Deaths caused by the British Empire should be condemned

Deaths caused by British Empire should be condemned just like deaths under Stalin
Tomasz Pierscionek
RT : 5 Dec, 2019

Western historians who condemn the USSR for the deaths under Stalin’s dictatorship should shed a spotlight on the millions who died under British rule, including those in engineered famines across the Indian subcontinent.

The UK general election is a week away and a significant chunk of the country’s media, three-quarters of which is reportedly owned by a few billionaires, is hard at work digging up dirt on Jeremy Corbyn to prevent a Labour Party victory at all costs. However, this uphill task is becoming harder as recent polls show the frequently cited Conservative lead over Labour is rapidly decreasing. The
possibility that Mr Corbyn will be Britain’s next prime minister, perhaps at the head of a minority government, is now grudgingly acknowledged.

When Corbyn launched Labour’s manifesto at the end of November, he pledged to conduct a formal enquiry into the legacy of the British Empire “to understand our contribution to the dynamics of violence and insecurity across regions previously under British colonial rule” and set up an organisation “to ensure historical injustice, colonialism, and role of the British Empire is taught in the
national curriculum.”

The idea of teaching a population about the unsavoury aspects of its history, and in Britain’s case revealing how several of today’s geopolitical crises are rooted in the past folly and avarice-fuelled actions of its ruling class, is commendable.

It would be prudent to inform UK citizens about the British Empire’s divide and conquer tactics across the Indian subcontinent and Africa, the stirring up of Hindu-Muslim antagonism in the former, or the impact of the Sykes-Picot agreement that precipitated instability across the Middle East which continues to the present day. Doing so might enable the public to gain a better understanding of how past actions affect present realities, in turn making them more eager to hold contemporary politicians to account so past mistakes are not repeated. As Spanish philosopher George Santayana said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Some right-wingers may be quick to dismiss Corbyn’s manifesto promise as self-indulgent politically-correct onanism. Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage commented: “I don’t think I should apologise for what people did 300 years ago. It was a different world, a different time.” Yet, some of the violence perpetuated in the name of protecting the empire’s interests is not exactly ancient
history, having occurred within living memory for some. The Malayan Emergency, Kenya’s Mau Mau uprising, the Suez Crisis, or the deployment of British troops to Northern Ireland are a few examples.

Segments of the intelligentsia may also feel unease at Corbyn’s manifesto promise, namely those academics who still view the British Empire as the UK’s legacy and ‘gift’ to the world. This includes those who, by extension, consider modern Britain (and the West in general) as bestowed with a cultural superiority that makes it the unchallenged arbiter of global affairs and the indisputable
defender of ‘human rights’ and ‘democracy’, regardless of what these laudable terms have been corrupted into justifying. The invasion of Iraq, the destruction of Libya, and the civil wars in Syria and Ukraine are a few manifestations of Western intervention.

Some Western historians fall over themselves condemning the USSR for the millions who died under the dictatorship of Stalin, with a significant proportion of these victims perishing during famines. The people of the former Soviet Union need to come to terms with their history, just like any other country. In the meantime, Western historians should shine a spotlight closer to home. Engineered
famines across the Indian subcontinent reportedly killed up to 29 million in the late 19th century and a further 3 million in 1943.

The Indian subcontinent was only one of the regions under British rule and the deaths mentioned above do not include those violently killed by occupying forces. Unlike the USSR, which kept oppression confined within its borders and those of neighbouring countries under its sphere of influence, Britain together with the American Empire (to which it handed over the baton of imperialism after WWII) has interfered on pretty much every continent except Antarctica. In modern times we see the UK, now a vassal of the US-led NATO empire, condemn nations that refuse to submit to Western hegemony.

Apologists for Empire claim it brought ‘progress’ such as railways, infrastructure, education, cricket, as well as free trade and order (i.e. Pax Britannica). Irrespective of whether such ‘gifts’ were appreciated by occupied nations, this line of reasoning opens up a dangerous precedent. For example, supporters of Stalin overlook his despotism by crediting him with rapidly industrializing an
underdeveloped nation that later played a major role in defeating Nazism, bestowing upon him an honour that instead belongs to millions of rank and file soldiers, officers, and commanders of the Red Army.

During the time of the British Empire, as was the case with other European empires and many dictatorships, the majority of working people were not personally enriched by the plunder of imperialism and their descendants are not to blame for the actions of the former ruling class. Nevertheless, learning one’s history is the first step to understanding the present, ensuring today’s leaders are held to account, and preventing the same mistakes from being repeated.

Tomasz Pierscionek is a medical doctor and social commentator on medicine, science, and technology.

What would it take for the UK to apologize for centuries of atrocities carried out under the British Empire?
Darius Shahtahmasebi
RT : 10 Oct, 2019

Any objective historian would concede that the British government has a centuries-long list of atrocities that it must one day apologize for. To this day, the British Empire has struggled with the notion of righting past wrongs.

The British government made a rare move last week: it expressed regret for the killing of Maori in New Zealand in 1769. When Captain James Cook “discovered” New Zealand, it wasn’t long before local Maori people were being attacked and killed by Cook and his band of merry men.

To be fair, the government only took this step because it wanted to push ahead with a government-funded commemoration of Cook’s initial landing, including replicating his sailing ship with an accompanying flotilla. In fact, New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters (who has Maori ancestry, mind you), suggested that Maori had their own share of the blame.

Captain Cook and his gang didn’t just kill innocent natives. As my good friend and former rugby star Eliota Sapolu points out regularly, the captain took native Polynesian women as sexual slaves. Perhaps rejecting the commemoration of people who commit such acts is actually not a bad idea.

The British Empire spanned far and wide, often at the expense of the basic rights of the local populations that fell under British rule. So much so, that you would be hard-pressed to Google search a country and find that the British hadn’t interfered extensively in that neighborhood.

In South Africa, the British rounded up approximately one sixth of the Boer population (allegedly, the majority of whom were women and children) and detained them in camps during the Second Boer War. More than 22,000 of the 27,927 detainees who died were under the age of 16, while an unknown number of black Africans were also killed.

The Second Boer War was also infamous for Britain’s use of its devastating scorched earth policy, which saw it destroy farms and civilian homes to break the Boer’s resolve.

British forces also held thousands of Kenyans in camps during the 1950s Mau Mau Uprising, this particular event rife with allegations of sexual assault, rape and torture.

And when it comes to recognized and esteemed figures whose legacies would be better suited for review in The Hague, Great Britain certainly has an abundance of them. Winston Churchill’s international reign of terror as British prime minister comes to mind.

Churchill’s rule is mired with an incredulous amount of bloodshed.

In 1921, Churchill launched a massive bombing tirade to counter unrest in Mesopotamia, allegedly cancelling out the existence of a village within 45 minutes (perhaps the world record). He also said, “I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against the uncivilized tribes; it would spread a lively terror.”

Yes, indeed it would. We call this terror a war crime.

Among his eclectic list of crimes, Churchill also called for the gassing of local Indians, who he aptly termed “a beastly people with a beastly religion.” With this racist logic, he successfully starved 4 million Bengalis to death, all the while blaming the locals for their plight for “breeding like rabbits.”

Speaking of India, British troops also once opened fire until they ran out of ammunition against a number of peaceful protesters, possibly killing 1,000 protesters and injuring 1,100 more. The brigadier in charge was treated as a hero by the British public, who donated £26,000 to say thank you.

Fast forward some decades later and the arrogance of the violent chess game played by the remnants of the British Empire continues even to this day. Prior to the NATO onslaught of Libya, the North African nation had the highest standard of living on the entire continent. Now it is a terrorist safe-haven; a lawless failed state where slaves are sold like commodities.

When then-Prime Minister David Cameron announced the success of the use of violent force in Libya in 2011, he told the world it was “necessary, legal and right.”

“It was necessary because Gaddafi was going to slaughter his own people - and that massacre of thousands of innocent people was averted,” Cameron famously stated. “Legal, because we secured a Resolution from the United Nations, and have always acted according to that Resolution. And right, because the Libyan people deserve to shape their own future, just as the people of Egypt and Tunisia
are now doing.”

None of those points are correct. We already know that Muammar Gaddafi was embroiled in a battle with extremist jihadists who had fought against the British in Iraq. (These militias would eventually become ISIS). The idea that Gaddafi was massacring civilians for no apparent reason has been heavily disputed. Besides, the British government at the time had an interestingly cozy relationship with the Libyan regime and helped to capture Gaddafi’s opponents who were later sent back to Libya and tortured. The “no-fly zone” resolution did not authorise the removal of Gaddafi by force.

So no – it wasn’t legal, it wasn’t necessary and certainly wasn’t right.

The destabilization of Libya and the flow of arms following Gaddafi’s death helped prop up terror groups across the region, including Boko Haram in Nigeria.

The British have a history of destroying entire regions and justifying their actions with the same colonial mindspeak that they have always used. Centuries later, the best they can muster is a statement of “regret” – a meaningless gesture void of any meaning.

When you remove yourself from your bubble you realise how the rest of the world views the legacies you have left in your wake. A phrase I often hear while talking to people of different nationalities is “the British have a lot to answer for.” I recall one Iraqi friend telling me that in their part of the world, it is not necessarily the Americans who are despised the most, but the British.

The Iranian people, for example, can recall a CIA-backed coup in 1953 which removed their democratically elected leader, Mohammad Mosadegh, and changed the nation’s entire course of history. I haven’t met a single Iranian who is in denial about Britain’s central role in this operation.

This is from the Guardian, a British newspaper:

“Britain, and in particular Sir Anthony Eden, the foreign secretary, regarded Mosaddeq as a serious threat to its strategic and economic interests after the Iranian leader nationalised the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, latterly known as BP. But the UK needed US support. The Eisenhower administration in Washington was easily persuaded.”

The Guardian noted: “US officials have previously expressed regret about the coup but have fallen short of issuing an official apology. The British government has never acknowledged its role.”

Forget asking for apologies, there are some crimes that the British will just flat-out ignore.

Before the gatekeepers attack me for being anti-British (if that is such a thing), I will just point out that I am in fact a British citizen, born and raised in the United Kingdom. I am also fortunate enough to have New Zealand citizenship. But life isn’t a sports game; I am not required to pick teams. Both the British government and the New Zealand government have a good share of deeds to acknowledge and apologize for – that’s just an objective truth, whether we like it or not.

The British certainly have a lot to answer for, and as a British person I can say this quite comfortably without feeling as though I have shot myself in the foot. At the end of the day, a nation battling a rising right-wing and anti-immigrant hysteria would do well to view the actions of its own government and military over the last few centuries, as it may even help tell the story of how the
current state of Britain came into being.- - -
Darius Shahtahmasebi is a New Zealand-based legal and political analyst who focuses on US foreign policy in the Middle East, Asia and Pacific region. He is fully qualified as a lawyer in two international jurisdictions.

Most Britons 'proud' of colonial legacy they know little about
Danielle Ryan
RT : 18 Feb, 2016

A recent poll conducted in the UK found that 44 percent of British people are “proud” of the British Empire, while only 21 percent of respondents “regretted” that it existed.

The YouGov poll found 43 percent of respondents felt the empire had been a “good” thing while 19 percent said it was “bad”.

At its peak in 1922, the British Empire governed one-fifth of the world’s population and one-quarter of the world’s land area. 

Slave-trading, famine, concentration camps, massacres; those all sound like a history that would evoke a sense of shame, not pride.

But this isn’t about bashing Britons for being proud of their history and telling them to feel ashamed instead. It’s about the fact that they — too many of them — don’t actually know their history. The history of the empire is not widely taught in UK schools — and what is taught is a watered-down or varnished version of the truth.

As British-Nigerian historian and writer David Olusoga put it: “The empire has become reduced to the abolition of slavery, the building of the Indian railways and some vague talk about the rule of law, British values and the spread of the English language.”

Calls for an overhaul

Last year, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called for an overhaul of the country’s national history curriculum to include more teaching about the crimes of the empire. He also called for more teaching on the rise of the trade unions and “socialist tradition” in Britain. On the subject of the British Empire, he said: “You need to get the story from the people where the empire expanded into,
rather than those that came there to take control of it.”

But Corbyn is not the only one to take issue with Britain’s history curriculum. Leading historians have called for an unvarnished approach to teaching about the country’s past. Ashley Jackson, Professor of Imperial and Military History at King's College London, told the Independent that, understandably, “a lot of British people would like to think that the imperial past was generally okay,
but unfortunately if you look at the record of empire it’s very difficult to say that overall it was a good thing.”

Andrea Major, an associate professor in British colonial history at the University of Leeds said there was a “collective amnesia about the levels of violence, exploitation and racism involved in many aspects of imperialism” and that “better education” and “more open public debate” was needed.

The results of the YouGov poll were released last month on the same day as a UN report into the violence committed by the Islamic State terror group in Iraq, which led to some uncomfortable comparisons on Twitter.

Look over there!

Countries deal with traumatic histories and legacies in much the same way. Let’s call it the “Look over there!” approach. The bad is downplayed to near irrelevance, while the good is magnified. This is a kind of natural default displayed by great powers. At the same time, the crimes committed by others take on a disproportionate level of importance. A barely audible mumble of ‘yes we made some mistakes’ is quickly followed up with ‘but look at how awful [insert other country] is!’

A present day example can be found in Syria. When bombs dropped by the US or UK kill civilians, it is denied or passed off as a terrible mistake. No one bats much of an eyelid at the BBC or CNN. But when Russian bombs kill civilians, they suddenly change their tunes and it becomes must-read news. Look over there! Look what they did! To save myself from shouts of “hypocrisy” let’s be clear:

This happens in Russian media, too.

Cameron and the Empire vs. Putin and Stalin

While former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair apologized in 2006 for Britain’s role in the early slave trade, current PM David Cameron has been somewhat less critical of the country’s colonial past, notably refusing to apologize for the Amritsar massacre of 1919,

which saw British troops open fire on crowds of Indian nationalists, killing nearly 400 and wounding many more. Visiting Amritsar in 2013, Cameron argued that it would not be right to “reach back into history” and reasoned that it was enough that the event had already been “rightly criticized” at the time, adding that there was still an “enormous amount” to be proud of in what the empire was responsible for.

In some ways, we could compare the results of the YouGov poll to Russian public opinion on Stalin. There is much criticism in the West for Vladimir Putin’s alleged “rehabilitation” of the dictator. Westerners are astounded to learn that Russians could have any positive feelings at all regarding the Stalin era — and they’re not shy about blaming Putin and labeling him a modern-day

reincarnation of the dictator himself. However, Cameron’s comments about pride in the empire don’t get quite the same treatment. That is for many reasons — but the overriding one is simply that we in the West are allowed to be unapologetically proud of our histories.

It’s always ‘others’ who should hang their heads in shame, groveling for acceptance.

Looking in the mirror

But is there really any use in comparing and contrasting? Britons are proud of an empire they know little about. Americans still haven’t managed to build a national slavery museum. Russians are still grappling with the legacy of Stalin and even Lenin. Wouldn’t we all just be better off worrying more about our own histories than everyone else’s?

History is delicate. It can rarely be discussed in ‘all good’ or ‘all bad’ terms. Its subtleties and nuances are as important to our understanding of the past as they are to informing our understanding of the present. I recently visited Moscow’s state-run Gulag Museum. On one of the walls in the museum it was written: "We have yet to fully study, understand and accept this history".

The same can be said for modern-day Britain and its understanding of the Empire.
- - -
Danielle Ryan is an Irish freelance writer based in Dublin. Her work has appeared in Salon, The Nation, Rethinking Russia, teleSUR, RBTH, The Calvert Journal and others.

The Two Faces of Warmongers

The Two Faces of Warmongers
By Massoud Nayeri
Global Research, January 10, 2020
The American people are now facing a new political challenge brought on by the recent U.S. assassinations of Iranian and Iraqi military figures.

On one hand, they realize that their government has become unattached more than ever from their immediate and basic needs; such as, access to healthcare for all, job security and a rational educational system that elevates young minds to lead the nation down a prosperous path.

That prosperous path (including achievements in health care, education  and job creation) is jeopardized by Trump’s commitment to allocating 2.5 trillion dollars to the Military.

    "The American military has been completely rebuilt under my administration, at a cost of $2.5 trillion. U.S. Armed Forces are stronger than ever before. Our missiles are big, powerful, accurate, lethal, and fast. Under construction are many hypersonic missiles." (Trump, White House Speech, January 8, 2020)

On the other, they are trying to find their voices to express their desire for PEACE and PROGRESS in these uncertain times. Both major dominant political parties in the U.S. (the Democrats and Republicans) with their corrupt media are simply playing the old “Good Cop Bad Cop” scenario and in this case the good and bad warmongers.

The fact is that both parties are in agreement that in order to maintain their superpower status, a major war against the “Foreign Enemy” is necessary, but more importantly, they are more fearful of the “Domestic Enemy” – that is a majority of the population who are dissatisfied and who are the real producers of goods and wealth with the power to govern and create a peaceful and prosperous society!

A government that justifies the terrorist act of ASSASSINATION, soon will apply the same unlawful methods to deal with the internal dissents and “trouble makers”.

Working people worldwide are victims of an economic system that puts profit over people – the Capitalist system. Therefore, only people united on a global scale can defeat the warmongers in all forms and shapes. A People to People Diplomacy is our last chance to expose the 1% vicious war plan. American people (artists, intellectuals, independent journalists, teachers, students, workers, farmers and religious communities) should contact their Iranian counterparts to de-escalate tension in the region and defeat warmongers.

In the next global war, peaceful families around the world have nothing to lose except their sons and daughters, the future of humanity and our blue planet.

Organize against the war before the insane “leaders” of the world make the unrealistic Armageddon a reality.

Australian whistleblower ex-spy & his lawyer persecuted

In 2004, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) bugged the East Timor Cabinet Office at Dili to obtain information that would allow Australia to gain an unfair advantage & the upper hand in negotiations with East Timor over the rich oil & gas fields in the Timor Gap. This was allegedly at the behest of then Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer.

In 2012, the former senior ASIS intelligence officer who led the bugging operation (Witness K) revealed that the Australian Government had illegally accessed the top-secret cabinet discussions of the East Timorese Government & had exploited this information during negotiations of the Timor Sea Treaty, to the disadvantage of the people of East Timor.

In June 2018 the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions filed criminal charges against Witness K & his lawyer, Bernard Collaery for essentially exposing the truth of Australia’s bad behaviour towards an ally & a newly independent country struggling to get its people out of poverty.

The agents and politicians who ordered the bugging of another government to gain financial advantage are the ones who should be punished. Australian Taxpayers should know what is done in their name. Agents/public servants and politicians should take responsibility for their immoral decisions. Witness K and his lawyer are victims of those immoral decisions and should be applauded for speaking up. There is no excuse for cheating a poor country out of their own resources! How low can Australian governments go... and expect to get away with it?!

A developed nation state such as Australia does not have to play power games with small impoverished nations such as Timor Leste to give it a sense of identity. Australia can admit its folly & move onto a sustained healthy relationship with its neighbour & drop the closed court case that punishes honesty.

Why is having a moral compass so difficult for those Australians sitting in parliament? Witness K and Bernard Colleary should be praised for having the courage to stand up for law and right action. Australia did a very small minded illegal act- admit it, and move on.

The Transparency Project

Witness K and the 'outrageous' spy scandal that failed to shame Australia

Bernard Collaery helped the Timor-Leste government build a case against Australia at The Hague, alleging the bugging had rendered the treaty void.

Witness K and lawyer Bernard Collaery helped correct what they saw as a gross injustice. They now face jail time!

by Christopher Knaus
The Guardian, 10 Aug 2019

Peter Galbraith was playing a high-stakes game.

It was 2004 and, in the Dili heat, the distinguished US diplomat sat opposite Australian officials, bartering over a nation’s future.

Timor-Leste’s government, with Galbraith as its chief negotiator, was desperate to get a fair deal from the bountiful underwater oil and gas reserves that lay between it and Australia, a trusted ally and regional powerhouse.

Success would give it a significant share of fields worth $40bn-$50bn, helping lift the fledgling nation out of poverty. Failure would blow the tyres of an economy heavily reliant on natural resources.

The game, though, was rigged.

Unbeknownst to Galbraith, Australian Secret Intelligence Service (Asis) agents had been instructed to bug key offices of the Timor-Leste government. The listening devices would reveal Timor-Leste’s bottom line, its negotiating tactics and the competing views of cabinet members.

“It was outrageous,” Galbraith tells Guardian Australia from his home in the US. “I’d taken protective measures against Australian espionage, which I thought would be based on cell phones and internet, but I thought it was pretty crude to be bugging the prime minister’s offices.

“It was not what you do to a friendly state. And it was not something you do for commercial advantage.”

The Asis operation remained secret. The treaty was signed.

Australia secured a 50-50 split of the Greater Sunrise fields, positioned 450km north-west of Darwin and 150km south of Timor-Leste.

It was a good deal for the Australian government, and a boon for the joint venture of multinationals, led by Woodside, seeking to exploit the Timor Sea.

As a former US ambassador to Croatia, Galbraith had frequent access to US intelligence. Never has he seen his country attempt an operation as commercially driven as Australia’s was.

“The whole experience of the negotiation from 2000 on and through this whole episode was to see a country that – yes, in many ways focuses on the public good – but where corporate greed was a big part of it, because the Howard and Downer government, they were shills for the corporations,” Galbraith said. “That was what was really important to them.

“That is not something that goes on in the United States. It was pretty shocking.”

Australia’s actions would have been buried in perpetuity, had it not been for one Asis operative, known only as Witness K. The senior intelligence officer felt deeply uncomfortable about the operation, which was mounted during a heightened regional terror threat due to the 2002 Bali bombings. He eventually approached the intelligence watchdog, the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS).

The spy obtained permission to talk to an approved lawyer, Bernard Collaery, a barrister and one-time attorney general for the ACT.

Collaery helped the Timor-Leste government build a case against Australia at The Hague, alleging the bugging had rendered the treaty void.

The revelations were splashed across mainstream media, first through the Australian, then the ABC.

In Timor-Leste, the pair were seen as heroes.

“Witness K, as the secret agent became known, and Collaery, are brave Australians,” former Timor-Leste president José Ramos-Horta wrote last month while calling for the pair to be awarded his nation’s highest honour. “Individuals with a conscience and courage, representing the very best of Australians as I know them – instinctively sympathetic to the underdog, the weak and vulnerable.”

The love for Collaery and Witness K runs deeper still among the Timor-Leste people, according to Prof Clinton Fernandes of the University of New South Wales, who has followed the case closely.

Civil society groups have printed “solidarity with Bernard Collaery” T-shirts and banners, which Fernandes says will soon be a visible presence across Dili.

“There’s another aspect to this affair that most Australians haven’t appreciated – the moral injury felt by the people of Timor-Leste,” Fernandes said. “They want Australia to be a good neighbour, not an eavesdropper who breaks the 10th commandment repeatedly.

Collaery is a great Australian in their eyes.”

Lawyer Bernard Collaery

It’s a stark contrast to their treatment in Australia. Witness K and Collaery now face jail time for helping correct what they saw as a gross injustice.

This week, Witness K pleaded guilty to sharing protected Asis information. Collaery will fight on, facing a partially secret trial in the ACT supreme court, the court where he has spent much of his life practicing.

The pair’s actions embarrassed powerful forces within government, intelligence, and corporate Australia. Those forces would wait almost a decade to exact revenge.

In the summer of 2013, young law clerk Chloe Preston was sitting alone at Collaery’s home practice in Narrabundah, Canberra. Outside, the suburban streets were quiet, save for the gentle hum of the beehives Collaery keeps in his front garden.

The doorbell rang about 9am.

Preston remembers her shock at opening the door to 10 officers, including agents from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio). Collaery had flown to The Hague 24 hours earlier to ready Timor-Leste’s case against Australia.

The officers produced a warrant, most of which had been blacked out, and offered a simple explanation for their presence: “national security”.

“I didn’t see it as a national security issue then and I don’t now,” Preston tells Guardian Australia. “We were no threat to national security; this was a blatant bullying tactic by the Australian government, designed to intimidate.”

The raid lasted six hours, stretching well into the afternoon. The officers rifled through Collaery’s documents. Preston remembers seeing one officer on the floor of Collaery’s lounge room, reading through a folder of documents directly related to the arbitration between Timor-Leste and Australia.

“I remember thinking to myself that this was nothing short of cheating,” Preston says. “A party to a legal case, had just waltzed into their opponent’s chambers, and seized their legal briefs.

“As a law clerk, a week out from being admitted as a solicitor, and as an Australian citizen, who believed that I lived in a fair democratic country, I lost a lot of confidence in the government, and the law, that day.”

A second raid was taking place at the home of Witness K, who was preparing to give evidence at The Hague. Collaery called in to the ABC from Europe to express his fury, alleging Australia was trying to intimidate Witness K and stop him from giving evidence.

“I can’t think of anything more crass than what has occurred,” he said.

The raids were just the start. Witness K’s passport was seized, preventing him from flying to The Hague. His efforts to get it back stretched across six years of secret hearings in the administrative appeals tribunal.

Collaery says Witness K was put through “six years of seclusion, harassment and questioning”. Collaery’s own attempts to publish a book on the affair prompted threats of jail from the Australian government.

The most shocking development came midway through last year. Timor-Leste had by then dropped its case against Australia, paving the way for the signing of a new treaty on the Timor Sea maritime boundary in March 2018.

The revised deal was far more favourable to the smaller nation, and it is now expected to reap between 70% and 80% of total revenue.

Three months after the treaty was signed, independent MP Andrew Wilkie revealed the Australian government had approved the prosecution of Witness K and Collaery.

“With the diplomacy out of the way it’s time to bury the bodies,” Wilkie said under parliamentary privilege.

Crossbench senator Rex Patrick accused prosecutors of sitting on evidence for three years to avoid a diplomatic incident.

The pair were charged with conspiring to breach section 39 of the Intelligence Services Act for allegedly communicating information they obtained in the course of employment or an agreement with ASIS.

The case drew immediate condemnation from lawyers, former judges, academics, and civil society groups. Labor has, so far, been relatively quiet on the case. It has fallen on individuals such as former Victorian premier Steve Bracks and NSW shadow attorney general Paul Lynch to take up the cause.

“This prosecution seems designed to punish whistleblowers,” Lynch tells Guardian Australia. “What’s worse is that what they revealed should be deeply shaming to Australia. Australia’s intelligence services were revealed to be illegally bugging a foreign government, when the substantial benefits would flow to private corporations – all at a time when our intelligence services should have focused on terrorist threats.”

The case against Collaery and Witness K comes as Australia pursues a range of whistleblowers with vigour.

Prosecutors have lodged separate criminal proceedings against Richard Boyle, a tax office whistleblower, and David McBride, a military lawyer who leaked documents to ABC journalists. Other whistleblowers have faced threats and termination for revealing information clearly in the public interest.

The cases have opened a debate about the adequacy of Australia’s whistleblowing protections.

This week, Griffith University integrity expert Prof AJ Brown and his team published a major study examining the experiences of whistleblowers.

It found less than 1% of whistleblowers ended up going to the media, which Brown described as “far less external disclosure than we actually want or need” if wrongdoing was to be properly addressed. Those who blew the whistle externally experienced at least a third more repercussions than whistleblowers who stayed internal, the research found.

The report also identified a separate need to reform blanket criminal prohibitions on the unauthorised release of information, similar to those used to prosecute Witness K and Collaery case.

Instead, secrecy laws should make allowances for disclosures in the public interest, the report said. Such an approach was recommended in 2010 by the Australian Law Reform Commission’s inquiry into secrecy laws but has not been implemented.

“The challenge was, and remains, how to ensure the general law protects all persons who might need to justifiably breach confidentiality, by enabling any person to call on and argue a public interest defence in such circumstances – such as traditionally existed under common law principles,” Prof Brown’s report found. “Such a reform would parallel improvements to whistleblower laws, rather than seeking to convert whistleblower protection laws into more general laws aimed at public disclosure of information.”

Fernandes, from UNSW, said the case speaks to another critical institutional failing: the inability for Australia’s parliament to scrutinise intelligence operations.

He said Australia could consider adopting the US model, where intelligence and judiciary committees are regularly briefed about intelligence collection programs. Select groups of congressmen also receive briefings on specific operation types prior to their occurrence, he said.

“This preserves executive freedom while also ensuring a check on executive overreach,” Fernandes said. “Furthermore, all members of the House and Senate intelligence committees and their key staffers are regularly provided with extended footage of completed operations involving, for example, drone strikes. These provisions should be adopted in Australia.”

Many questions remain about the Witness K and Collaery affair, not least about Alexander Downer, the former foreign affairs minister who went on to work for Woodside as a consultant after leaving office. Patrick, the crossbench senator, used parliamentary privilege earlier this year to highlight Downer and Woodside’s role in the Timor Sea negotiations.

“The bottom line here is that Downer (and Woodside) wanted to force East Timor, one of the poorest countries in the world, to surrender most of the revenues from Greater Sunrise, revenue it could have used to deal with its infant mortality rate – currently 45 out of 1,000 children in East Timor don’t live past the age of one,” Patrick told parliament. “And yet our plan was to deprive them of oil revenue.”

But for all the questions, one thing remains clear for Preston, Collaery’s former law clerk.

“Whatever happens from here, the courage they have displayed is already etched into Australian political history,” she says. “For years to come, Australians, young and old, will learn of the two heroes who revealed the farce of politics in this country.”


Witness K lawyer alleges 'extraordinary unexplained roadblock' in funding his case

Counsel for the former Australian spy tells court he applied for legal aid more than a year ago in his ‘complex’ case

Paul Karp
The Guardian, 29 Aug 2019

Counsel for the former spy Witness K has launched a broadside at Legal Aid ACT, accusing it of an “extraordinary unexplained roadblock” in approving funding for the whistleblower’s case.

Witness K has decided to plead guilty in the ACT magistrates court to one charge of communicating secret information obtained in the course of his duties as an Australian Secret Intelligence Service agent by revealing Australia’s spying on Timor-Leste in 2004 during talks to carve up resources in the Timor Sea.

At a directions hearing on Thursday, Witness K’s counsel, Haydn Carmichael, told the court his client had applied for legal aid more than a year ago and might still need funding for his plea and sentencing hearing, including “significant disbursements” to bring witnesses from overseas and medical evidence.

Carmichael explained that with the exception of “limited fees” to attend hearings in Canberra, Witness K’s case had been conducted pro bono by himself, Robert Richter and solicitors from Corrs Chambers Westgarth, with some assistance from the Australian government solicitor in applying for legal aid.

Carmichael signalled he intended to ask the court to force the ACT Legal Aid chief executive, John Boersig, to explain why the application for aid “has not been resolved at all satisfactorily”.

Witness K’s case was “complex”, “novel” – a first-of-its kind prosecution – and legal aid was required to facilitate the administration of justice, he said.

Carmichael quoted a letter promising that Witness K would have “every proper opportunity to obtain appropriate funding” and that a decision would be made independent of the commonwealth attorney general.

But Carmichael accused Boersig of failing to “respond to facts put to him” in the application, a matter of “grave concern”. He called for a “real and rational response” explaining ACT Legal Aid’s decision and what help would be available to Witness K.

Carmichael warned that refusing legal aid might compromise further hearings and would amount to entering a “parallel universe” of intruding on, rather than facilitating, the interests of justice.

Witness K’s case is scheduled to return for a mention on 13 September to see if facts of the case are agreed with the prosecution, before a formal plea and sentencing at a later date.

Witness K’s former lawyer, Bernard Collaery, has taken a different path, intending to protest his innocence in the ACT supreme court.

In August Collaery said he understood the former spy’s desire to seek a swift resolution after “six years of seclusion, harassment and questioning”.

Boersig told Guardian Australia that legislation prevented him from commenting on any application for legal aid.

Witness K to plead guilty in Timor-Leste spying case but lawyer to fight charges

Bernard Collaery will stand trial over conspiring to breaching secrecy laws, calling the accusations against him ‘contemptible’

Paul Karp
The Guardian, 6 Aug 2019

The former spy Witness K will plead guilty to breaching secrecy laws by revealing Australia’s spying on Timor-Leste but his lawyer, Bernard Collaery, will fight charges in the ACT supreme court.

In the ACT magistrates court on Tuesday, Collaery waived his rights to a committal hearing and prosecutors consented to send his case to the supreme court. Collaery was granted bail and was summoned to appear on 22 August.

Haydn Carmichael revealed that his client, Witness K, will plead guilty to a summary offence, one breach of section 39 of the Intelligence Services Act for communicating secret information obtained in the course of his duties as an Australian Secret Intelligence Service agent.

Outside the court, Collaery issued a statement that Witness K’s complaint had revealed a “cheating culture motivated by commercial interests” which was both “contrary to Australia’s national security interests” and unlawful.

Collaery said he stood by his legal advice to Witness K, labelling the accusation that he had unlawfully conspired with Witness K “contemptible”.

The two men were charged with disclosing information about the bugging of Timor-Leste government buildings in 2004, an operation that gave Australia the upper hand in talks to carve up resources in the Timor Sea.

Collaery said he was charged with “speaking to five journalists after my chambers were raided and my brief seized”, labelling the case “a likely turning point on … true freedom of expression against abuses of power”.

Collaery said the prosecution was “a very determined push to hide dirty political linen … under the guise of national security imperatives”.

He said an open court process would reveal the disclosures were “totally unrelated to national security concerns”.

Collaery said he had “great empathy for Witness K and the struggle [he] has gone through spiritually, mentally and physically”. He said Witness K had “reached a conclusion he needs to exit the process” after “six years of seclusion, harassment and questioning”.

In court, the attorney general’s counsel Richard Lancaster pushed for a hearing to proceed on the extent of protected national security information in the case.

The acting chief magistrate, Glenn Theakston, recorded Witness K’s intention to plead guilty but noted a precedent case that would require him to attend in person to enter the plea.

He adjourned the matter to 29 August to grant further time for Witness K and the prosecution to reach agreement on the scope of national security information to avoid the need for a separate hearing.

Al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria had always stolen UN aid supplies

"All humanitarian aid delivered by the UN or their outreach agencies had been stockpiled by the armed groups and distributed to the fighters from within these groups. Very few civilians would receive the aid, unless they were prepared to pay extortionate prices to the terrorist/extremist groups."

UN Security Council Extends Aid Runs for Al Qaeda in Idlib
By Vanessa Beeley
The Wall Will Fall 12 January 2020

“Al-Qaeda terrorists operating in the north of Syria and oppressing millions of Syrians can now breathe comfortably after the United Nations Security Council extended their supply routes from their regional sponsor NATO member state Turkey for an additional Six months within its Resolution 2504.” ~ Syria News

In October 2014, Serena Shim, a US citizen and a Press TV reporter was killed in a mysterious car accident in Turkey on the border with Kobane, northern Syria. Shim had received death threats from Turkish intelligence after she had reported ISIS fighters entering Syria from Turkey inside World Food Programme trucks. The same trucks were also delivering arms and equipment to the terrorist groups inside Syria.

My experience in Syria – when entering the armed group (dominated by Nusra Front, Al Qaeda) occupied areas of Syria after liberation by the Syrian Arab Army – I found that all humanitarian aid delivered by the UN or their outreach agencies had been stockpiled by the armed groups and distributed to the fighters from within these groups. Very few civilians would receive the aid, unless they were prepared to pay extortionate prices to the terrorist/extremist groups.

When East Aleppo was liberated in December 2016, more than 5000 tonnes of UN aid were recovered from the different districts and collected together into one warehouse. Civilians testified to being starved, deprived of medical care and forced to pay very high prices in a war economy, for the most basic necessities.

Effectively “aid” went almost exclusively to the armed groups that reigned eastern Aleppo for almost five years, converted hospitals into military and detention centers and committed a multitude of war crimes against the Syrian civilians under their occupation. The “aid” became a major part of a mafia economy benefiting only the armed groups.

Dr Nabil Antaki, a gastroenterologist who remained in Aleppo during the last nine years, wrote a report in December 2016, detailing his experience of visiting the previously Nusra-front occupied areas of East Aleppo. This was his comment regarding the stockpiling of UN and other western aid agency supplies:

    “I had the opportunity to visit the basement of Ibn Rushed public hospital in West Aleppo guided by the director of Aleppo Health Direction. In this basement, very large, 1000 square meter, they put some of the medicine and equipment found in clinics and hospitals of the neighborhood controlled by the terrorists. See photos. These demonstrate clearly that there was no shortage of medicine as they proclaimed, via their godfathers, asking for a humanitarian truce.”

I witnessed the same in other areas of Syria – Eastern Ghouta, Damascus, Daraa, Madaya, Zabadani etc. Award winning journalist, Eva Bartlett, described the same phenomenom when she visited Madaya where the western media, anti-Syrian government hyperbole, reached defeaning levels.

Now we have Idlib and the continued use of “humanitarian aid” as a weapon against the Syrian people and the Syrian government. Idlib is known to be entirely occupied by groups dominated by Nusra Front or Hayat Tahrir as Sham, one of their many rebrands.
Idlib and the War of Terror Against the Syrian People. Ambassador Jaafari’s Statement at UN Security Council

From speaking to refugees from Idlib and to Syrian civilians still living in Idlib but travelling to northern Hama or other government-secured areas for work or trade – I have heard a very familiar story, the terrorists take delivery of the UN “aid”, it is stockpiled and sold at extortionate rates to the needy civilians, most can’t afford to buy it.

A recent interview I did with a refugee from Yacoubieh in Idlib, now living in Latakia, forced out of her home by the armed groups – I was told that the terrorist groups and the White Helmets receive the aid, they store it and distribute first among the fighters – civilians are secondary, if they are lucky they will receive one box of essential items that is supposed to last one month.

    ” According to Aline, the White Helmets were working with and for the terrorist groups. Aid received from outside was distributed first to the armed groups before meagre supplies were handed out to civilians. Aline did not see the White Helmets performing “humanitarian” activities, they were focused on further looting and the destruction of historic buildings, including the churches. “ ~ US increases funding to White Helmets who are persecuting Syrian Christians in Idlib

When the Shia Muslim villages of Kafarya and Foua were under siege in Idlib (by Ahrar al Sham and Nusra Front), the UN was noticeably lax in providing aid for the besieged and starving civilians – to the extent where the civilians wrote a letter to the UN complaining that deliveries were scarce, never contained what was most needed and that most food was perished or unusable when taking into account living conditions.

The Dutch government recently withdrew funding from the White Helmet organisation which is one of the distribution partners for the UN in Idlib. The reason given, after an in-depth investigation, was that there were no guarantees that aid and financing was not going directly to the armed groups, the majority of which are designated terrorist groups.

BBC Panorama also highlighted the diversion of British aid intended for the terrorist-linked Free Syrian Police (Idlib) to terrorist groups. This report was only aired after I had written an in depth investigation into the UK Foreign Office indirect financing of terrorist groups occupying East Aleppo prior to liberation in December 2016.

The question must be asked, what verification mechanisms are in place to ensure that aid reaches those most in need in Syria, in particular in Idlib? Can the UN guarantee that armed groups are not profiting from the delivery of aid and equipment in an area overrun by Al Qaeda which makes all manner of monitoring extremely dangerous. The UN relies hugely on compromised and terrorist-linked NGOs, such as the White Helmets, to monitor and distribute aid.

With  the ongoing Syrian/Russian military campaign in Idlib which will liberate the final province still held by Nusra Front-led armed groups, despite the recent ceasefire – the need for cross border aid will diminish dramatically with the Syrian government and Russia providing for the Syrian people as they do in more than 85% of Syria. The UN should be respecting the sovereignty of a state that has done its utmost to maintain the supply of essential services to its people despite a 9 year war and crippling economic terrorism imposed by the US Coalition, a familiar mobster bully-boy tactic designed to collectively punish the Syrian people for their resistance against the imperialist agenda in their country.

Former UK Ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford, sent me this statement in response to the latest UN restoration of aid for Al Qaeda in Idlib:

    “The draft resolution blocked by Russia and China completely ignores the advances the Syrian government has made in restoring its control and thus ability to deliver or channel humanitarian aid itself. Similarly the Western media totally distorts the issue. The Washington Post, for example, quotes US talking points to the effect that aid cannot reach areas like Raqqa and Deir Ez Zor. This is absolutely false. The Syrian government can without a shadow of doubt deliver aid to these areas, now under government control.

    The same talking points refer to Al Rukban on the borders with Jordan and Iraq, which the US controls and which it could supply with aid at any time it chooses from its bases in Iraq.

    Russia is willing to agree to a six month extension and a channelling of aid through two Turkish-controlled crossings. If the situation is as dire as claimed why is this solution not acceptable?

    The UN and Western powers are oblivious to the fact that once aid crosses into Idlib it falls under the control of jihadi groups, notably the internationally prescribed Hayat Tahrir Ash Sham, who exploit it to siphon off profits for themselves and fund their operations aimed at preventing normalisation.

    Those expecting the Syrian government and its supporters to acquiesce indefinitely in this abusive situation are hallucinating. If they sincerely wish for an end to humanitarian suffering in Northern Syria they will stop doing everything in their power to try to halt the advances being made by Syrian government forces and lift punitive sanctions which are compounding the suffering of ordinary Syrians throughout the country.

    Those who wail only about suffering when it takes place in jihadi-controlled areas, while openly aiming to crush the Syrian economy until the people rise up against the government, need to be called out for the cynical hypocrites they are.“

The Hardest Part About Learning Hard Things

The Hardest Part About Learning Hard Things
It may never get any easier, but it’s always worth it.
Scott Young
July 11, 2019

I’ve been recording a lot of podcast interviews for my book, Ultralearning. One of the recurring themes I’ve noticed in our conversations is that how people feel about learning is the overwhelming cause of the results they experience.

Yes intelligence, talent, great teachers and schools all matter.

But if you feel like learning something is too hard, scary or not interesting enough to merit the effort, none of those things will help you.

The people who fail to learn languages are, overwhelmingly, the people who don’t even try to learn a language. The people who “can’t” learn math, coding, business, marketing or dance, aren’t those who tried and failed—they never even attempted it seriously in the first place.

1. Learning is Frustration

It’s easy to be dismissive of this attitude. “Don’t those people realize that you can learn anything, as long as you’re persistent and use the right approach?”

But feelings aren’t rational, so taking a nagging stance to encourage people to learn hard things is a waste of time. If you feel like you can’t learn math, French or samba, me telling you differently won’t change things.

The truth is, I’ve had my own moments of doubt and frustration, and not even that long ago.

In January 2019, I started learning salsa dancing with my wife. She has danced for years, although never salsa, whereas I’ve done very little.

Immediately, in the first classes, the overwhelming feeling was, “I hate this.” Not because I don’t think learning to salsa couldn’t be cool, but because I see myself in the mirror. My steps are out of sync. I’m not on the rhythm. When I do partner dancing, I forget how to do it, and then we switch partners before I get a chance to figure it out.

The thing is, I know this is just the frustration barrier. I know that once I get past that novice level and start being able to do it (which is going to happen with enough practice), I will start to enjoy it. If I put in enough time, I might even really love salsa dancing.

But that’s not how it feels. My brain sees me slightly under-performing and the immediate, visceral sense is: “You’re not good at this, you should stop right now and quit embarrassing yourself.”
How Do You Change Your Beliefs About Learning?

I think there’s a few approaches you can take to overcome these sorts of learning challenges:
1. Dive Straight In.

Ultralearning, in my opinion, often works well because it compresses the frustration barrier to a shorter period of time. Going no-English to learn a language is stressful, but the stress lasts for a couple weeks, rather than a couple years as it can in traditional classrooms.

Because the stress is short, you can more easily leap over it compared to the non-stop grind of emotional struggle you can feel when a skill never quite gets out of that frustration period.

2. Avoid Comparison

 My feelings about salsa were largely driven by my classmates. They were better than me. Whenever we, as human beings, sense a comparative disadvantage, it’s as if our brain immediately tries to avoid practicing the skill.

I’m not sure if this is an evolved adaptation towards specializing in our strengths (if so, it would have to predate our modern, specialized economy), or whether this is simply because being low-skilled is low-status and our status-seeking instincts override the long-term goals of learning.

However, one simple way to avoid this problem is to put yourself in projects or situations that defy comparison.

One-on-one tutoring immediately removes the “I’m the worst in the class” feeling. It also removes the “I’m the best in the class” laziness that can afflict high-performing students.

Even structuring a project that is intense and unusual often avoids this problem. When I was doing the MIT Challenge, I never felt bad about struggling with concepts or ideas because nobody else was doing this self-education thing so there was no expectation of performance.

3. Embrace the Frustration

“I hate this,” isn’t a feeling—it’s a sentence. It’s a sentence you mentally utter in automatic response to certain things going on in your environment. However, recognize that this isn’t a single, unified experience, but several discrete experiences happening in lockstep:

•     You notice you’re doing something badly.
•     You notice that others may notice you’re doing something badly.
•     You feel embarrassed, and start to feel bad.
•     You feel like you need to escape or stop.
•     You say to yourself, “I hate this.”

This is a train of thought that you can get off at any stop, you just choose to ride it all the way to the terminal station. If you’re mindful of it, you can set it on alternate tracks.

What if when you notice you’re doing badly, you reaffirmed, “But it’s okay, doing things badly is what learning is all about. That’s why I’m here.”?

Or what if you start to feel embarrassed and you say to yourself, “It’s okay if people think I’m bad at this. As long as I’m not hurting anyone and trying my best, nobody will hold it against me.”?

When you feel you need to escape you say, “Let’s just go a little bit longer.”?

As you examine it more closely, the feeling of frustration itself becomes a potential space for new experiences. You realize how much your own feelings of inadequacy straitjacket you into a limited view of your life. The pain you feel from doing badly, ironically, becomes a moment of potential liberation because through it you can rewrite the story of who you are.

4. Salsa Dancing and Overcoming Frustration

I’m still not great at salsa dancing. But I have gotten better. The moments where I say, “I hate this,” are now outnumbered by, “Hey, this is actually pretty fun, once you get the hang of it.”

I know, from learning other skills that “pretty fun” becomes “amazing and life-affirming” if you can keep going a little bit longer.

Learning, and ultralearning, to me represent the cultivation of these amazing, life-affirming moments. When you get good at something that previously felt impossible for you, your world becomes just a little bit bigger. This expansion of possibility, more than just achieving a goal, is the stuff of happiness itself.

Obama: 'We have to twist arms when countries don't do...'

Obama wasn't really much different from his predecessors while Trump is outspoken and does not hide what he has in his mind.


Obama: 'We have to twist arms when countries don't do what we need them to'
RT : 11 Feb, 2015

President Barack Obama has said the reality of “American leadership” at times entails “twisting the arms” of states which “don’t do what we need them to do,” and that the US relied on its military strength and other leverage to achieve its goals.

In a broad-ranging interview with Vox, which Obama himself described as a venue "for the brainiac-nerd types," the US president both denied the efficacy of a purely “realist” foreign policy but also arguing that at times the US, which has a defense budget that exceeds the next 10 countries combined, needed to rely on its military muscle and other levers of power.

 Lauding the rule-based system to emerge in the post-World War II era, Obama admitted it wasn’t perfect, but argued “the UN, the IMF, and a whole host of treaties and rules and norms that were established really helped to stabilize the world in ways that it wouldn't otherwise be.”

He argued, however, that the efficacy of this idealistic, Wilsonian, rule-based system was severely tested by the fact that “there are bad people out there who are trying to do us harm.”

In the president’s view, the reality of those threats has compelled the US to have “the strongest military in the world.” Obama further says that “we occasionally have to twist the arms of countries that wouldn't do what we need them to do if it weren't for the various economic or diplomatic or, in some cases, military leverage that we had — if we didn't have that dose of realism, we wouldn't get anything done, either.”

'We occasionally have to twist the arms of countries that wouldn't do what we need them to do'

Obama argues that the US doesn’t have “military solutions” to all the challenges in the modern world, though he goes on to add that “we don’t have a peer” in terms of states that could attack or provoke the United States.

“The closest we have, obviously, is Russia, with its nuclear arsenal, but generally speaking they can't project the way we can around the world. China can't, either. We spend more on our military than the next 10 countries combined,” he said.

Within this context, Obama said that “disorder” stemming from “failed states” and “asymmetric threats from terrorist organizations” were the biggest challenges facing the international community today.

Obama also argued that tackling these and other problems entailed “leveraging other countries” and “other resources” whenever possible, while also recognizing that Washington is “the lead partner because we have capabilities that other folks don't have.”


'We spend more on our military than the next 10 countries combined'

This approach, he said, also led to “some burden-sharing and there's some ownership for outcomes.”

When asked about the limits of American power, Obama conceded that there were things that his administration simply cannot do in terms of power projection, but remained upbeat.

“Well, American leadership, in part, comes out of our can-do spirit. We're the largest, most powerful country on Earth. As I said previously in speeches: when problems happen, they don't call Beijing. They don't call Moscow. They call us. And we embrace that responsibility. The question, I think, is how that leadership is exercised. My administration is very aggressive and internationalist in wading in and taking on and trying to solve problems.”

 This appeal to US leadership, which has often been couched within the notion of American exceptionalism, has regularly been questioned by Moscow.

'American leadership, in part, comes out of our can-do spirit'

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov took issue with the notion past September, following Obama’s speech before the UN in which the US president named “Russian aggression in Europe” along with the Ebola epidemic and ISIS as threats to international peace and security.

Lavrov said that Obama’s address to the UN was the “speech of a peacemaker – the way it was conceived,” but added that he had “failed to deliver, if one compares it to real facts.”

The Russian foreign minister added that Obama had presented a worldview based on the exceptionality of the United States.

“That's the worldview of a country that has spelt out its right to use force arbitrarily regardless of the UN Security Council's resolutions or other international legal acts in its national defense doctrine,” Lavrov said.

In a September 2013 Op-Ed article in the New York Times, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the concept of American exceptionalism was a precarious one in the global arena.

"It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation," Putin wrote. "There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal."