VAST SUMS OF MONEY PLEDGED BY ALL THE MAIN POLITICAL PARTIES IN BRITAIN IN 2024 FOR 'DEFENSE'

Had you seen the Manifestos of the mainstream political parties?  Six of them pledged 2.5% of GDP to 'Defense' (this word invariably means 'war') and one party, Reform UK, set itself the commitment to increase this to 3% by 2030! These sums are equivalent to c.£57 billion and £68 billion respectively.   The first sum would buy 550 new hospitals and pay for the whole school budget in Britain for one year.  

The six parties that pledged 2.5% of GDP to defense were Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK.

In 2023, Britain had become the third biggest contributor to NATO and if you want to read how this has been enlarging over decades, getting ever closer to Russian territory, read the article of 19 June 2024 by Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Colombia University (you can find it here at: https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/role-of-us-in-russia-ukraine-war).  He states that by 2020, NATO had taken within its orbit 14 countries in Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Professor Sachs states that the US was complicit in the coup in 2014 that overthrew Ukraine's President, Viktor Yanukovych and has expanded NATO's presence and with it, missiles closer to Russian borders,  the only sensible policy is to accept Russia's offer of peace negotiations.  Otherwise, in his words, US policy 'can get us all killed'.

Ukraine and Russia were close to reaching agreement in March 2022 but following a visit to Ukraine by Boris Johnson the peace agreement was stoppeA WAR-MONGERING HOUSE OF COMMONS

Following the 2024 General Election, the British House of Commons is dominated by the mainstream parties of Labour (411 seats), Conservative (121 seats), Liberal Democrat (72  seats) and Reform UK (5 seats).  Are you aware of these sections from the Party Manifestos of these five parties?

1.Labour:

2.Conservative:  

A commitment to 'protect British interests in an increasingly hostile world' and also guarantees support to Ukraine.

3.Lib-Dem:

A commitment to support 'democracies around the world, especially those threatened by aggression such as Ukraine.  We must stand up to states like Russia'.

4.Reform UK:

This party offered no clarity regarding its stance on Foreign Policy, writing only that 'Reform UK will ensure our servicemen and women have the resources they need to defend our nation' and that 'Britain has some of the best and bravest armed forces in the world'.  This is unquestionably militaristic in tone but no statement is offered as to where it stands on the all-important Ukraine/ Russia conflict.  

THE VAST MINERAL AND OIL RESOURCES IN UKRAINE

If you listen to the video with Colonel Douglas MacGregor (on the earlier, 'Latest Essential videos' page) you will hear him speak of the vast mineral and oil resources in the Ukraine/Russia arena.  He quotes US Senator Lindsay Graham who, in June 2024, has spoken of the vast natural resources here as being the main reason for the Ukraine/Russia conflict.   Ukraine ranks fourth globally in terms of the total assessed value of its natural resources, the total value of which could be as high as $15 billion in annual output.  These resources are said to consist of:

a.Iron ore and coal in Eastern Ukraine, both components of steel production

b.Uranium deposits

c.Natural gas:  offshore gas (the second-largest natural gas deposits in Europe, estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic metres of proven reserves — and possibly up to 5.4 trillion cubic metres, much of it the now-contested offshore Black Sea region) and also oil.

d.Rare earth minerals:  Ukraine has the largest supply of recoverable rare earth resources in Europe, although much of it is undeveloped.  Rare earth minerals (cerium, yttrium, lanthanum and neodymium) and alloys are used in many devices people use every day, such as computer memory, rechargeable batteries, cellphones and much more.

FALSE FLAGS                       

In this section, we summarise some of the incidents in history that have been presented as the work of an opponent but which, in reality, may have been conducted by the person/country facing an opponent in order to create a sense of outrage and encourage retaliatory action.  The term was first used in the sixteenth century to describe how pirates flew the flag of a friendly nation to deceive merchant ships into allowing them to come near.

Several examples, spanning the period from the seventeenth to the twentieth century are presented here so that you can consider carefully the nature of these type of operations.   The five shown are:
a.  The Gunpowder Plot of 1605
b.  The USS Maine, 1898
c.   The Lusitania, 1915
d.   The German storming of the Gleiwitz radio station, 1939
e.   The Bay of Tonkin episode, 1964
All five are very well-evidenced but the facts behind the Gunpowder Plot are less know to many and so a great deal of detail is provided on this.  Please fast forward beyond that to the other incidents if they interest you more.

1. The Gunpowder Plot of 1605
According to historians of the gunpowder plot, the official story of this event concealed the extent to which the British establishment of the day may have enhanced their popularity and personal profits by pushing a version of events that drew Britain into decades of profitable war against Catholic Spain and Portugal.  The earliest and fullest account however occurs in John Gerard’s 1897 book, What was the Gunpowder Plot?  This detailed investigation concludes that “the government consistently falsified the story”. Since this is the earliest account to openly declare this, and since it predates the CIA’s label of ‘conspiracy theory’ by some seventy years, it is worth reviewing the evidence underpinning this statement. Let us first remind ourselves of the main elements in the official narrative.  

The official story
According to the story released by Sir Robert Cecil in November 1605, there was a Catholic conspiracy in 1605 to blow up the House of Lords on 5 November, one that involved thirteen men and extended up to the Papacy itself. The conspirators had allegedly constructed a tunnel to a cellar in Westminster Palace, in which 36 barrels of gunpowder were left with a view to blowing up Parliament.
Part of the official story also recounted how the plot was revealed ten days before the opening of Parliament on 5 November in a letter delivered to a Lord Monteagle. This allowed the plot to be ‘foiled’ at midnight on 4 November. Guy Fawkes had allegedly planned his getaway to Flanders, but he and his co-conspirators were instead executed, and the English peace treaty with Spain, signed in 1604, was sidelined and allowed to give way to a century of war between the two countries.
In fact, so great was the perceived threat to national security that it was officially compulsory in Britain until 1859 to celebrate ‘Guy Fawkes Day’ on 5 November.
Does the official story stand up to scrutiny? In 1897 John Gerard opined that the official narrative bristles with contradictions…and with falsehoods.  Gerard highlighted a number of anomalies. Below are some of the most notable.

Anomalies in the official narrative
In terms of the official motives for the attack – the destruction of Parliament – Gerard quite reasonably asks why Catholic plotters would wish to blow up Parliament when it housed not only Protestants but also all of the country’s leading Catholics? He asks moreover why, if the plot was foiled at midnight on 4 November, when 36 barrels of gunpowder had been left in the ‘cellar’ under the House of Lords, the opening of Parliament was allowed to proceed on 5 November. For, he reports that there is no evidence that the barrels had been removed.
These are important points concerning the motives but the anomalies do not stop there. For Gerard goes on to highlight an extraordinary number of these, with just a small sample summarised in the following nine points:
Breaking the news: the anonymous letter by which King James 1 learned of the plot was delivered in the first instance to Lord Monteagle ten days before the opening of Parliament. It was brought to Monteagle’s house at Hoxton where he had ordered dinner for himself, despite his not having resided at this London property for at least 12 months. After this, Monteagle received a bequest from the king equivalent to c.£20,000 a year with around £6,000 of this offered in perpetuity to his heirs.
Operations HQ: the base of operations was said to be in a house near to Parliament but access to this was only available to one of the alleged conspirators, Thomas Percy, when Parliament was not in session
The cellar: the so-called ‘cellar’ used by Guy Fawkes was located at ground level under the old House of Lords, a chamber on the first floor. It was capacious (measuring 77 feet in length) and not a secure location since the Lord Chamberlain is documented as entering the room with no difficulty on 4 November.
The tunnel through to Parliament: it is alleged that the conspirators had been digging a tunnel through to the ‘cellar’ since January 1605. However, Gerard quite reasonably asks how this activity could have gone unnoticed, not only by the government but also by the entire neighbourhood? For example he asks, how would the mass of soil and large foundation stones from the cellar have been concealed? The official story stated that the debris was concealed beneath the turf in the adjoining garden but the great foundation stones could not have been so easily hidden. What of the noise from breaking down the wall – why was this not noticed? How, moreover, would timber beams have been secretly passed through to the ‘cellar’ to shore up the roof? No evidence has subsequently been revealed of any tunnel.
Gunpowder: in 1605, the manufacture of gunpowder was a government monopoly. So, given that the 36 barrels allegedly deposited in the cellar by the conspirators would have amounted to a massive 4 tons (more than a quarter what, in 1607, was delivered from the royal store for all purposes), Gerard asks how could this have been obtained? He also asks how the first 20 barrels, allegedly stored at Lambeth could have been ferried across the river, down Parliament Place ('as busy a quarter as any in the city of Westminster') without attracting attention.  He points out also that after the plot was uncovered, 'minute and searching' inquiries were made concerning the conspirators (their haunts, lodgings, where they purchased the iron bars laid on top of the barrels) but no questions were asked concerning the source of the gunpowder and who had provided it.
Arrest of Guy Fawkes: the accounts of this are inconsistent. According to the King’s book, Fawkes was arrested in the street; according to a letter from Sir Robert Cecil to the Ambassadors overseas, he was arrested in the ‘cellar’; in his confession of 5 November, Fawkes speaks of being caught in his own room.

Opening of Parliament: the gunpowder was discovered at midnight on 4 November but the peers met as usual in the House of Lords that day. As Gerard writes: ‘It cannot be supposed that four tons of powder could have been so soon removed or that the most valuable persons in the State would have been suffered to expose themselves to the risk of assembling in so perilous a situation’.

Getaway by boat: it was said that Guy Fawkes was preparing his getaway by boat from London Bridge to Flanders, with a boat from Parliament stairs to convey him to the ship. However, on 5 November it was high water at London Bridge and, as Gerard colourfully points out, ‘to attempt to pass Old London Bridge against the tide would have been like trying to row up a waterfall’.
Official accounts: Sir Robert Cecil was at pains to transmit the official story to the King of France on 6 November, including reference to 36 barrels of gunpowder, but his account was contradicted by that of the French embassy in London which only mentioned a single barrel of gunpowder.

2. The USS Maine,1898  (for a video, see https://youtu.be/uPH90eMrg4I?t=307)
Rockefeller and JP Morgan were drawing Wall Street into the Democrat and Republican parties and the public reacted by establishing a populist party.  So, the public was distracted with a new enemy, Spain.  The focus was on Cuba, a powerful sugar producer.

The US military boat, the Maine, was docked in Havanna for three weeks before being affected by an explosion that was said to come from an external source.  A total of 266 American on the ship were killed for which the Spanish governor was blamed.  As a consequence of this, Americans were goaded into war with the battlecry:  ‘Remember the Maine’.  

The question is whether Spain really sank the Maine?  All Spanish documents reveal that Spain was to avoid war with the US at all costs, perhaps because the Spanish had a largely wooden navy  unlike the US that had steel ships.  So, who would want to seek the  destruction of the Maine? Cui bono?  

Look no further than certain private interests.  Realise first that the Rockefeller’s National City Bank loaned the US govt $200 million and that, since no income tax existed at that time, a new tax  was levied on the American people to help repay the loan.  It remained in effect for more than a century.   Then realise that, according to Mark Twain, ‘when the smoke was over, and the dead buried it suddenly dawned on people that the price of the war was the cost of  sugar.’  Branches of Rockefeller's National City  bank were set up all over Cuba and the sugar was put into the hands of the Rockefellers.

3. The Lusitania, 7 May 1915
The ocean liner RMS Lusitania is travelling from the NY to Britain with over 1000 passengers on board, including 200 Americans.  Unbeknownst to the passengers, the hull was loaded with munitions including:
a. Six million rounds of rifle ammunition
b. More than 50 tons of shrapnel shell
c. More than 60 tons of military explosives including aluminium powder                                                                                                
These ammunitions made the boat a target for the Germans and at 2.10pm a German U-boat torpedoed the ship which disappeared in eighteen minutes.  All those on board died.

At the time, statesman and senators did not want to get involved in the First World War that had started on 28 July 1914 and were keen to focus on freely trading throughout the world.  However, the money powers had other interests and at the US hearing investigating the incident, two critical pieces of evidence were withheld.  Firstly, President Woodrow Wilson ordered that the Lusitania’s original manifest listing her munitions be hidden in the archives of the US Treasury.  Secondly, the evidence that the Lusitania was taking munitions to be used by the British in WW1 and was deliberately sent to her doom was concealed.

Note that prior to the incident, Winston Churchill, then head of the British Admiralty, had ordered a study into the effects of a disaster involving American citizens.  On the morning of the incident, Woodrow Wilson’s top adviser, Edward Mendel House who was in Britain, met with the Foreign Minister, Grey.  House and Grey met with King George V at Buckingham Palace.  That afternoon the Lusitania was torpedoed.  

Note also that the British Admiralty had been well aware of German U boats in  the area and yet had not provided escorts for the Lusitania despite four boats being available at Milford Haven.

4. The Storming of the Gleiwitz Radio Station, 1939
The night before Germany invaded Poland, seven German SS soldiers pretending to be Polish stormed the Gleiwitz radio tower, external on the German side of the border with Poland. They broadcast a short message to say the station was now in Polish hands.

The soldiers also left behind the body of a civilian dressed up as a Polish soldier to make it look as though he had been killed in the raid.
Adolf Hitler made a speech the next day citing the Gleiwitz attack .  This was one of many staged incidents along the German-Polish border and was used by Hitler—who had unjustly accused Polish authorities of ethnic cleansing of German-speaking Poles—to justify the Nazi invasion of Poland, which of course had been planned many months earlier.

5. The Gulf of Tonkin incident, 1964

In August 1964, the American destroyer USS Maddox was stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam. That month, this ship was involved in two events collectively referred to as the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which changed the course of modern history in ways that still reverberate to this day.

On August 2, the American destroyer was attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. And then, two days later, on August 4, the Johnson administration claimed that it had been attacked again. After the second attack, the U.S. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution almost unanimously, allowing the federal government to “take all necessary measures” to protect U.S. forces in Vietnam.

It was tantamount to a declaration of war, but it was based on a lie.
After decades of public skepticism and government secrecy, the truth finally came out: In the early 2000s, nearly 200 documents were declassified and released by the National Security Agency (NSA).

They showed that there was no attack on August 4. U.S. officials had distorted the truth about the Gulf of Tonkin incident for their own gains — and perhaps for Johnson’s own political prospects. 

This lie kick-started a war that would claim 58,220 American and more than 3 million Vietnamese lives. This is very probably the true story of the Gulf of Tonkin incident.