Editorials & Other Articles

T_i_B

(14,749 posts) Mon Oct 22, 2012, 07:19 AM Oct 2012

Fund for the New American Century targets the British Police

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9623068/The-secret-US-lobbyists-behind-Police-and-Crime-Commissioner-election.html

Mervyn Barrett has flooded Lincolnshire with expensive leaflets, free DVDs and full-page newspaper adverts in his bid to be elected as its policing supremo next month. Unusually for a rural local election, he has employed professional campaign staff, commissioned weekly opinion polls, opened “field offices” and is driven in a chauffeured Mercedes. He has poured tens of thousands of pounds into the elections, far more than any other candidate anywhere else in Britain.

Mr Barrett describes himself as an “independent”, opposed to “party politics” in policing. He has refused to disclose who is funding him, despite widespread local suspicions generated by the intensity and professionalism of his campaign.

However, it can now be revealed that it has been run by a team from a US-based neo-conservative think tank, the Fund for the New American Century, funded in part by a variety of corporate donors with an interest in public-sector privatisation.

Investigation of Mr Barrett’s campaign website reveals that it is registered to a New York and Washington-based “political action committee”, MatthewPAC, part of The Fund for the New American Century, whose website says it is “dedicated to building America’s future by supporting candidates who share our vision for reform and innovation”. Matthew de Unger Brown, Mr Barrett’s “special adviser”, campaign manager and press spokesman until yesterday, is also chairman of the Fund for the New American Century. “We support Republican candidates. It is a centre-Right organisation,” Mr de Unger Brown said. “I don’t think that neo-con would be an unfair description.”

9 replies

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Highlight:

Fund for the New American Century targets the British Police (Original Post) T_i_B Oct 2012 OP

Wow - insidious. PatentlyDemocratic Oct 2012 #1

Weird. Does PNAC think that it can privatize the British police forces, and for which firms? leveymg Oct 2012 #2

Try G4S T_i_B Oct 2012 #5

Thanks to our US "free press," we've heard nothing about G4S' role in the Occupation leveymg Oct 2012 #6

Is police candidate a Trojan horse for right-wing American think-tank? dipsydoodle Oct 2012 #3

So PNAC, which resulted in war profiteering in Iraq, morphs to support a UK pro-privatizer? We People Oct 2012 #4

FreedomWorks and Citizens United have been active in UK for awhile karoli Oct 2012 #7

It gets murkier T_i_B Oct 2012 #8

Wow. Too much there to get through, really muriel_volestrangler Oct 2012 #9

PatentlyDemocratic

(89 posts)

1. Wow - insidious.

Reply to T_i_B (Original post)

Mon Oct 22, 2012, 07:24 AM

Oct 2012

Omni Consumer Products. Good business is where you find it.

leveymg

(36,418 posts)

2. Weird. Does PNAC think that it can privatize the British police forces, and for which firms?

Reply to T_i_B (Original post)

Mon Oct 22, 2012, 07:26 AM

Oct 2012

Erik Prince's Blackwater/Xe/Academi is now UAE-based. Do the Israelis have an interest in this or another big mercenary security company? Anyone know?

T_i_B

(14,749 posts)

5. Try G4S

Reply to leveymg (Reply #2)

Tue Oct 23, 2012, 07:53 AM

Oct 2012

From the article

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9623068/The-secret-US-lobbyists-behind-Police-and-Crime-Commissioner-election.html

Lincolnshire may have been chosen because the county’s police are already “outsourcing” pioneers.

The troubled firm G4S has recently taken over key functions at the force, including its custody suites, central control room and firearms licensing department. G4S also plans a new central police station in a village outside Lincoln, with the existing city centre station closed and sold for housing.

After G4S’s security failures at the Olympics, Mr Barrett strongly backed the company, saying that the Lincolnshire deal was “working well.” He attacked his rival candidates, who suggested cancelling the deal, for making “bankrupt promises” and “playing politics”.

leveymg

(36,418 posts)

6. Thanks to our US "free press," we've heard nothing about G4S' role in the Occupation

Reply to T_i_B (Reply #5)

Tue Oct 23, 2012, 08:19 AM

Oct 2012

Last edited Tue Oct 23, 2012, 11:34 AM - Edit history (1)

I had to Goggle "G4S Israel", and then it became clear:

Danish G4S clients end contracts for role in Israeli occupation

After sustained media attention on G4S’s role in the Israeli occupation, several Danish charities and a bank have decided to end security service contracts with the company.

The latest such BDS success dates from two months ago, when Danish Merkur Bank decided to terminate its contract with G4S. Spokesperson Karl Johnsen told me that the bank had canceled the contract “because of G4S’s involvement in the Israeli occupation of Palestine.” Merkur Bank is an ethical bank committed to social justice.

On 18 July, Henrik Stubkjær, general director of Danish Church Aid (DCA) told Danish newspaper Berlingske Business that his organization had not renewed its contract with G4S. DCA had engaged with G4S in a dialogue about its activities in the West Bank. But DCA was unhappy at G4S for its continuing activity in Israeli settlements there.

Earlier this year, Amnesty International Denmark terminated its contract with G4S, after initially trying to influence their policies. “We do not want to work with G4S because the company’s global activities do not live up to Amnesty International’s requirements for corporate action in relation to human rights,” commented Amnesty secretary Lars Normann Jørgensen to Berlingske Business (translated from Danish).

The same article mentions that the Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims (RCT) also ended its contract with G4S. Pat Nissen, RCT’s project manager for the Middle East said in November 2010 that “G4S as a company is helping to facilitate torture.”
Boykot G4S Denmark intensifies campaign

dipsydoodle

(42,239 posts)

3. Is police candidate a Trojan horse for right-wing American think-tank?

Reply to T_i_B (Original post)

Mon Oct 22, 2012, 07:41 AM

Oct 2012

A leading independent candidate for Police and Crime Commissioner has been bankrolled by a right-wing US think tank committed to the privatisation of public services.

The revelation, which promoted the resignation of Mervyn Barrett's entire campaign team in Lincolnshire over the weekend, comes amid a growing sense of crisis surrounding next month's elections.

Former Metropolitan Police chief Ian Blair yesterday urged the public to undermine the new positions by boycotting the commissioner votes, as lack of interest threatens to keep turnout below 20 per cent.

In an extraordinary development, Mr Barrett, who had been polling in third place, parted company with his campaign team following the revelation that he had been receiving money from the Fund For the New American Century – an organisation that shares the ideology, staff and almost the same name as a now defunct neo-con think tank which is credited with helping persuade President George W Bush to wage war in Iraq.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/is-police-candidate-a-trojan-horse-for-rightwing-american-thinktank-8219877.html

We People

(619 posts)

4. So PNAC, which resulted in war profiteering in Iraq, morphs to support a UK pro-privatizer?

Reply to T_i_B (Original post)

Mon Oct 22, 2012, 02:13 PM

Oct 2012

At least major UK press outlets are raising a red flag before it's too late, unlike what happened in the U.S. w/regard to Bush II's Iraq invasion.

Search engines are providing very little info about this "Fund For the New American Century," but here is what one UK website pieced together after the Telegraph article:

This ‘think tank’/PAC. It’s called the ‘Fund for a New American Century’. Now that sounds awfully like the Project for the New American Century, a proper American think tank supported by people you might have heard of, like Dick Cheney and Jeb Bush, but is it really the same thing or something deliberately contrived to look similar to it? The "Fund"'s online presence is a single-page website for MatthewPAC, seemingly named after self-styled neo-con and recent Barrett campaign manager Matthew De Unger Brown.

http://topofthecops.com/2012/10/21/what-will-mervyn-do/

This points to two things:
1) A reminder that few U.S. citizens are aware of the PNAC and its underlying connection between the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the profiteering/privatization that took place there as a result of that invasion. To those who are aware of that connection, that process could be summed up as Shock Doctrine/Disaster Capitalism.
2) Stealth efforts to influence/ bring about privatization of government outside the U.S.

An example of one of the main commodities now exported by the U.S.: the insidious, relentless effort to create for-profit government. During the last decade, lobbyists for Globalization made possible the exportation of jobs formerly held by U.S. employees, via offshoring by private corporations.

Clearly, at least one of our think tanks is again involved in the virtual exportation of more and more malignant ideas and procedures worldwide.

At least some of the major UK press is onto this story.

As an aside, is there any doubt that the destructive potential of right-wing think tanks? Without them, the rise of corporatism would not have been possible.

karoli

(2 posts)

7. FreedomWorks and Citizens United have been active in UK for awhile

Reply to We People (Reply #4)

Sun Oct 28, 2012, 04:14 PM

Oct 2012

This story is fascinating on a number of different levels. I would love to figure out the relationship between the ratf&cking there and here.

T_i_B

(14,749 posts)

8. It gets murkier

Reply to T_i_B (Original post)

Mon Oct 29, 2012, 08:27 AM

Oct 2012

Couple of blogposts pointing out that the original telegraph article is not 100% accurate, but that Matthew "De Unger" Brown is a fraudster.

Also, Mervyn Barrett has withdrawn from the Lincolnshire PCC contest due to this scandal.

http://www.pme2013.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/andrew-gilligan-and-matthew-brown.html

http://pme2013.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/a-warning-about-matthew-brown.html

muriel_volestrangler

(101,388 posts)

9. Wow. Too much there to get through, really

Reply to T_i_B (Reply #8)

Mon Oct 29, 2012, 06:08 PM

Oct 2012

I end up wondering what's real, and what's not. Anyway, I can see the start of the Sunday Times article - http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/Crime/article1156568.ece - it says Barrett was conned out of £100,000. The most recent news story I can find is this: http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/10/29/lincolnshire-gay-fraudster-tricks-police-commissioner-hopeful/ which says Brown is on the run - "in New York". Where the wrath of God seems to be trying to catch up with him.

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