Fifty-five years ago when it looked like WORLD WAR THREE was about to wipe us all out I bought a copy of Newsweek and, probably a copy of TIME magazine. A picture in one of them showed an American Senator being given a message on the crisis at an airport. The caption named him as “Scoop” Jackson. Another fifty years passed before his name surfaced again, without the nickname but with his baptismal or given name – Henry. Today an association bears his name,an association which I fear is dedicated to starting World War Three and the elimination of life on this planet.
Apparently Senator Jackson was a “liberal hawk” and advocated the use of force by the USA and its client states to remove governments they disapproved of and their replacement by regimes sharing liberal democratic principles.
No matter how long or how hard I scratch my head I cannot think of a single instance where this policy has been pursued. Since the British and /or Americans ousted Premier Mossadeq in Iran in 1953, or ousted another democratic ruler in Guatemala, helped install Suharto in Indonesia and General Pinochet in Chile, they have invariably imposed murderous and corrupt despots on formerly free peoples.
It seems the Henry Jackson Society was founded by Douglas Murray, who first came to my notice when, aged about 29, he appeared on television wearing a sneer and patronising everyone else on the panel, the youngest of whom was twice his age and all of whom had more distinction. For instance, Nigel Lawson, who, whatever his faults, had fathered a beautiful daughter.
Douglas was a protege of the insufferable twerp Michael Gove, who is listed as another member or director of the Henry Jackson Society which includes former spooks, neo-con hawks, generals and politicians from Britain, the USA and Baltic states rearing to have a go at Russia. The United Nations Charter, the International Court of Justice, and the sovereignty of independent states mean nothing to these zealots who hold them all in contempt. As they also hold the principles of liberalism and democracy. It would be nice to think they were still acne’d teenagers using hackneyed cliches in a school debate.
But they have enormous influence. For example, when did you last hear a radio or TV reference to the Government of Syria? It has been bad-mouthed as “the Syrian regime” which is calculated to have us support the war waged on it by the Americans and the British, and to accept without question allegations spread by the US and UK regimes. Allegations which, most probably, should be scooped as if they were dogs’ droppings, and binned.
Yes I would agree with you Donal these are very dangerous right wing zealots posing as advocates of liberal democracy. In some respects we can understand their modus operandi in that they have a right wing agenda and they are willing use any method including lies and fake news to advance that agenda. What is harder to understand are the motives of journalists writing for so called left leaning media outlets propagating the smear stories without checking the credibility of their sources and repeating the same errors as they did when they were sold the lie of weapons of mass destruction in IRAQ and the
Gadaffi planned attack on Benghazi.
Not only do these journalists swallow the hawkish propaganda but they actively target their own journalistic colleagues who have the temerity to challenge the dirge from the US/UK governments and are content to continually run stories backing the Western interference quoting “unknown pentagon
sources” to substantiate their claims.
My conclusion is these journalists have a duty to tell the truth and to do so after rigourous investigation and not be the mouthpieces for Jacksonite US regimes. I think had we these compliant cretins on the job during the Watergate investigations, President Nixon might well have completed his term!
The Henry Jackson society also contains unionist “academics” from here.