THE TROJAN HORSE

Jay Bulworth
http://www.dissent.com.au

Katharine Gun is a 29 year old English woman who spent a part of her formative years in North-east Asia. As a result, she is fluent in Mandarin Chinese. She used to work as a translator at Britain’s super-secret GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters), the signals intelligence agency that violates privacy every day by eavesdropping on phone calls, emails and other communications. Katharine exposed US espionage against member delegations at the UN Security Council in the lead-up to the war on Iraq. Espionage at the United Nations is prohibited under the Vienna conventions on diplomatic relations. When charged under the Official Secrets Act, she signalled her intention to argue the defence of ‘necessity’ – the prevention of an illegal war involving the loss of thousands of lives. On Tuesday 24th February 2004, her legal team served documents demanding to see any advice given to ministers about the legality of the war. Two days later, all charges were dropped and Katharine Gun walked free.

It should be noted that the leaks showed a “surge” in US espionage against member delegations. The US engages in such activity every day. What was unusual was the “surge”, or increase, in surveillance as the US tried to manipulate the vote and obtain authorisation for its war on Iraq. There are people of goodwill who believe in the sanctity of international law, and who feel disturbed by this event, as they do about the US-led aggression against Iraq without UN authorisation.

This article is for those people. It is written in order to dispel illusions in the United Nations, which was created as an instrument of US foreign policy. Furthermore, the reader should understand that the US began spying on member delegations even before the UN existed.

"Spy, Adulterer, Whatever"

Jacob Sullum

Capt. James Yee's prosecutors make the case for due process.

When Capt. James Yee was arrested last September, it was easy to assume he was a spy. A Muslim chaplain serving suspected terrorists imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, he'd been caught traveling with "secret data." Anonymous government officials told the press Yee might be part of a spy ring at the military base.

The cloud of suspicion was so thick that even people who knew Yee well could not see clearly. His high school wrestling coach, with whom Yee had kept in touch over the years, told The New York Times : "I have to believe in my kids. But if that religion has brainwashed him to change his thinking, then maybe I am wrong."

Zapatero!


John Chuckman

There are a few special moments now and then in world affairs that lift your spirit.

One of these came with the fall of Romania's Ceausescu, former chum of Richard Nixon, known appropriately to his own countrymen as "the Dracula." His fall came before the toppling of the Berlin Wall and, for me, was the most poignant symbol of totalitarianism's collapse in Eastern Europe. When Romanian revolutionaries waved their national flag with its center torn out, I made a small copy and posted it on my office bulletin board.