during these is has history changed in normal people's imaginations to a very large extent by propaganda i would say yes it needs all vision program. process even historiography after all for example very few americans know that 90 percent of nazi casualties were on the soviet front that in fact it was the soviet union who successfully was able to defeat nazi germany that the soviet union lost

upwards of $25000000.00 people and that war of course while the americans were also instrumental in defeating the nazis at the end of the war they joined late of course and lost close to half a 1000000 soldiers nonetheless the majority of the credit for defeating the nazis you know should go and has gone historically to the soviet union yet due to us propaganda especially during the cold war most people of course i think the us singlehandedly defeated the nazis and was responsible for that defeat so that gives you just an idea that and the stark opposition to the reality of the situation at the end of world war 2 we have an account of that propaganda pushes forward that is completely different that distorts the truth of what had actually happened ok with us it applies to many other principles and policies well maybe some of the

arguable russophobe years because of goods that many in your country believe it was the russians the go drum billick to the group that's i think many of the democratic party who did not accept the defeat of mrs clinton and want to attribute it to some foreign intervention my understanding is that they have not been able to unearth any credible evidence as to russian responsibility affecting the outcome of the elections but i can assure you also many of the supporters of trump do not buy this so it's also a partisan kind of argument for residues it was a thank you. thank you for being here and that's it for the show will be back on wednesday but alas going on the ground before breaks it until it gets into the conversation on social media and subscribe to watch i want you to.

do my. kids think compensate oh boy tonight i think. people know that they can. go into the. you know move on which i really. can show them to move this is a i'm listening to going to be out in so most of them we must. consider that. you have a 1000000. in

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was liberated exactly 75 years ago by soviet forces 27 january has become international. in memory of the millions of jews during the 2nd world war. veteran calling himself. his influence on politics by swamping social media as many as 69 posts a 2nd. as in the californian city of oakland will have to shelter for prisoners following the state's most aggressive law.