SHE KNOWS WHEREOF SHE SPEAKS

There is a piece in the Guardian from Sunday 8^th February 2026 by journalist Janine di Giovanni which is well worth a read, so I am posting it to share. It echoes a comment made by William Pitt the younger in a speech in the House of Commons on the 18^th November 1783, “Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves”.

After years spent documenting state terror, I know it when I see it. And I see it now in the US and Israel

Janine di Giovanni 

It’s chilling to watch as Trump and Netanyahu adopt the methods of regimes their countries once condemned

In Syria, where I worked during the years of Bashar al-Assad’s terror, people were often taken away to torture cells before dawn by masked men. The timing was deliberate. It disoriented them at their most vulnerable, ensuring the torture to come would be even more agonising. The testimonies I recorded from survivors almost always contained the same phrase: “The morning they came for me.” One young woman, shattered by rape and violence, later told me that her life had split in two – before and after the masked men came for her.

In Iraq, those who spoke against Saddam Hussein – even abroad, even casually –were punished in cruel ways by a vengeful leader determined to crush any hint of dissent.

In Egypt in 2016, Giulio Regeni, 28-year-old Italian academic researching labour unions, was abducted, beaten and tortured to death, it is thought, by president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi’s security services. His own mother had difficulty recognising his mutilated body.

During the second Chechen war, I met the journalist Anna Politkovskaya in Chechnya. She repeatedly attacked Vladimir Putin’s policies, documenting human rights abuses during Russia’s military campaigns. To punish her, a bullet was put in her brain on Putin’s birthday – a warning to other truth-seekers. Stay silent or die.

In the West Bank and Gaza, Israeli soldiers, masked and unmasked, kill, torture and imprison Palestinian doctors, journalists, teachers, activists and scholars not for what they have done – but because of who they are.

After decades of documenting state terror, I know how it starts. Governments begin to use words like security, order, deterrence. Every excuse for Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct in Gaza is framed as “security”. ICE agents are trained in a language of order in which violence becomes procedure.

What happens when democratic states adopt the methods of the regimes they once condemned? Terror is not only masked men and arbitrary detention. It also operates through fear. Policies are designed to make people more compliant, more submissive. As the historian Timothy Snyder warned in his 2017 book, On Tyranny, this is how societies slide into danger: people obey in advance.

In Donald Trump’s US, I have watched CEOs, academics, journalists and government officials allow fear to override decency and moral authority. I have seen this pattern before. It begins with claims that certain people are dangerous. That ordinary legal safeguards should not apply to them. It ends with a society diminished – more compliant, more cynical, more brutal. State terror is rarely announced. In my experience, it becomes normalised. It seeps quietly into the machinery of government.

Authoritarian regimes make no serious claim to moral legitimacy. Their violence is explicit. Saddam did not apologise when he killed 182,000 Kurds during the Anfal campaign. Sisi did not apologise when about 1,000 Muslim Brotherhood supporters were mowed down in Rabaa and al-Nahda squares in central Cairo. Hafez al-Assad never acknowledged the tens of thousands killed in Hama in 1982. (To this day, the exact numbers remain unknown and the disappeared unaccounted for. The regime cynically built hotels over mass graves).

Democracies operate in an entirely different way. Their actions are often technically above the law. Constitutions are invoked and obscure laws brought back to defend aggressive policies. Governments talk of “necessary action”. They point to courts that still function, a press that is still somewhat free, elections that still take place – even as all of these institutions disintegrate. This is how democracies begin to resemble the regimes they once condemned. It is a subtle, devastating shift.

The tools are familiar. A journalist whose reporting aligns closely with the political interests of the US president and the Israeli prime minister is installed to lead CBS, once one of the most respected networks in the US. On university campuses, surveillance now includes photographing students who attend or lead pro-Palestinian demonstrations, and are deemed troublemakers. I was told by one student at an Ivy League university that some are quietly warned they will never find work on Wall Street, at the best law firms, or in government offices if they continue. Other student activists are removed from their homes, illegally detained and threatened with deportation.

Academic deans face threats of punitive funding cuts unless they impose requirements that constrain academic freedom. At Northwestern University in Chicago, students were forced to complete antisemitism training that they said was inaccurate and biased in favour of Israel before they could enrol in classes.

Instructors are quietly told to toe the line. Journalists are disciplined through language that is carefully crafted as editorial policy – then some of them are arrested. Those who resist are increasingly labelled enemies of the state.

ICE tactics themselves are not new. They have long been used disproportionately against political radicals, Muslims, Black Americans and migrants. What has changed is their visibility – and increasingly, their acceptance. Today, ICE mirrors the same patterns of state terror I have documented for decades: arbitrary detention, secret evidence, militarised policing. The criminalisation of dissent. All of this is justified by the guardians of legality: the White House, the Knesset, the office of the prime minister.

Bit by bit, lists are drawn up. Loyalty tests reminiscent of the red scare have returned. Dual citizens are facing pressure to choose a country of “loyalty”. Immigration enforcement is reframed as a hunt for “criminals” rather than a legal process. Activists, NGOs and humanitarians are punished. In Gaza, organisations such as Doctors Without Borders are told that unless they provide lists of healthcare workers – placing those staff at grave risk – they will not be allowed to operate.

The United Nations, founded to prevent the scourge of war, is rendered toothless. Then side-lined and derided.

True, the US and Israel are not Russia or North Korea. But democracies erode. The early stages are not just the national guard on the street, but legal arguments over definitions. Judges deferring to power. Congress taking money from powerful lobbying groups, then using social media to spread propaganda. Disinformation acts as a weapon of truth. Good men and women look away, fearful they will lose jobs, visas, publishing contracts, social standing.

The most chilling thing is what happens to society, but also to individuals. Fear becomes internalised, and we begin to censor our own thoughts. We wonder if the law will actually protect us if they come for us one day.

The true irony is, state terror does not make a state safer. When democratic states adopt the methods of tyrannies, they become weaker. Their global credibility frays. They sacrifice the legitimacy they once held that distinguishes them from the regimes they claim to oppose.

I know state terror when I see it. It is not just Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Russia’s FSB or Egypt’s National Security Agency. It’s lawyers in suits and bureaucrats at desks and journalists spinning a narrative so the truth is distorted. It’s ICE agents breaking car windows and shooting unarmed citizens. It is militarised borders; family separations and deportations without due process. It is turning fear into a policy, a goal.

We should be listening, urgently, to all of those who have lived through it. The hundreds of testimonies I have taken over the years from those haunted voices are an early warning signal we cannot afford to ignore.

·       Janine di Giovanni is a war correspondent and the executive director of The Reckoning Project, a war crimes unit in Ukraine, Sudan and Gaza. She is the author of The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches from Syria.

 

 

BACK IN 1964

In 1964, or thereabouts, Harold Wilson said “A week is a long time in politics.” In October of that year Harold Wilson lead the Labour Party to win the UK General Election after the Conservatives had been in power for thirteen years. In November of 1964, Lyndon Johnson, who had become President on the assassination of John F Kennedy a year before, was elected President defeating Republican Senator Barry Goldwater. Under his presidency the United States Civil Rights of 1964 was enacted. At the same time, the Vietnam War was building up in intensity. At that time there were supposedly only US Military Advisers in Vietnam, and the United States sent 5000 more advisers on the 27th July bringing the total to 21,000. This would increase to over 500,000 by 1968. That’s an increase of 2500% over four years.  That’s not a Trumpian exaggeration. 

At the beginning of 1964, the Winter Olympic were held in Innsbruck, Austria, just over the hill, so to speak, from Cortina d’Ampezzo in Italy where the current Winter Olympics are taking place. Also in the first week in January, there were armed clashes between United States troops and Panamanian civilians in the Panama Canal Zone precipitating a major international crisis, resulting in the deaths of 21 Panamanians and 4 U.S. soldiers.

Also in that year, in South Africa, the Rivonia Trial had begun and Nelson Mandela made his “I am prepared to die” speech. He and seven others were later sentenced to life imprisonment. Martin Luther King received the Novel Peace Prize. The bodies of two hitchhikers, who were kidnapped and killed by the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi, were found during the search for three civil rights activists who had also been killed by the KKK in Mississippi. There were race riots in Philadelphia and in Jacksonville, Florida, during a tour of the United States, John Lennon announced that the Beatles will not play to a segregated audience. The Charter of the Palestine Liberation Organisation       (PLO) is released by the Arab League and Nikita Khrushchev is deposed as leader of the Soviet Union; Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin assume power. The last judicial hangings in the United Kingdom are executed. 

All in all, in 1964 there were a lot of problems, and events, not too dissimilar to the current year. I was 21, going on 22, demonstrating against the House un-American Activities Committee who had arrived as a result of the Free Speech Movement at the University of California, Berkley campus where Police had arrested 800 students. I could see FBI agents (easily recognisable) taking pictures of the demonstrators, and I presume there is a photo of me in an FBI archive. That’s another story.  

So getting back to this opening week of February 2026, where does one begin? A week in politics is indeed quite a long time. Many people going from hero to zero and some people, already at zero, plummeting to even greater depths. Political leadership seems to be at rock bottom. In the United Kingdom, mistakes are made, and the general public is disenchanted. Yet the polls indicate an extraordinary attention being paid to the most vile side of current British politics in the shape of the Reform Party, run by a ex public school bully bigot, who has been outed by numbers of his fellow students. In the light of this obviously hateful background, how is it he can possibly be supported? If  Peter Mandelson, a gay man, can be so vilified for just knowing Mr Epstein, how is it Mr Farage is excused such aggressive venality in his youth, which has clearly stayed with him, given how he refuses to apologise and sticks with denials. 

What can people possibly be thinking when answering pollsters with positive support for Reform? Has the British Public lost perspective? Has it somehow lost all sense of decency or shame? Does what is happening in the heartland of the United States, the killing of civilians protesters for standing up for civil rights, have no effect? Do they not see that our own civil rights are being endangered by a Trump supporting mouthy clown? What is happening? There are so many questions and  unhealthy disturbing distractions, that it seems impossible to find ways to cope. On the one hand the destruction continuing in Ukraine, Middle East, Middle America and Africa and on the other hand, as a British Citizen, domestic politics in the UK over budgets, inflation, immigration, health service, health care, housing, racism, misogyny and representative leadership, gives one pause for thought. Is there anything to worry about?

It appears the collection of one disgraced man’s papers and memorabilia has catapulted public resentment and anger over two continents. His deceit, proclivities and, seemingly, close associations with pubic figures and influencers has these same figures scurrying around like rats deserting a sinking ship. Many, if not most, are being protected by the sycophancy of the United States Department of Justice towards one particular well publicised and close associate (who claims to have dissociated himself from Epstein long ago). In order to protect him they dare not reveal other prominent and influential individuals for fear of the entire structure falling down around them.  So they dissemble and lie to the public claiming they are transparent and upholding the Constitution of the United States. 

Yet, Donald Trump is already a convicted felon and adjudicated sex offender. How is it that all is forgotten and set aside? His association with another sex offender is hardly surprising. Like Farage’s bullying bigotry, Putin’s and Netanyahu’s barbarism, all is dismissed as if it never happened. I would love to be told that I have got it all wrong and that I have misrepresented and completely misunderstood what is going on. I am eager for another rational point of view. 

I confess I had belief back in Los Angeles of 1964, although it was cracking after the assassination of John F Kennedy. There was a sense of hope watching those press conferences with him, during which he answered questions with respect and articulate thought. A president who may have dodged a question now and again but never attacked or vilified the questioner. Indeed, despite the difficulties one could understand the press corps saying “Thank you Mr President” at the end of a briefing, and they meant it. The loss of grace, humour and simple intelligence in that office or any political office is sorely missed. It may surface now and again, but rarely. Mind you, some of the press might roll back a bit of the arrogance. 

The following are, in my view, well worth a listen. In particular the meeting in Paris (second film - conference 12).

 

SOMEWHERE THERE IS HOPE

This is not an AI blog. No form of software, other than ‘pages’ or ‘word’ has been used to create the text. The errors that have escaped ‘grammar and spell check’, as well as the sentiment and opinions, have been mine alone. Those sentiments and opinions are admittedly prejudiced from a particular point of view. I accept that, in some instances, I may hold unreasonable preconceived judgements and convictions about certain matters. Nonetheless, I try to be fair minded and open to a variety of  views. I attempt to be rational, pragmatic and empathic, although my quota of empathy is limited. Indeed, my empathy is not at all as developed as it should be, and certainly not in the class of the concerned person envisaged by Adam Smith; although, his profound study of empathy, that underlines his philosophy, perhaps presents an ideal that is the fully rounded individual he conceived. Were we all able to live by his theory of moral sentiments, the world would be a much better place. 

In addition, despite my hearing loss and need for hearing aids, as well as changes in vision and need for eye glasses, I am still able to hear and understand speech and take in what I can actually see with my own eyes. Unless images have been digitally or otherwise altered I tend to believe what I actually see and hear as fact. I cannot therefore put fanciful interpretations on what I actually see and hear with my own eyes and ears.. One can of course look at an image and make up a story about what the image might represent and how the situation might appear from another angle. But that is just conjecture. It is more difficult to do that with recorded images of an event taken from various points of view. To pretend that what one is actually seeing and hearing is not actually happening is being in denial. To not only deny the event, and to invent an entire scenario about the event that millions of people around the world have witnessed, could indicate that one has lost all reason, is demented, is being fanciful, or is being devious and attempting to persuade others not to believe their own senses. 

What I find impossible to deny is the transformation of the United States of America from a republic into a bizarro world fantasy land.  Its government is now a television reality show of the worst kind. Unfortunately the rest of the world looks on as a Goggle Box audience. This is not good. 

The irony of Mr Trump threatening the government of Iran for killing protestors, whilst doing the exact same thing in the United States proper, is blatant. There has never been a more hypocritical psychotic individual than Mr Trump in the office of President of the United States. His cupidity and venality are without parallel. The chaos that he engenders may well engulf the entire world. The willingness of his acolytes to embrace denials, deceit and disruption is singular and unnatural, given the realities we have all seen and heard in the last year, and in particular this first month of January 2026. The number of Fox News pundits and Republican Senators and Congress persons who are trying to gaslight the American public is terrifying. 

I am sorry that I cannot be more upbeat. I look around for joy and happiness. Fortunately it can only be found amongst one’s nearest and dearest. The support one gets is astonishing, particularly as one grows older. Oddly, having more to do with the NHS, as a result of that aging process, has increased my appreciation of humanity.  The kindness, caring and sympathy shown by the personnel I have come across at Guy’s and St Thomas’s  Hospitals is without equal. In addition the NHS staff come from all over the world. It is like a United Nations Health Service based solely in the UK. What can be better than that? 

There is a short speech from Michign Senator Elissa Slotkin which gives me some hope that all is not lost in the United States:

JUST SAY STOP

I am sorry but I have no good news. Today, whilst listening to the Today program and The World at One on the BBC, I am, as usual, left baffled by the inability of Great Britain to understand its own history. They, the educated middle and upper classes, constantly refer to Americans as being naive, lacking a sense of irony and sophistication; yet, when it comes to the current political chaos that is overwhelming the start of the new year, they appear to be rendered deaf, dumb and blind. Have they absolutely no sense of the past? Have they lost their sense of perspective?

The western democracies, mainly the United Kingdom, France, and the United States, were slow to recognise the threat of Hitler, despite evidence of past historical dictators and the emergence of General Franco in Spain. After all, Spain and Germany were part of western European democratic states, so what could go wrong? For some reason, however, they have always been suspicious of the Russians. Indeed, in an article titled The Genesis of Russophobia in Great Britain: A Study of the Interaction of Policy and Opinion  written by John Howes Gleason in 1950 a précis notes:

So “beware of the Russians” clearly has some history. So why does suspicion of autocracy escape the British when it comes to recognising it amongst its supposed allies? How is it European Governments and in Particular the United Kingdom can fail to see what Mr Trump is doing, not only in South and North America, but all over the world? Note his Homeland Security Agency, that is nothing more than a Gestapo. Note the Justice Department that uses threat of indictment against critics of the administration. Note the wholesale breaking down of the rule of law by the President and the various Secretaries of his administration. Note his claims of control over Venezuela, his ambitions over Greenland and his invitation to Putin to sit on a peace committee over Gaza. Note his war ships all over the oceans of the world. What more does Mr Starmer need to say enough is enough?

How is it the BBC can interview the likes of Peter Mandelson to endorse Mr Starmer’s pacifist diplomacy stance. Firm but conciliatory? The whole of Europe needs to say STOP.  Why does the BBC give voice to Mandelson at all? As to Mr Trump, he is not  the American President on whom the west can rely. John Kennedy, made mistakes, but he stood up to Khrushchev, and stood by Western Europe. Ronald Reagan, the great communicator, exclaimed  “Take down this wall”, and stood by Western Europe. The fact that the United States could be relied on the ‘stand to’ is clearly no longer the case. Trump is not a man on whom anyone can rely except by the likes of Putin, Orban, Netanyahu and other narcissistic power mad authoritarians. It is a grave mistake to think reason and diplomatic gestures can deal with the man who claims to be ‘the art of the deal’. 

There are a great many domestic problems to deal with in the UK, but if the world goes up in flames because of the idiocy that the American voter has foisted  on us, it will be down to basic survival. It may even have actually come to that, what with the chaos that keeps getting more tumultuous by the day.

So I find it difficult to concentrate. I find it difficult to be at ease, I feel anxiety ever present. All of this is stupid at my age. There are plenty of events and things to look forward to and be happy about. Were it not for Celia I think I would end up in an institution. Perhaps it’s just down to the pills I’m taking. The levetiracetam is particularly difficult.  Friends have also been helpful although I know many of them feel the same. Thank you all for listening. 

SING IF YOU CAN

We are two weeks into the new year. The insanity has begun with such ferocity across the globe that it is imposible to make comment. The photographic evidence alone renders one speechless and listening to the accompanying rhetoric (displaying lies and hypocrisy of such gargantuan levels by Trump et al) reduces us to a dumbness we have never experienced  before. At least that is what I feel. Celia has insisted that my comments should not be so downbeat and depressing. So I turn to music, the lyrics of which may strike chords, or just because I like the song and the artist.

 

 

 

 

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF IT SO FAR?

We are once again in the realm of Orwell’s Ministry of Truth.The outrageous action of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s agent in killing and unarmed citizen has been morphed into an action of self defence and the victim being characterised as a civilian terrorist who had weaponised her vehicle. The on the spot video of the event is completely at odds with this explanation. The whole world is watching and yet the United States President and his Secretary of homeland Security have come up with this blatant lie. It is on video. It can be seen. It Shows what happened. No ICE agents were threatened in any way. The woman was shot dead and the car went out of control and crashed into parked vehicles. There was no threat at all. The film has gone round the world and still the lie is repeated. Ms Noem, dressed up like Lt. Colonel Kilgore from Apocalypse Now, spouted the lie to the public without even blinking. The mayor of the City of Minneapolis rightly called her claims bullshit. He was clearly very angry.

This is not a question for debate, no matter who or how the ‘authorities’ in the United States try to push the lie and distort the fact of what people can see with their own eyes. The world has eyes and can see and hear the horror. Whether any justice will actually prevail is another mater. The perpetrator of the killing was immediately whisked away, no doubt out of guilt and to prevent him or her from being challenged or indeed arrested by local law enforcement. 

We also have, in relation to the Venezuela incident, obfuscation of a different kind from the British Government. Here I am sort of willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Most people with any knowledge of International Law have stated very clearly that the action taken by the United States was contrary to law. When asked what the UK position is in relation to a direct question “Did the United States break the law?”  The answer is repeatedly “They will have to set out their legal justification for their actions”. The United Kingdom finds itself unable to just say “Yes”, so it is phrased differently. Let me explain. If someone has broken the law, they either admit it or claim they are not guilty. If they claim they are not guilty, they must either show that the evidence against them falls short of proof or provide some form of defence for their actions. In the case of the action in Venezuela, the entire world, again, has irrefutable evidence of the facts which are clearly in contravention of international law. By saying “They will have to set out their legal justification for their actions” the British Government is actually saying what the United States did was against the law and they will have to provide a defence, which is a cack-handed way of saying ‘Yes’. They are trying to be diplomatic so as not to offend US sensibilities. 

So far as Greenland is concerned, where no action has yet been taken, the Government can quite clearly say to the United States “We advise you not to do anything as it would be in contravention of international law as well as the Nato Treaty to which you are a signatory” That’s easy, nothing has happened yet. 

In any event we are in some sort of Alice in Wonderland world with a Queen of Trumps, or is it hearts, shouting “Off with their heads” at every opportunity. So far as the United States is concerned it is straight out of Disneyland. The rest of the world just had to lump it. On the Today programme the minister of state said we live in a changed world of hard and soft politics and one has to adjust as one goes along. Bullshit. The world is the same world and one lunatic has been let out of the asylum but is unfortunately in possession of a great arsenal. It either has to be taken away from him or he must be removed. In other words, the bully and his stooges are in the playground and must be dealt with. We need to get a grip. What a start to the new year. I had such hopes on day one. That doesn’t seem to have gone very well, has it?

HERE WE GO AGAIN

On the 1st January 2026 I had intended writing a blog and had headed it with “Beginnings”. I did not start it and procrastinated. Then the Venezuela fiasco hit the headlines. I was nonplussed. What to say? Maduro is not exactly someone to support. His actions in his own country towards his fellow citizens have not been praiseworthy to say the least, but the American intervention is most definitely wrong and illegal. Can it really be justified. Absolutely not, thought I. What to say and how to say it?

So who would have thought that I would agree with the likes of Ben Wallace who spoke very well. This morning on the Today program there were two interviews conducted by Emma Barnett at around 10 minutes past 7 am. The first with the former US Ambassador to Denmark Carla Sands and the second with former Conservative Defence Secretary Ben Wallace. He began by commenting that everything Ms Sands said, bar one thing (Iceland gaining Independence) was untrue. Although she claimed to be speaking only for herself, it was pure Trump propaganda. Mr Wallace, on the other hand, was very clear that  a much more robust view must be taken by the European Community of Mr Trumps actions, 

It is clear that Mr Trump acts with  complete disregard for International law or indeed the rule of law generally. He acts only in his own interests, which are not necessarily in the interests of the American public. His actions are effectively chaotic, impulsive and contradictory from moment to moment. He has made various threats about sanctions against Russia and Putin, in respect of Ukraine, on at least eleven occasions, and failed to act on any on them. He has consistently insulted and acted against other nations’ sovereignty in his ridiculous overblown rhetoric and now violated international law with his acquisition of Venezuela, running roughshod over that nation’s property. 

This violent military action, leaving many people dead behind it, to effectively extricate Mr Maduro and his wife, has met with such little resistance or condemnation, that he feels emboldened, and now seeks to do the same with Greenland, and probably any other nation where he can gain oil or other minerals to line his and his supporters pockets. 

None of this is about American security but is all about Trump’s psychotic narcissism and is  effectively a deflection from his clear involvement with the Epstein debacle and the fact that he will almost certainly have to face trial for his actions on the 6th January 2021 in due course (and probably other matters). At present he sees himself as king of the world.

We have all been here before over the centuries. Empire builders of all shapes and sizes have come and gone, some more successful that others, but on the whole a destructive force that has set civilisations and societies back, having to bear the pain of their appalling actions. The Napoleon complex exhibited by the likes of Hitler, Pol Pot, Caligula and numerous others seems to have taught us nothing. Mr Trump is of the same breed and needs to be treated as such and not placated to. It is the heart of darkness and will end in horror.  

The effective kidnapping of a bad man, should not give one pause. The rule of law and the duty of care are more paramount than ever if the human race is to survive. We seem to have arrived at gangsters moving in on gangsters and supporting gangsters, with Donald Corleone Trump at the top of the heap exercising his power with his henchmen surrounding him and his supportive sheep loving every minute of it. The spewing of untruths by the likes of Carla Sands, Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, Pamela Bondi, Nigel Farage and others of their ilk does not change the actuality of what is going on. This is a very bad and ignorant man, being pandered to by some very bad people and some very evil people. 

I know I am not alone in thinking these things. I despair of current government leaders (not only in the UK but across the the globe) who feel that in oder to maintain  some kind of equilibrium they must find diplomatic ways of dealing with Mr Trump and console him into doing what might be the right things. He needs to be shaken up. He will only understand a strong united front. As the mother of Parliaments, the British Prime Minister should take the leadership. The rule of law demands it.