title: Diego Velázquez

text: Velázquez is often cited as a key influence on the art of Édouard Manet, who is often considered the bridge between realism and impressionism. Calling Velázquez the "painter of painters", Manet admired the immediacy and vivid brushwork of Velázquez's work, and built upon Velázquez's motifs in his own art. In the late nineteenth century, artists such as James McNeill Whistler and John Singer Sargent were strongly influenced by Velázquez.


title: Diego Velázquez

text: The respect with which twentieth-century painters regard Velázquez's work attests to its continuing importance. Pablo Picasso paid homage to Velázquez in 1957 when he recreated "Las Meninas" in 44 variations, in his characteristic style. Although Picasso was concerned that his reinterpretations of Velázquez's painting would be seen merely as copies rather than unique representations, the enormous works—including the largest he had produced since " Guernica " in 1937—obtained a position of importance in the canon of Spanish art.


title: Diego Velázquez

text: Salvador Dalí, as with Picasso in anticipation of the tercentennial of Velázquez's death, created in 1958 a work entitled " Velázquez Painting the Infanta Margarita With the Lights and Shadows of His Own Glory". The color scheme shows Dalí's serious tribute to Velázquez; the work also functioned, as in Picasso's case, as a vehicle for the presentation of newer theories in art and thought—nuclear mysticism, in Dalí's case.


title: Diego Velázquez

text: The Anglo-Irish painter Francis Bacon found Velázquez's portrait of Pope Innocent X to be "one of the greatest portraits ever". He created several expressionist variations of this piece in the 1950s; however, Bacon's paintings presented a more gruesome image of Innocent. One such famous variation, entitled "Figure with Meat" (1954), shows the pope between two halves of a bisected cow.


title: Diego Velázquez

text: In 2009, the "Portrait of a Man" in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which had long been associated with the followers of Velázquez' style of painting, was cleaned and restored. It was found to be by Velázquez himself, and the features of the man match those of a figure in the painting "the Surrender of Breda". The newly cleaned canvas may therefore be a study for that painting. Although the attribution to Velázquez is regarded as certain, the identity of the sitter is still open to question. Some art historians consider this new study to be a self-portrait by Velázquez.


title: Diego Velázquez

text: In 2010, it was reported that a damaged painting long relegated to a basement of the Yale University Art Gallery might be an early work by Velázquez. Thought to have been given to Yale in 1925, the painting has previously been attributed to the 17th-century Spanish school. Some scholars are prepared to attribute the painting to Velázquez, though the Prado Museum in Madrid is reserving judgment. The work, which depicts the Virgin Mary being taught to read, will be restored by conservators at Yale.


title: Diego Velázquez

text: In October 2011, it was confirmed by art historian Dr. Peter Cherry of Trinity College Dublin through x-ray analysis that a portrait found in the UK in the former collection of the 19th-century painter Matthew Shepperson is a previously unknown work by Velázquez. The portrait is of an unidentified man in his fifties or sixties, who could possibly be Juan Mateos, the Master of the Hunt for Velázquez's patron, King Philip IV of Spain. The painting measures 47 x 39 cm and was sold at auction on December 7, 2011, for £3,000,000.


title: Diego Velázquez

text: Velázquez, through his daughter Francisca de Silva Velázquez y Pacheco (1619–1658), is an ancestor of the Marquesses of Monteleone, including Enriquetta (Henrietta) Casado de Monteleone (1725–1761) who in 1746 married Heinrich VI, Count Reuss zu Köstritz (1707–1783). Through them are descended a number of European royalty, among them King Felipe VI of Spain through his mother Sophia of Greece and Denmark, King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, King Albert II of Belgium, Hans-Adam II, Prince of Liechtenstein, and Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg.


title: Diego Velázquez

text: Velázquez has been portrayed by Julián Villagrán in a Spanish fantasy television series "El ministerio del tiempo." Velázquez is a recurring character in the series.


title: Farhad Samji

text: Farhad Samji (born 5 May 1974) is an Indian music composer, writer, and film director who works in Hindi cinema. He is known for directing films like "Housefull 4" and "Bachchhan Paandey" independently. He has also made special appearances in films like "Baaghi 3" and "Coolie No. 1". He is famous for his works with his brother, Sajid Samji. The duo together is known as Sajid - Farhad and are infamously known for directing films like "Entertainment" and "Housefull 3".


title: Farhad Samji

text: Farhad started his career with his brother in 2002 as lyricists. After that they started writing dialogues since Shiva in 2006. Their last movie was Simmba in 2018.In 2019, apart from writing dialogues for Punjabi film "Singham", he directed web series "Booo Sabki Phategi" and the action comedy movie "Housefull 4" (starring Akshay Kumar and produced by Sajid Nadiadwala, which was the fourth part of "Housefull" franchise and became a blockbuster despite of critically negative reviews).


title: Farhad Samji

text: Samji wrote dialogues for the 2020 films "Street Dancer 3D", "Baaghi 3" and "Coolie No. 1". He has completed his next directorial, the Akshay Kumar and Kriti Sanon 2021 starrer "Bachchan Pandey", whose shooting took place from January to March 2021. Samji will also make the social family comedy "Kabhi Eid Kabhi Diwali" starring Salman Khan and Pooja Hegde, which begins filming in October 2021 and is expected to release as of Bakri-Eid 2022. Both films are produced by Sajid Nadiadwala.


title: Wilbur Soot

text: William Patrick Spencer Gold (born 14 September 1996), known professionally as Wilbur Soot, is a British Twitch streamer, YouTuber, and musician. He first became known in 2017 for his work with the group comedy YouTube channel SootHouse, where he made recurring appearances and was the lead editor and a co-founder. He later started his own channel, Wilbur Soot, in March 2019. Gold released his first single, "The 'Nice Guy' Ballad", in January 2018. His sixth single, "Your New Boyfriend", peaked at No. 65 on the UK Singles Chart. Gold is co-founder of the British indie rock band Lovejoy, where he is one of the songwriters, the lead vocalist and the rhythm guitarist.


title: Wilbur Soot

text: Gold first became known in 2017 for his work on the group YouTube channel, "SootHouse", which was founded by Gold and some of his friends. This channel consisted mostly of reaction videos, with its members discussing memes and life hacks, among other topics. On May 30, 2019, the "SootHouse" channel reached 1 million subscribers.


title: Wilbur Soot

text: Gold's main channel, "Wilbur Soot", was created on 29 March 2019. This channel reached 1 million subscribers on 8 April 2020, and, , it has amassed over 6.34 million subscribers.


title: Wilbur Soot

text: Gold also actively live streams on Twitch, where, , he has amassed over 4.6 million followers, making him the 39th most-followed channel on the platform.


title: Wilbur Soot

text: In 2020, Gold joined the roleplay-focused "Minecraft" server "The Dream SMP", run by eponymous YouTuber Dream. There, Gold founded the fictional nation of L'Manberg and eventually became a lead writer for the server's stories and folklore Gold has competed in multiple "Minecraft" tournaments, including MC Championships and Minecraft Monday.


title: Wilbur Soot

text: On 4 August 2022, TommyInnit announced a book he and Gold had been writing called "TommyInnit Says...The Quote Book". The book was released on 13 October 2022. The proceeds from the book were donated to the Sarcoma Foundation of America in honour of late "Minecraft" YouTuber Technoblade.


title: Wilbur Soot

text: Gold released his first single, "The 'Nice Guy' Ballad", in January 2018. Gold first charted with his sixth single, "Your New Boyfriend", released in December 2020, which peaked on the UK Singles Chart at number 65. The song also appeared on the UK Indie Chart and the Irish Singles Chart, where it peaked at numbers 10 and 100, respectively. Gold has also appeared on several artist charts, including "Billboard" Emerging Artists Chart and "Rolling Stone" Top Breakthrough Chart. Gold's seventh single "Soft Boy" came out in September 2022.


title: Wilbur Soot

text: Gold formed the indie rock band Lovejoy in 2021 with his friend Joe Goldsmith. The band consists of Gold as lead vocalist, co-songwriter, and rhythm guitarist; Goldsmith as the lead guitarist, co-songwriter and backing vocalist; Mark Boardman as the drummer, and co-songwriter; and Ash Kabosu as the bassist, and co-songwriter.


title: Wilbur Soot

text: The band was originally named 'Hang the DJ', however the name was later changed to 'Lovejoy', inspired by Benedict Lovejoy, a friend of the band who would sit with them in the early days of songwriting. Gold and Goldsmith were originally both in a folk band before forming Lovejoy, and this is where the two met. Gold met Kabosu while at a burger shop and asked if he wanted to be in the band; the band asked Boardman to join after hiring him on Fiverr.


title: Wilbur Soot

text: On 9 May 2021, Lovejoy released their first EP, "Are You Alright?". On 20 May 2021, they debuted on "Billboard"s Emerging Artists chart at number 10.Their second EP, "Pebble Brain", was released on 14 October 2021, peaking at number 12 on the UK Albums Chart.


title: Psychological warfare

text: Psychological warfare (PSYWAR), or the basic aspects of modern psychological operations (PsyOp), have been known by many other names or terms, including Military Information Support Operations (MISO), Psy Ops, political warfare, "Hearts and Minds", and propaganda. The term is used "to denote any action which is practiced mainly by psychological methods with the aim of evoking a planned psychological reaction in other people".


title: Psychological warfare

text: Various techniques are used, and are aimed at influencing a target audience's value system, belief system, emotions, motives, reasoning, or behavior. It is used to induce confessions or reinforce attitudes and behaviors favorable to the originator's objectives, and are sometimes combined with black operations or false flag tactics. It is also used to destroy the morale of enemies through tactics that aim to depress troops' psychological states.


title: Psychological warfare

text: Target audiences can be governments, organizations, groups, and individuals, and is not just limited to soldiers. Civilians of foreign territories can also be targeted by technology and media so as to cause an effect in the government of their country.


title: Psychological warfare

text: There is evidence of psychological warfare throughout written history. In modern times, psychological warfare efforts have been used extensively. Mass communication allows for direct communication with an enemy populace, and therefore has been used in many efforts. Social media channels and the internet allow for campaigns of disinformation and misinformation performed by agents anywhere in the world.


title: Psychological warfare

text: Since prehistoric times, warlords and chiefs have recognized the importance of weakening the morale of opponents. In the Battle of Pelusium (525 BC) between the Persian Empire and ancient Egypt, the Persian forces used cats and other animals as a psychological tactic against the Egyptians, who avoided harming cats due to religious belief and spells.


title: Psychological warfare

text: Currying favor with supporters was the other side of psychological warfare, and an early practitioner of this was Alexander the Great, who successfully conquered large parts of Europe and the Middle East and held on to his territorial gains by co-opting local elites into the Greek administration and culture. Alexander left some of his men behind in each conquered city to introduce Greek culture and oppress dissident views. His soldiers were paid dowries to marry locals in an effort to encourage assimilation.


title: Psychological warfare

text: Genghis Khan, leader of the Mongolian Empire in the 13th century AD employed less subtle techniques. Defeating the will of the enemy before having to attack and reaching a consented settlement was preferable to facing his wrath. The Mongol generals demanded submission to the Khan and threatened the initially captured villages with complete destruction if they refused to surrender. If they had to fight to take the settlement, the Mongol generals fulfilled their threats and massacred the survivors. Tales of the encroaching horde spread to the next villages and created an aura of insecurity that undermined the possibility of future resistance.


title: Psychological warfare

text: Genghis Khan also employed tactics that made his numbers seem greater than they actually were. During night operations he ordered each soldier to light three torches at dusk to give the illusion of an overwhelming army and deceive and intimidate enemy scouts. He also sometimes had objects tied to the tails of his horses, so that riding on open and dry fields raised a cloud of dust that gave the enemy the impression of great numbers. His soldiers used arrows specially notched to whistle as they flew through the air, creating a terrifying noise.


title: Psychological warfare

text: Another tactic favored by the Mongols was catapulting severed human heads over city walls to frighten the inhabitants and spread disease in the besieged city's closed confines. This was especially used by the later Turko-Mongol chieftain.


title: Psychological warfare

text: The Muslim caliph Omar, in his battles against the Byzantine Empire, sent small reinforcements in the form of a continuous stream, giving the impression that a large force would accumulate eventually if not swiftly dealt with.


title: Psychological warfare

text: During the early Qin dynasty and late Eastern Zhou dynasty in 1st century AD China, the Empty Fort Strategy was used to trick the enemy into believing that an empty location was an ambush, in order to prevent them from attacking it using reverse psychology. This tactic also relied on luck, should the enemy believe that the location is a threat to them.


title: Psychological warfare

text: In the 6th century BCE Greek Bias of Priene successfully resisted the Lydian king Alyattes by fattening up a pair of mules and driving them out of the besieged city. When Alyattes' envoy was then sent to Priene, Bias had piles of sand covered with wheat to give the impression of plentiful resources.


title: Psychological warfare

text: This ruse appears to have been well known in medieval Europe: defenders in castles or towns under siege would throw food from the walls to show besiegers that provisions were plentiful. A famous example occurs in the 8th-century legend of Lady Carcas, who supposedly persuaded the Franks to abandon a five-year siege by this means and gave her name to Carcassonne as a result.


title: Psychological warfare

text: During the Attack on Marstrand, Peter Tordenskjold carried out military deception against the Swedes. Although probably apocryphal, he apparently succeeded in making his small force appear larger and feed disinformation to his opponents, similar to the Operations Fortitude and Titanic in World War II.


title: Psychological warfare

text: The start of modern psychological operations in war is generally dated to World War I. By that point, Western societies were increasingly educated and urbanized, and mass media was available in the form of large circulation newspapers and posters. It was also possible to transmit propaganda to the enemy via the use of airborne leaflets or through explosive delivery systems like modified artillery or mortar rounds.


title: Psychological warfare

text: At the start of the war, the belligerents, especially the British and Germans, began distributing propaganda, both domestically and on the Western front. The British had several advantages that allowed them to succeed in the battle for world opinion; they had one of the world's most reputable news systems, with much experience in international and cross-cultural communication, and they controlled much of the undersea communications cable system then in operation. These capabilities were easily transitioned to the task of warfare.


title: Psychological warfare

text: The British also had a diplomatic service that maintained good relations with many nations around the world, in contrast to the reputation of the German services. While German attempts to foment revolution in parts of the British Empire, such as Ireland and India, were ineffective, extensive experience in the Middle East allowed the British to successfully induce the Arabs to revolt against the Ottoman Empire.


title: Psychological warfare

text: In August 1914, David Lloyd George appointed a Member of Parliament (MP), Charles Masterman, to head a Propaganda Agency at Wellington House. A distinguished body of literary talent was enlisted for the task, with its members including Arthur Conan Doyle, Ford Madox Ford, G. K. Chesterton, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling and H. G. Wells. Over 1,160 pamphlets were published during the war and distributed to neutral countries, and eventually, to Germany. One of the first significant publications, the "Report on Alleged German Outrages" of 1915, had a great effect on general opinion across the world. The pamphlet documented atrocities, both actual and alleged, committed by the German army against Belgian civilians. A Dutch illustrator, Louis Raemaekers, provided the highly emotional drawings which appeared in the pamphlet.


title: Psychological warfare

text: In 1917, the bureau was subsumed into the new Department of Information and branched out into telegraph communications, radio, newspapers, magazines and the cinema. In 1918, Viscount Northcliffe was appointed Director of Propaganda in Enemy Countries. The department was split between propaganda against Germany organized by H.G Wells, and propaganda against the Austro-Hungarian Empire supervised by Wickham Steed and Robert William Seton-Watson; the attempts of the latter focused on the lack of ethnic cohesion in the Empire and stoked the grievances of minorities such as the Croats and Slovenes. It had a significant effect on the final collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Army at the Battle of Vittorio Veneto.


title: Psychological warfare

text: Aerial leaflets were dropped over German trenches containing postcards from prisoners of war detailing their humane conditions, surrender notices and general propaganda against the Kaiser and the German generals. By the end of the war, MI7b had distributed almost 26 million leaflets. The Germans began shooting the leaflet-dropping pilots, prompting the British to develop unmanned leaflet balloons that drifted across no-man's land. At least one in seven of these leaflets were not handed in by the soldiers to their superiors, despite severe penalties for that offence. Even General Hindenburg admitted that "Unsuspectingly, many thousands consumed the poison", and POWs admitted to being disillusioned by the propaganda leaflets that depicted the use of German troops as mere cannon fodder. In 1915, the British began airdropping a regular leaflet newspaper "Le Courrier de l'Air" for civilians in German-occupied France and Belgium.


title: Psychological warfare

text: At the start of the war, the French government took control of the media to suppress negative coverage. Only in 1916, with the establishment of the Maison de la Presse, did they begin to use similar tactics for the purpose of psychological warfare. One of its sections was the "Service de la Propagande aérienne" (Aerial Propaganda Service), headed by Professor Tonnelat and Jean-Jacques Waltz, an Alsatian artist code-named ""Hansi"". The French tended to distribute leaflets of images only, although the full publication of US President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, which had been heavily edited in the German newspapers, was distributed via airborne leaflets by the French.


title: Psychological warfare

text: The Central Powers were slow to use these techniques; however, at the start of the war the Germans succeeded in inducing the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire to declare 'holy war', or Jihad, against the Western infidels. They also attempted to foment rebellion against the British Empire in places as far afield as Ireland, Afghanistan, and India. The Germans' greatest success was in giving the Russian revolutionary, Lenin, free transit on a sealed train from Switzerland to Finland after the overthrow of the Tsar. This soon paid off when the Bolshevik Revolution took Russia out of the war.


title: Psychological warfare

text: Adolf Hitler was greatly influenced by the psychological tactics of warfare the British had employed during World War I, and attributed the defeat of Germany to the effects this propaganda had on the soldiers. He became committed to the use of mass propaganda to influence the minds of the German population in the decades to come. By calling his movement The Third Reich, he was able to convince many civilians that his cause was not just a fad, but the way of their future. Joseph Goebbels was appointed as Propaganda Minister when Hitler came to power in 1933, and he portrayed Hitler as a messianic figure for the redemption of Germany. Hitler also coupled this with the resonating projections of his orations for effect.


title: Psychological warfare

text: Germany's "Fall Grün" plan of invasion of Czechoslovakia had a large part dealing with psychological warfare aimed both at the Czechoslovak civilians and government as well as, crucially, at Czechoslovak allies. It became successful to the point that Germany gained support of UK and France through appeasement to occupy Czechoslovakia without having to fight an all-out war, sustaining only minimum losses in covert war before the Munich Agreement.


title: Psychological warfare

text: At the start of the Second World War, the British set up the Political Warfare Executive to produce and distribute propaganda. Through the use of powerful transmitters, broadcasts could be made across Europe. Sefton Delmer managed a successful black propaganda campaign through several radio stations which were designed to be popular with German troops while at the same time introducing news material that would weaken their morale under a veneer of authenticity. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill made use of radio broadcasts for propaganda against the Germans.


title: Psychological warfare

text: During World War II, the British made extensive use of deception – developing many new techniques and theories. The main protagonists at this time were 'A' Force, set up in 1940 under Dudley Clarke, and the London Controlling Section, chartered in 1942 under the control of John Bevan. Clarke pioneered many of the strategies of military deception. His ideas for combining fictional orders of battle, visual deception and double agents helped define Allied deception strategy during the war, for which he has been referred to as "the greatest British deceiver of WW2".


title: Psychological warfare

text: During the lead up to the Allied invasion of Normandy, many new tactics in psychological warfare were devised. The plan for Operation Bodyguard set out a general strategy to mislead German high command as to the exact date and location of the invasion. Planning began in 1943 under the auspices of the London Controlling Section (LCS). A draft strategy, referred to as Plan Jael, was presented to Allied high command at the Tehran Conference. Operation Fortitude was intended to convince the Germans of a greater Allied military strength than existed, through fictional field armies, faked operations to prepare the ground for invasion and leaked information about the Allied order of battle and war plans.


title: Psychological warfare

text: Elaborate naval deceptions (Operations "Glimmer", "Taxable" and "Big Drum") were undertaken in the English Channel. Small ships and aircraft simulated invasion fleets lying off Pas de Calais, Cap d'Antifer and the western flank of the real invasion force. At the same time Operation Titanic involved the RAF dropping fake paratroopers to the east and west of the Normandy landings.


title: Psychological warfare

text: The deceptions were implemented with the use of double agents, radio traffic and visual deception. The British "Double Cross" anti-espionage operation had proven very successful from the outset of the war, and the LCS was able to use double agents to send back misleading information about Allied invasion plans. The use of visual deception, including mock tanks and other military hardware had been developed during the North Africa campaign. Mock hardware was created for "Bodyguard"; in particular, dummy landing craft were stockpiled to give the impression that the invasion would take place near Calais.


title: Psychological warfare

text: The Operation was a strategic success and the Normandy landings caught German defences unawares. Subsequent deception led Hitler into delaying reinforcement from the Calais region for nearly seven weeks.


title: Psychological warfare

text: The United States ran an extensive program of psychological warfare during the Vietnam War. The Phoenix Program had the dual aim of assassinating National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF or Viet Cong) personnel and terrorizing any potential sympathizers or passive supporters. During the Phoenix Program, over 19,000 NLF supporters were killed. The United States also used tapes of distorted human sounds and played them during the night making the Vietnamese soldiers think that the dead were back for revenge.


title: Psychological warfare

text: The CIA made extensive use of Contra soldiers to destabilize the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The CIA used psychological warfare techniques against the Panamanians by delivering unlicensed TV broadcasts. The United States government has used propaganda broadcasts against the Cuban government through TV Marti, based in Miami, Florida. However, the Cuban government has been successful at jamming the signal of TV Marti.


title: Psychological warfare

text: In the Iraq War, the United States used the shock and awe campaign to psychologically maim and break the will of the Iraqi Army to fight.


title: Psychological warfare

text: In cyberspace, social media has enabled the use of disinformation on a wide scale. Analysts have found evidence of doctored or misleading photographs spread by social media in the Syrian Civil War and 2014 Russian military intervention in Ukraine, possibly with state involvement. Military and governments have engaged in psychological operations (PSYOP) and informational warfare (IO) on social networking platforms to regulate foreign propaganda, which includes countries like the US, Russia, and China.


title: Psychological warfare

text: In 2022, Meta and the Stanford Internet Observatory found that over five years people associated with the U.S. military, who tried to conceal their identities, created fake accounts on social media systems including Balatarin, Facebook, Instagram, Odnoklassniki, Telegram, Twitter, VKontakte and YouTube in an influence operation in Central Asia and the Middle East. Their posts, primarily in Arabic, Farsi and Russian, criticized Iran, China and Russia and gave pro-Western narratives. Data suggested the activity was a series of covert campaigns rather than a single operation.


title: Psychological warfare

text: In operations in the South and East China Seas, both the United States and China have been engaged in "Cognitive Warfare", which involves both displays of force, staged photographs and sharing of disinformation.


title: Psychological warfare

text: Most of these techniques were developed during World War II or earlier, and have been used to some degree in every conflict since. Daniel Lerner was in the OSS (the predecessor to the American CIA) and in his book, attempts to analyze how effective the various strategies were. He concludes that there is little evidence that any of them were dramatically successful, except perhaps surrender instructions over loudspeakers when victory was imminent. Measuring the success or failure of psychological warfare is very hard, as the conditions are very far from being a controlled experiment.


title: Psychological warfare

text: Lerner says grey and black operations ultimately have a heavy cost, in that the target population sooner or later recognizes them as propaganda and discredits the source. He writes, "This is one of the few dogmas advanced by Sykewarriors that is likely to endure as an axiom of propaganda: Credibility is a condition of persuasion. Before you can make a man do as you say, you must make him believe what you say." Consistent with this idea, the Allied strategy in World War II was predominantly one of truth (with certain exceptions).


title: Psychological warfare

text: In "", Jacques Ellul discusses psychological warfare as a common peace policy practice between nations as a form of indirect aggression. This type of propaganda drains the public opinion of an opposing regime by stripping away its power on public opinion. This form of aggression is hard to defend against because no international court of justice is capable of protecting against psychological aggression since it cannot be legally adjudicated. "Here the propagandists is [sic] dealing with a foreign adversary whose morale he seeks to destroy by psychological means so that the opponent begins to doubt the validity of his beliefs and actions."


title: Psychological warfare

text: According to U.S. military analysts, attacking the enemy's mind is an important element of the People's Republic of China's military strategy. This type of warfare is rooted in the Chinese Stratagems outlined by Sun Tzu in "The Art of War" and "Thirty-Six Stratagems". In its dealings with its rivals, China is expected to utilize Marxism to mobilize communist loyalists, as well as flex its economic and military muscle to persuade other nations to act in China's interests. The Chinese government also tries to control the media to keep a tight hold on propaganda efforts for its people.


title: Psychological warfare

text: The is an organization made up of 300 soldiers whose mission is to assure to the four service arm of the French Armed Forces psychological warfare capacities. Deployed in particular to Mali and Afghanistan, its missions « consist in better explaining and accepting the action of French forces in operation with local actors and thus gaining their trust: direct aid to the populations, management of reconstruction sites, actions of communication of influence with the population, elites and local elected officials ». The center has capacities for analysis, influence, expertise and instruction.


title: Psychological warfare

text: In the German Bundeswehr, the Zentrum Operative Kommunikation is responsible PSYOP efforts. The center is subordinate to the Cyber and Information Domain Service branch alongside multiple IT and Electronic Warfare battalions and consists of around 1000 soldiers. One project of the German PSYOP forces is the radio station "Stimme der Freiheit" (Sada-e Azadi, Voice of Freedom), heard by thousands of Afghans. Another is the publication of various newspapers and magazines in Kosovo and Afghanistan, where German soldiers serve with NATO.


title: Psychological warfare

text: Iranian government had an operation program to use FIFA World Cup in 2022 as psyop against concurrent peoples protests.


title: Psychological warfare

text: The Israeli government and its military make use of psychological warfare. In 2021, Israeli newspaper "Haaretz" revealed that ""Abu Ali Express"", a popular news page on Telegram and Twitter purportedly dedicated to "Arab affairs", was actually run by a Jewish Israeli paid consultant to the Israel Defense Forces. The IDF's psyops account had been the source of a number of noteworthy reports that were afterwards cited by the Israeli and international media. "Abu Ali Express" was, for example, the source for the report that Qatari funds were entering the Gaza Strip in suitcases.


title: Psychological warfare

text: The British were one of the first major military powers to use psychological warfare in the First and Second World Wars. In the current British Armed Forces, PsyOps are handled by the tri-service 15 Psychological Operations Group. (See also MI5 and Secret Intelligence Service). The Psychological Operations Group comprises over 150 personnel, approximately 75 from the regular Armed Services and 75 from the Reserves. The Group supports deployed commanders in the provision of psychological operations in operational and tactical environments.


title: Psychological warfare

text: The Group was established immediately after the 1991 Gulf War, has since grown significantly in size to meet operational requirements, and from 2015 it will be one of the sub-units of the 77th Brigade, formerly called the Security Assistance Group.


title: Psychological warfare

text: In June 2015, NSA files published by Glenn Greenwald revealed details of the JTRIG group at British intelligence agency GCHQ covertly manipulating online communities. This is in line with JTRIG's goal: to "destroy, deny, degrade [and] disrupt" enemies by "discrediting" them, planting misinformation and shutting down their communications.


title: Psychological warfare

text: In March 2019, it emerged that the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) of the UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) is tendering to arms companies and universities for £70M worth of assistance under a project to develop new methods of psychological warfare. The project is known as the human and social sciences research capability (HSSRC).


title: Psychological warfare

text: The term psychological warfare is believed to have migrated from Germany to the United States in 1941. During World War II, the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff defined psychological warfare broadly, stating "Psychological warfare employs "any" weapon to influence the mind of the enemy. The weapons are psychological only in the effect they produce and not because of the weapons themselves." The U.S. Department of Defense currently defines psychological warfare as:


title: Psychological warfare

text: "The planned use of propaganda and other psychological actions having the primary purpose of influencing the opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of hostile foreign groups in such a way as to support the achievement of national objectives."


title: Psychological warfare

text: This definition indicates that a critical element of the U.S. psychological operations capabilities includes propaganda and by extension counterpropaganda. Joint Publication 3–53 establishes specific policy to use public affairs mediums to counter propaganda from foreign origins.


title: Psychological warfare

text: The purpose of United States psychological operations is to induce or reinforce attitudes and behaviors favorable to US objectives. The Special Activities Center (SAC) is a division of the Central Intelligence Agency's National Clandestine Service, responsible for Covert Action and "Special Activities". These special activities include covert political influence (which includes psychological operations) and paramilitary operations. SAC's political influence group is the only US unit allowed to conduct these operations covertly and is considered the primary unit in this area.


title: Psychological warfare

text: Dedicated psychological operations units exist in the United States Army and United States Marine Corps. The United States Navy and the 193rd Special Operations Wing of the United States Air Force also plans and executes limited PSYOP missions. United States PSYOP units and soldiers of all branches of the military are prohibited by law from targeting U.S. citizens with PSYOP within the borders of the United States (Executive Order S-1233, DOD Directive S-3321.1, and National Security Decision Directive 130). While United States Army PSYOP units may offer non-PSYOP support to domestic military missions, they can only target foreign audiences.


title: Psychological warfare

text: A U.S. Army field manual released in January 2013 states that "Inform and Influence Activities" are critical for describing, directing, and leading military operations. Several Army Division leadership staff are assigned to “planning, integration and synchronization of designated information-related capabilities."


title: Psychological warfare

text: In September 2022, an audit of covert information warfare took place after social media companies identified a suspected U.S. military operation.


title: Lynne Cheney

text: Lynne Ann Cheney ( ; ; born August 14, 1941) is an American author, scholar, and former talk show host. She is married to the 46th vice president of the United States, Dick Cheney, and served as the second lady of the United States from 2001 to 2009.


title: Lynne Cheney

text: Lynne Ann Vincent was born on August 14, 1941, in Casper, Wyoming. Her mother, Edna Lolita ("née" Lybyer, 1919–1973), became a deputy sheriff, and her father, Wayne Edwin Vincent, was an engineer. A descendant of Mormon pioneers, and with roots in Denmark, Sweden, England, Ireland, and Wales, she was raised Presbyterian and became Methodist upon her marriage to Dick Cheney.


title: Lynne Cheney

text: Cheney received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature with highest honors from Colorado College. She continued her education with a Master of Arts degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder, and a PhD in 19th-century British literature from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her dissertation was entitled "Matthew Arnold's Possible Perfection: A Study of the Kantian Strain in Arnold's Poetry".


title: Lynne Cheney

text: Cheney served as the sixth chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) from 1986 to 1993. In 1995, she founded the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a think tank devoted to reforming higher education.


title: Lynne Cheney

text: She is a senior fellow in education and culture at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. She also serves as a director of Reader's Digest Association, Inc. From 1995 to 1998, Cheney served as the co-host of the Sunday edition of CNN's "Crossfire", replacing Tony Snow.


title: Lynne Cheney

text: Cheney served on Lockheed Corporation's board of directors from 1994 to 2001. She gave up the $120,000-a-year position shortly before her husband's inauguration. She had served on the Lockheed board's finance, and nominating and corporate governance committees.


title: Lynne Cheney

text: In 2000, she was mentioned as a possible conservative female pick for Republican vice presidential nominee on the George W. Bush ticket. The appointed head of the nominating committee was her husband, Dick Cheney, then the CEO of Halliburton, who eventually emerged as Bush's choice.


title: Lynne Cheney

text: In the early 1990s when heading the NEH, Cheney advocated voluntary national history standards for the nation's high school students and announced plans to create them. In 1994 shortly before the standards were to be released, Cheney, who was aghast at the results, wrote an opinion for "The Wall Street Journal" she titled "The End of History," where she "set off a firestorm," according to Gary B. Nash who headed the standards effort. Cheney followed with another opinion, "The End of History, Part II" in 2015. As of the early 2020s, her reversal is still cited in the discussion and controversy surrounding The 1619 Project.


title: Lynne Cheney

text: As second lady, she repeatedly spoke out against violent and sexually explicit lyrics in popular music, including those of rapper Eminem, picking up on an issue that was originally made famous by former vice president Al Gore and his wife Tipper. She also criticized video game developers for similar content.


title: Lynne Cheney

text: On an October 10, 2007, episode of "The Daily Show", Cheney stated her opposition to a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Her daughter Mary identifies as lesbian and both Lynne Cheney and her husband Dick have publicly supported same-sex marriage during and after his vice presidency.


title: Lynne Cheney

text: Lynne Cheney married Richard Cheney in 1964. They have two daughters and seven grandchildren. Their daughters are Elizabeth Cheney (born July 28, 1966), and Mary Cheney (born on March 14, 1969).


title: Lynne Cheney

text: Cheney was considered a possible contender to complete the term of Craig L. Thomas as U.S. senator from Wyoming following his death in 2007. A spokesman stated that she was considering the post but she never signed an application to become a candidate. Cheney herself acknowledged in a 2015 interview that she had considered running for the senate seat. If she had won the seat, she would have become the first former second lady to be a member of the Senate since Muriel Humphrey was appointed Senator from Minnesota after her husband's death in 1978.


title: Lynne Cheney

text: Cheney criticized Eminem in September 2000 for his promotion of "violence of the most degrading kind against women", in response to which he mockingly referenced Lynne and Dick Cheney (and his recurring heart problems) in the 2002 song "Without Me". Cheney was portrayed by Amy Adams in the 2018 film "Vice", a biopic about Dick Cheney. In this political satire, she is portrayed as a sly driving force and a source of inspiration and support behind her husband's political career.


title: Peter Singer

text: Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher, currently the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He specialises in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a secular, utilitarian perspective. He is known in particular for his book "Animal Liberation" (1975), in which he argues in favour of veganism, and his essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", in which he argues in favour of donating to help the global poor. For most of his career, he was a preference utilitarian, but he stated in "The Point of View of the Universe" (2014), coauthored with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, that he had become a hedonistic utilitarian.


title: Peter Singer

text: On two occasions, Singer served as chair of the philosophy department at Monash University, where he founded its Centre for Human Bioethics. In 1996 he stood unsuccessfully as a Greens candidate for the Australian Senate. In 2004 Singer was recognised as the Australian Humanist of the Year by the Council of Australian Humanist Societies. In 2005, "The Sydney Morning Herald" placed him among Australia's ten most influential public intellectuals. Singer is a cofounder of Animals Australia and the founder of The Life You Can Save.


title: Peter Singer

text: Singer's parents were Austrian Jews who immigrated to Australia from Vienna after Austria's annexation by Nazi Germany in 1938. They settled in Melbourne, where Singer was born in 1946. His grandparents were less fortunate: his paternal grandparents were taken by the Nazis to Łódź, and never heard from again; his maternal grandfather David Ernst Oppenheim (1881–1943), a teacher, died in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Oppenheim was a member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and wrote a joint article with Sigmund Freud, before joining the Adlerian Society for Individual Psychology. Singer later wrote a biography of Oppenheim.


title: Peter Singer

text: Singer is an atheist and was raised in a prosperous, nonreligious family. His father had a successful business importing tea and coffee. His family rarely observed Jewish holidays, and Singer declined to have a Bar Mitzvah. Singer attended Preshil and later Scotch College. After leaving school, Singer studied law, history, and philosophy at the University of Melbourne, earning a bachelor's degree in 1967. He has explained that he elected to major in philosophy after his interest was piqued by discussions with his sister's then-boyfriend.


title: Peter Singer

text: He earned a master's degree for a thesis entitled "Why Should I Be Moral?" at the same university in 1969. He was awarded a scholarship to study at the University of Oxford and obtained from there a BPhil degree in 1971 with a thesis on civil disobedience supervised by R. M. Hare and published as a book in 1973. Singer names Hare and Australian philosopher H. J. McCloskey as his two most important mentors.


title: Peter Singer

text: One day at Balliol College in Oxford, he had what he refers to as probably the decisive formative experience of his life. He was having a discussion after class with fellow graduate student Richard Keshen, a Canadian, who would later become a professor at Cape Breton University. During their lunch Keshen opted to have a salad after being told that the spaghetti sauce contained meat. Singer had the spaghetti. Singer eventually questioned Keshen about his reason for avoiding meat. Keshen explained his ethical objections. Singer would later state, "I'd never met a vegetarian who gave such a straightforward answer that I could understand and relate to". Keshen later introduced Singer to his vegetarian friends. Singer was able to find one book in which he could read up on the issue ("Animal Machines" by Ruth Harrison) and within a week or two he approached his wife saying that he thought they needed to make a change to their diet and that he did not think they could justify eating meat.


title: Peter Singer

text: After spending three years as a Radcliffe lecturer at University College, Oxford, he was a visiting professor at New York University for 16 months. In 1977 he returned to Melbourne where he spent most of his career, aside from appointments as visiting faculty abroad, until his move to Princeton in 1999. In June 2011 it was announced he would join the professoriate of New College of the Humanities, a private college in London, in addition to his work at Princeton. He also has been a regular contributor to Project Syndicate since 2001.


title: Peter Singer

text: According to philosopher Helga Kuhse, Singer is almost certainly the best-known and most widely read of all contemporary philosophers. Michael Specter wrote that Singer is among the most influential of contemporary philosophers.


title: Peter Singer

text: Singer's "Practical Ethics" (1979) analyzes why and how living beings' interests should be weighed. His principle of equal consideration of interests does not dictate equal treatment of all those with interests, since different interests warrant different treatment. All have an interest in avoiding pain, for instance, but relatively few have an interest in cultivating their abilities. Not only does his principle justify different treatment for different interests, but it allows different treatment for the same interest when diminishing marginal utility is a factor. For example, this approach would privilege a starving person's interest in food over the same interest of someone who is only slightly hungry.


title: Peter Singer

text: Among the more important human interests are those in avoiding pain, in developing one's abilities, in satisfying basic needs for food and shelter, in enjoying warm personal relationships, in being free to pursue one's projects without interference, "and many others". The fundamental interest that entitles a being to equal consideration is the capacity for "suffering and/or enjoyment or happiness". Singer holds that a being's interests should always be weighed according to that being's concrete properties. He favors a "journey" model of life, which measures the wrongness of taking a life by the degree to which doing so frustrates a life journey's goals. So taking a life is less wrong at the beginning, when no goals have been set, and at the end, when the goals have either been met or are unlikely to be accomplished. The journey model is tolerant of some frustrated desire and explains why persons who have embarked on their journeys are not replaceable. Only a personal interest in continuing to live brings the journey model into play. This model also explains the priority that Singer attaches to "interests" over trivial desires and pleasures.


title: Peter Singer

text: Ethical conduct is justified by reasons that go beyond prudence to "something bigger than the individual", addressing a larger audience. Singer thinks this going-beyond identifies moral reasons as "somehow universal", specifically in the injunction to 'love thy neighbour as thyself', interpreted by him as demanding that one give the same weight to the interests of others as one gives to one's own interests. This universalising step, which Singer traces from Kant to Hare, is crucial and sets him apart from those moral theorists, from Hobbes to David Gauthier, who tie morality to prudence. Universalisation leads directly to utilitarianism, Singer argues, on the strength of the thought that one's own interests cannot count for more than the interests of others.


title: Peter Singer

text: Taking these into account, one must weigh them up and adopt the course of action that is most likely to maximise the interests of those affected; utilitarianism has been arrived at. Singer's universalising step applies to interests without reference to who has them, whereas the Kantian's applies to the judgments of rational agents (in Kant's kingdom of Ends, or Rawls's original position, etc.). Singer regards Kantian universalisation as unjust to animals. As for the Hobbesians, Singer attempts a response in the final chapter of "Practical Ethics", arguing that self-interested reasons support adoption of the moral point of view, such as 'the paradox of hedonism', which counsels that happiness is best found by not looking for it, and the need most people feel to relate to something larger than their own concerns.


title: Peter Singer

text: Singer identifies as a sentientist. Sentientism is a naturalistic worldview that grants moral consideration to all sentient beings.


title: Peter Singer

text: Singer's ideas have contributed to the rise of effective altruism. He argues that people should try not only to reduce suffering but to reduce it in the most effective manner possible. While Singer has previously written at length about the moral imperative to reduce poverty and eliminate the suffering of nonhuman animals, particularly in the meat industry, he writes about how the effective altruism movement is doing these things more effectively in his 2015 book "The Most Good You Can Do". He is a board member of Animal Charity Evaluators, a charity evaluator used by many members of the effective altruism community which recommends the most cost-effective animal advocacy charities and interventions.


title: Peter Singer

text: His own organisation, The Life You Can Save, also recommends a selection of charities deemed by charity evaluators such as GiveWell to be the most effective when it comes to helping those in extreme poverty. TLYCS was founded after Singer released his 2009 eponymous book, in which he argues more generally in favour of giving to charities that help to end global poverty. In particular, he expands upon some of the arguments made in his 1972 essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", in which he posits that citizens of rich nations are morally obligated to give at least some of their disposable income to charities that help the global poor. He supports this using the "drowning child analogy", which states that most people would rescue a drowning child from a pond, even if it meant that their expensive clothes were ruined, so we clearly value a human life more than the value of our material possessions. As a result, we should take a significant portion of the money that we spend on our possessions and instead donate it to charity.


title: Peter Singer

text: Since November 2009, Singer is a member of Giving What We Can, an international organization whose members pledge to give at least 10% of their income to effective charities.


title: Peter Singer

text: Published in 1975, "Animal Liberation" has been cited as a formative influence on leaders of the modern animal liberation movement. The central argument of the book is an expansion of the utilitarian concept that "the greatest good of the greatest number" is the only measure of good or ethical behaviour, and Singer believes that there is no reason not to apply this principle to other animals, arguing that the boundary between human and "animal" is completely arbitrary. There are far more differences between a great ape and an oyster, for example, than between a human and a great ape, and yet the former two are lumped together as "animals", whereas we are considered "human" in a way that supposedly differentiates us from all other "animals."


title: Peter Singer

text: He popularised the term "speciesism", which had been coined by English writer Richard D. Ryder to describe the practice of privileging humans over other animals, and therefore argues in favour of the equal consideration of interests of all sentient beings. In "Animal Liberation", Singer argues in favour of veganism and against animal experimentation. Singer describes himself as a flexible vegan. He writes, "I am largely vegan but I'm a flexible vegan. I don't go to the supermarket and buy non-vegan stuff for myself. But when I'm traveling or going to other people's places I will be quite happy to eat vegetarian rather than vegan."


title: Peter Singer

text: In an article for the online publication Chinadialogue, Singer called Western-style meat production cruel, unhealthy, and damaging to the ecosystem. He rejected the idea that the method was necessary to meet the population's increasing demand, explaining that animals in factory farms have to eat food grown explicitly for them, and they burn up most of the food's energy just to breathe and keep their bodies warm. In a 2010 "Guardian" article he titled, "Fish: the forgotten victims on our plate", Singer drew attention to the welfare of fish. He quoted author Alison Mood's startling statistics from a report she wrote, which was released on fishcount.org.uk just a month before the "Guardian" article. Singer states that she "has put together what may well be the first-ever systematic estimate of the size of the annual global capture of wild fish. It is, she calculates, in the order of one trillion, although it could be as high as 2.7tn."


title: Peter Singer

text: Some chapters of "Animal Liberation" are dedicated to criticising testing on animals but, unlike groups such as PETA, Singer is willing to accept such testing when there is a clear benefit for medicine. In November 2006, Singer appeared on the BBC programme "Monkeys, Rats and Me: Animal Testing" and said that he felt that Tipu Aziz's experiments on monkeys for research into treating Parkinson's disease could be justified. Whereas Singer has continued since the publication of "Animal Liberation" to promote vegetarianism and veganism, he has been much less vocal in recent years on the subject of animal experimentation.


title: Peter Singer

text: Singer has defended some of the actions of the Animal Liberation Front, such as the stealing of footage from Dr. Thomas Gennarelli's laboratory in May 1984 (as shown in the documentary "Unnecessary Fuss"), but he has condemned other actions such as the use of explosives by some animal-rights activists and sees the freeing of captive animals as largely futile when they are easily replaced.


title: Peter Singer

text: Singer features in the 2017 documentary "Empathy", directed by Ed Antoja, which aims to promote a more respectful way of life towards all animals. The documentary won the "Public Choice Award" of the Greenpeace Film Festival.


title: Peter Singer

text: In the past, Singer has not held that objective moral values exist, on the basis that reason could favour both egoism and equal consideration of interests. Singer himself adopted utilitarianism on the basis that people's preferences can be universalised, leading to a situation where one takes the "point of view of the universe" and "an impartial standpoint". But in the Second Edition of "Practical Ethics", he concedes that the question of why we should act morally "cannot be given an answer that will provide everyone with overwhelming reasons for acting morally".


title: Peter Singer

text: However, when co-authoring "The Point of View of the Universe" (2014), Singer shifted to the position that objective moral values do exist, and defends the 19th century utilitarian philosopher Henry Sidgwick's view that objective morality can be derived from fundamental moral axioms that are knowable by reason. Additionally, he endorses Derek Parfit's view that there are object-given reasons for action. Furthermore, Singer and Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek (the co-author of the book) argue that evolutionary debunking arguments can be used to demonstrate that it is more rational to take the impartial standpoint of "the point of view of the universe", as opposed to egoism—pursuing one's own self-interest—because the existence of egoism is more likely to be the product of evolution by natural selection, rather than because it is correct, whereas taking an impartial standpoint and equally considering the interests of all sentient beings is in conflict with what we would expect from natural selection, meaning that it is more likely that impartiality in ethics is the correct stance to pursue.


title: Peter Singer

text: Whilst a student in Melbourne, Singer campaigned against the Vietnam War as president of the Melbourne University Campaign Against Conscription. He also spoke publicly for the legalisation of abortion in Australia.


title: Peter Singer

text: Singer joined the Australian Labor Party in 1974, but resigned after disillusionment with the centrist leadership of Bob Hawke. In 1992, he became a founding member of the Victorian Greens. He has run for political office twice for the Greens: in 1994 he received 28% of the vote in the Kooyong by-election, and in 1996 he received 3% of the vote when running for the Senate (elected by proportional representation). Before the 1996 election, he co-authored a book "The Greens" with Bob Brown.


title: Peter Singer

text: In "A Darwinian Left", Singer outlines a plan for the political left to adapt to the lessons of evolutionary biology. He says that evolutionary psychology suggests that humans naturally tend to be self-interested. He further argues that the evidence that selfish tendencies are natural must not be taken as evidence that selfishness is "right." He concludes that game theory (the mathematical study of strategy) and experiments in psychology offer hope that self-interested people will make short-term sacrifices for the good of others, if society provides the right conditions. Essentially, Singer claims that although humans possess selfish, competitive tendencies naturally, they have a substantial capacity for cooperation that also has been selected for during human evolution. Singer's writing in "Greater Good" magazine, published by the Greater Good Science Center of the University of California, Berkeley, includes the interpretation of scientific research into the roots of compassion, altruism, and peaceful human relationships.


title: Peter Singer

text: Singer has criticised the United States for receiving "oil from countries run by dictators ... who pocket most of the" financial gains, thus "keeping the people in poverty." Singer believes that the wealth of these countries "should belong to the people" within them rather than their "de facto government. In paying dictators for their oil, we are in effect buying stolen goods, and helping to keep people in poverty." Singer holds that America "should be doing more to assist people in extreme poverty". He is disappointed in U.S. foreign aid policy, deeming it "a very small proportion of our GDP, less than a quarter of some other affluent nations." Singer maintains that little "private philanthropy from the U.S." is "directed to helping people in extreme poverty, although there are some exceptions, most notably, of course, the Gates Foundation."


title: Peter Singer

text: Singer describes himself as not anti-capitalist, stating in a 2010 interview with the New Left Project:


title: Peter Singer

text: Capitalism is very far from a perfect system, but so far we have yet to find anything that clearly does a better job of meeting human needs than a regulated capitalist economy coupled with a welfare and health care system that meets the basic needs of those who do not thrive in the capitalist economy.


title: Peter Singer

text: He added that "[i]f we ever do find a better system, I'll be happy to call myself an anti-capitalist".


title: Peter Singer

text: Similarly, in his book "Marx", Singer is sympathetic to Marx's criticism of capitalism, but is skeptical about whether a better system is likely to be created, writing: "Marx saw that capitalism is a wasteful, irrational system, a system which controls us when we should be controlling it. That insight is still valid; but we can now see that the construction of a free and equal society is a more difficult task than Marx realised."


title: Peter Singer

text: Singer is opposed to the death penalty, claiming that it does not effectively deter the crimes for which it is the punitive measure, and that he cannot see any other justification for it.


title: Peter Singer

text: In 2010, Singer signed a petition renouncing his right of return to Israel, because it is "a form of racist privilege that abets the colonial oppression of the Palestinians."


title: Peter Singer

text: In 2016, Singer called on Jill Stein to withdraw from the US presidential election in states that were close between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, on the grounds that "The stakes are too high". He argued against the view that there was no significant difference between Clinton and Trump, whilst also saying that he would not advocate such a tactic in Australia's electoral system, which allows for ranking of preferences.


title: Peter Singer

text: When writing in 2017 on Trump's denial of climate change and plans to withdraw from the Paris accords, Singer advocated a boycott of all consumer goods from the United States to pressure the Trump administration to change its environmental policies.


title: Peter Singer

text: In 2021, Singer described the War on Drugs as an expensive, ineffective and extremely harmful policy.


title: Peter Singer

text: Singer holds that the right to life is essentially tied to a being's capacity to hold preferences, which in turn is essentially tied to a being's capacity to feel pain and pleasure.


title: Peter Singer

text: In "Practical Ethics", Singer argues in favour of abortion rights on the grounds that fetuses are neither rational nor self-aware, and can therefore hold no preferences. As a result, he argues that the preference of a mother to have an abortion automatically takes precedence. In sum, Singer argues that a fetus lacks personhood.


title: Peter Singer

text: Similar to his argument for abortion rights, Singer argues that newborns lack the essential characteristics of personhood—"rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness"—and therefore "killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living". Singer has clarified that his "view of when life begins isn't very different from that of opponents of abortion." He deems it not "unreasonable to hold that an individual human life begins at conception. If it doesn't, then it begins about 14 days later, when it is no longer possible for the embryo to divide into twins or other multiples." Singer disagrees with abortion rights opponents in that he does not "think that the fact that an embryo is a living human being is sufficient to show that it is wrong to kill it." Singer wishes "to see American jurisprudence, and the national abortion debate, take up the question of which capacities a human being needs to have in order for it to be wrong to kill it" as well as "when, in the development of the early human being, these capacities are present."


title: Peter Singer

text: Singer classifies euthanasia as voluntary, involuntary, or non-voluntary. Voluntary euthanasia is that to which the subject consents. He argues in favour of voluntary euthanasia and some forms of non-voluntary euthanasia, including infanticide in certain instances, but opposes involuntary euthanasia.


title: Peter Singer

text: Bioethicists associated with the disability rights and disability studies communities have argued that his epistemology is based on ableist conceptions of disability. Singer's positions have also been criticised by some advocates for disability rights and right-to-life supporters, concerned with what they see as his attacks upon human dignity. Religious critics have argued that Singer's ethics ignores and undermines the traditional notion of the sanctity of life. Singer agrees and believes the notion of the sanctity of life ought to be discarded as outdated, unscientific, and irrelevant to understanding problems in contemporary bioethics. Disability rights activists have held many protests against Singer at Princeton University and at his lectures over the years. Singer has replied that many people judge him based on secondhand summaries and short quotations taken out of context, not on his books or articles, and that his aim is to elevate the status of animals, not to lower that of humans.


title: Peter Singer

text: American publisher Steve Forbes ceased his donations to Princeton University in 1999 because of Singer's appointment to a prestigious professorship. Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal wrote to organisers of a Swedish book fair to which Singer was invited that "A professor of morals ... who justifies the right to kill handicapped newborns ... is in my opinion unacceptable for representation at your level." Marc Maurer, president of the National Federation of the Blind, criticised Singer's appointment to the Princeton faculty in a banquet speech at the organisation's national convention in July 2001, claiming that Singer's support for euthanising disabled babies could lead to disabled older children and adults being valued less as well. Conservative psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple wrote in 2010 that Singerian moral universalism is "preposterous—psychologically, theoretically, and practically".


title: Peter Singer

text: In 2002, disability rights activist Harriet McBryde Johnson debated Singer, challenging his belief that it is morally permissible to euthanise newborn children with severe disabilities. "Unspeakable Conversations", Johnson's account of her encounters with Singer and the pro-euthanasia movement, was published in the "New York Times Magazine" in 2003.


title: Peter Singer

text: In 2015, Singer debated Archbishop Anthony Fisher on the legalisation of euthanasia at Sydney Town Hall. Singer rejected arguments that legalising euthanasia would result in a slippery slope where the practice might become widespread as a means to remove undesirable people for financial or other motives.


title: Peter Singer

text: Singer has experienced the complexities of some of these questions in his own life. His mother had Alzheimer's disease. He said, "I think this has made me see how the issues of someone with these kinds of problems are really very difficult". In an interview with Ronald Bailey, published in December 2000, he explained that his sister shares the responsibility of making decisions about his mother. He did say that, if he were solely responsible, his mother might not continue to live.


title: Peter Singer

text: In 1985, Singer wrote a book with the physician Deanne Wells arguing that surrogate motherhood should be allowed and regulated by the state by establishing nonprofit 'State Surrogacy Boards', which would ensure fairness between surrogate mothers and surrogacy-seeking parents. Singer and Wells endorsed both the payment of medical expenses endured by surrogate mothers and an extra "fair fee" to compensate the surrogate mother.


title: Peter Singer

text: Singer was a speaker at the 2012 Global Atheist Convention. He has debated with Christians including John Lennox and Dinesh D'Souza. Singer has pointed to the problem of evil as an objection against the Christian conception of God. He stated: "The evidence of our own eyes makes it more plausible to believe that the world was not created by any god at all. If, however, we insist on believing in divine creation, we are forced to admit that the god who made the world cannot be all-powerful and all good. He must be either evil or a bungler." In keeping with his considerations of nonhuman animals, Singer also takes issue with the original sin reply to the problem of evil, saying that, "animals also suffer from floods, fires, and droughts, and, since they are not descended from Adam and Eve, they cannot have inherited original sin."


title: Peter Singer

text: Singer supports biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey's view that medical intervention into the aging process would do more to improve human life than research on therapies for specific chronic diseases, particularly in the developed world:


title: Peter Singer

text: Singer does worry that "If we discover how to slow aging, we might have a world in which the poor majority must face death at a time when members of the rich minority are only a 10th of the way through their expected lifespans," thus risking "that overcoming aging will increase the stock of injustice in the world." However, Singer cautiously highlights de Grey's view that as with other medical developments, they will reach the more economically disadvantaged over time once developed, whereas they can never do so if they are not. As to the concern that longer lives might contribute to overpopulation, Singer notes that "success in overcoming aging could itself ... delay or eliminate menopause, enabling women to have their first children much later than they can now" and thus slowing the birth rate, and also that technology may reduce the consequences of rising human populations by (for instance) enabling more zero-greenhouse gas energy sources.


title: Peter Singer

text: In 2012, Singer's department sponsored the "Science and Ethics of Eliminating Aging" seminar at Princeton, featuring de Grey.


title: Peter Singer

text: In 1989 and 1990, Singer's work was the subject of a number of protests in Germany. A course in ethics led by Hartmut Kliemt at the University of Duisburg where the main text used was Singer's "Practical Ethics" was, according to Singer, "subjected to organised and repeated disruption by protesters objecting to the use of the book on the grounds that in one of its ten chapters it advocates active euthanasia for severely disabled newborn infants". The protests led to the course being shut down.


title: Peter Singer

text: When Singer tried to speak during a lecture at Saarbrücken, he was interrupted by a group of protesters including advocates for disability rights. One of the protesters expressed that entering serious discussions would be a tactical error.


title: Peter Singer

text: The same year, Singer was invited to speak in Marburg at a European symposium on "Bioengineering, Ethics and Mental Disability". The invitation was fiercely attacked by leading intellectuals and organisations in the German media, with an article in "Der Spiegel" comparing Singer's positions to Nazism. Eventually, the symposium was cancelled and Singer's invitation withdrawn.


title: Peter Singer

text: A lecture at the Zoological Institute of the University of Zurich was interrupted by two groups of protesters. The first group was a group of disabled people who staged a brief protest at the beginning of the lecture. They objected to inviting an advocate of euthanasia to speak. At the end of this protest, when Singer tried to address their concerns, a second group of protesters rose and began chanting ""Singer raus! Singer raus!"" ("Singer out!") When Singer attempted to respond, a protester jumped on stage and grabbed his glasses, and the host ended the lecture. Singer explains "my views are not threatening to anyone, even minimally" and says that some groups play on the anxieties of those who hear only keywords that are understandably worrying (given the constant fears of ever repeating the Holocaust) if taken with any less than the full context of his belief system.


title: Peter Singer

text: In 1991, Singer was due to speak along with R. M. Hare and at the 15th International Wittgenstein Symposium in Kirchberg am Wechsel, Austria. Singer has stated that threats were made to Adolf Hübner, then the president of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society, that the conference would be disrupted if Singer and Meggle were given a platform. Hübner proposed to the board of the society that Singer's invitation (as well as the invitations of a number of other speakers) be withdrawn. The Society decided to cancel the symposium.


title: Peter Singer

text: In an article originally published in "The New York Review of Books", Singer argued that the protests dramatically increased the amount of coverage he received: "instead of a few hundred people hearing views at lectures in Marburg and Dortmund, several millions read about them or listened to them on television". Despite this, Singer argues that it has led to a difficult intellectual climate, with professors in Germany unable to teach courses on applied ethics and campaigns demanding the resignation of professors who invited Singer to speak.


title: Peter Singer

text: Singer was criticised by Nathan J. Robinson, founder of "Current Affairs", for comments in an op-ed defending Anna Stubblefield, a carer and professor who was convicted of aggravated sexual assault against a man with severe physical and intellectual disabilities. The op-ed questioned whether the victim was capable of giving or withholding consent, and stated that "It seems reasonable to assume that the experience was pleasurable to him; for even if he is cognitively impaired, he was capable of struggling to resist." Robinson called the statements "outrageous" and "morally repulsive", and said that they implied that it might be permissible to rape or sexually assault disabled people.


title: Peter Singer

text: Roger Scruton was critical of the consequentialist, utilitarian approach of Peter Singer. Scruton alleged that Singer's works, including "Animal Liberation" (1975), "contain little or no philosophical argument. They derive their radical moral conclusions from a vacuous utilitarianism that counts the pain and pleasure of all living things as equally significant and that ignores just about everything that has been said in our philosophical tradition about the real distinction between persons and animals."


title: Peter Singer

text: Anthropologists have criticised Singer's foundational essay "Animal Liberation" (1973) for comparing the interests of "slum children" with the interests of the rats that bite them – at a time when poor and predominantly Black American children were indeed regularly attacked and bitten by rats, sometimes fatally.


title: Peter Singer

text: In June 2012, Singer was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) for "eminent service to philosophy and bioethics as a leader of public debate and communicator of ideas in the areas of global poverty, animal welfare and the human condition."


title: Peter Singer

text: Singer received "Philosophy Now"s 2016 Award for Contributions in the Fight Against Stupidity for his efforts "to disturb the comfortable complacency with which many of us habitually ignore the desperate needs of others ... particularly for this work as it relates to the Effective Altruism movement."


title: Peter Singer

text: In 2018, Singer was noted in the book, "Rescuing Ladybugs" by author and animal advocate Jennifer Skiff as a "hero among heroes in the world," who, in arguing against speciesism "gave the modern world permission to believe what we innately know – that animals are sentient and that we have a moral obligation not to exploit or mistreat them." The book states that Singer's "moral philosophy on animal equality was sparked when he asked a fellow student at Oxford University a simple question about his eating habits."


title: Peter Singer

text: He decided, in particular, to give half of the prize money to his foundation The Life You Can Save, because "over the last three years, each dollar spent by it generated an average of $17 in donations for its recommended nonprofits". (He added he has never taken money for personal use from the organization.)


title: Peter Singer

text: Moreover, he plans to donate more than a third of the money to organizations combating intensive animal farming, and recommended as effective by Animal Charity Evaluators.


title: Peter Singer

text: Since 1968, he has been married to Renata Singer (née Diamond; b. 1947 Wałbrzych, Poland); they have three children: Ruth, a textile artist; Marion, law student and youth arts specialist; and Esther, linguist and teacher. Renata Singer is a novelist and author and has collaborated on publications with her husband. Until 2021 she was President of the Kadimah Jewish Cultural Centre and National Library in Melbourne.


title: Peter Singer

text: The Singers divided their time between Brighton, a bayside suburb of Melbourne, and New York for many years. They now live elsewhere in Melbourne.


title: Omagh bombing

text: The Omagh bombing was a car bombing on 15 August 1998 in the town of Omagh in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It was carried out by the Real Irish Republican Army (Real IRA), a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) splinter group who opposed the IRA's ceasefire and the Good Friday Agreement, signed earlier in the year. The bombing killed 29 people and injured about 220 others, making it the deadliest single incident of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Telephoned warnings which did not specify the actual location had been sent almost forty minutes beforehand but police inadvertently moved people toward the bomb.


title: Omagh bombing

text: The bombing caused outrage both locally and internationally, spurred on the Northern Ireland peace process, and dealt a severe blow to the dissident Irish republican campaign. The Real IRA denied that the bomb was intended to kill civilians and apologised; shortly after, the group declared a ceasefire. The victims included people of many backgrounds and ages: Protestants, Catholics, six teenagers, six children, a woman pregnant with twins, two Spanish tourists and others on a day trip from the Republic of Ireland. Both unionists and Irish nationalists were killed and injured. As a result of the bombing, new anti-terrorism laws were swiftly enacted by both the United Kingdom and Ireland.


title: Omagh bombing

text: British, Irish and US intelligence agencies allegedly had information which could have prevented the bombing, most of which came from double agents inside the Real IRA, but this information was not given to the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). In 2008, the BBC reported that British intelligence agency GCHQ was monitoring conversations between the bombers as the bomb was being driven into Omagh.


title: Omagh bombing

text: A 2001 report by the Police Ombudsman said that the RUC Special Branch failed to act on prior warnings and criticised the RUC's investigation of the bombing. Police reportedly obtained circumstantial and coincidental evidence against some suspects, but they were unable to convict anyone of the bombing. Colm Murphy was tried and convicted of conspiring to cause the bombing, but was released on appeal after it was revealed that the Gardaí forged interview notes used in the case. Murphy's nephew Sean Hoey was also tried but was acquitted. In June 2009, the victims' families won a £1.6 million civil action settlement against four defendants, who were found liable for the bombing. In 2014, Seamus Daly was charged with the murder of 29 people; however, the case against him was withdrawn in 2016.


title: Omagh bombing

text: After negotiations to end the Troubles had failed in 1996, there was a resumption of political violence in Northern Ireland which peaked during the Drumcree crises. The peace process resumed in 1997. Sinn Féin accepted the Mitchell Principles in September 1997, which involved commitment to non-violence, as part of the peace process negotiations. Dissident members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), who considered this as a betrayal of the republican struggle for a united Ireland, left in October 1997 to form the Real Irish Republican Army (Real IRA).


title: Omagh bombing

text: The Real IRA's tactics were the same as those of the IRA before it. It targeted the British security forces and carried out bombings of symbolic or economic targets. The goal was to damage the economy and cause severe disruption, thereby putting pressure on the British government to withdraw from Northern Ireland. Warnings were sent before such bombings, along with a code word so that the authorities would know it was genuine. The Real IRA began its paramilitary campaign with an attempted car bombing in Banbridge, County Down, on 7 January 1998. The explosive was defused by security forces. Over the following months, it mounted several car bomb and mortar attacks. There were also attacks or attempted attacks in Moira, Portadown, Armagh, Newry, Lisburn, Belfast, and Belleek, as well as another car bombing in Banbridge on 1 August, which caused thirty-five injuries but no deaths.


title: Omagh bombing

text: The Omagh bombing took place thirteen weeks after the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998 was signed. Intended to be a comprehensive solution to the Troubles, the agreement had broad support both in Ireland and internationally.


title: Omagh bombing

text: On 13 August, a maroon 1991 Vauxhall Cavalier was stolen from outside a block of flats in Carrickmacross, County Monaghan, Republic of Ireland. At that time, it bore the County Donegal registration number of 91-DL-2554. The bombers replaced its Republic of Ireland number plates with fake Northern Ireland plates (MDZ 5211), and loaded the car with about of fertiliser-based explosives.


title: Omagh bombing

text: On Saturday 15 August, the bomb car was driven from County Monaghan across the Irish border to Omagh, County Tyrone, travelling north and west. A 'scout car' drove ahead of the bomb car to warn it of any checkpoints, and the two cars were in constant contact by mobile phone. At 14:19, the bomb car was parked outside S.D. Kells' clothes shop on Omagh's Market Street, at the eastern edge of the town centre, near the crossroads with Dublin Road. The driver could not find a parking space near the intended target, Omagh Courthouse. The two male bombers armed the bomb and set the timer to detonate it in forty minutes. They left the car and walked east down Market Street towards Campsie Road, before leaving Omagh in the scout car. A family of Spanish tourists happened to take photos next to the car; the man and child in the photograph survived.


title: Omagh bombing

text: At around 14:30, three phone calls were made warning of a bomb in Omagh, using the same codeword that had been used in the Real IRA's bombing in Banbridge two weeks earlier: "Martha Pope". The calls were made from telephone boxes many miles away in southern County Armagh. The first warning was telephoned to Ulster Television saying, "There's a bomb, courthouse, Omagh, main street, 500lb, explosion thirty minutes." One minute later, the office received a second warning saying, "Bomb, Omagh town, fifteen minutes." The caller claimed the warning on behalf of "Óglaigh na hÉireann". The next minute, the Coleraine office of the Samaritans received a call stating that a bomb would go off on the "main street" of Omagh "about 200 yards" (180 m) from the courthouse. The recipients passed on the information to the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC).


title: Omagh bombing

text: BBC News stated that police "were clearing an area near the local courthouse, forty minutes after receiving a telephone warning, when the bomb detonated. But the warning was unclear and the wrong area was evacuated." The warnings mentioned "main street" when there was no street by that name in Omagh, although Market Street–High Street was the town's main shopping street. It runs for hundreds of yards east–west from the site of the bomb to the courthouse. Given the warnings, police believed the bomb was near the courthouse, so they evacuated the surrounding buildings and streets. As it happened, they moved people away from the courthouse and towards the site of the bomb, placing a cordon at Scarffe's Entry. The courthouse is roughly from the spot where the car bomb was parked. During the later Special Criminal Court trial of Real IRA director Michael McKevitt, witnesses for the prosecution said that the inaccurate warnings were accidental. McKevitt was a former "quartermaster general" in the Provisional IRA.


title: Omagh bombing

text: The car bomb exploded at about 15:10 BST in the crowded shopping area. It tore the car into deadly shrapnel and created a fireball and shockwave. People were caught in "a storm" of glass, masonry and metal, as the blast destroyed shop fronts and blew the roofs off buildings. A thick cloud of dust and smoke filled the street. The blast was so strong that it tore up concrete and pipes burst; the water, running down the street, turned red from the blood of wounded people. Within twenty-five minutes journalists were on the street taking pictures. Twenty-one people who had been standing near the bomb were killed outright. Eight more died on the way to or in hospital.


title: Omagh bombing

text: Injured survivor Marion Radford described hearing an "unearthly bang", followed by "an eeriness, a darkness that had just come over the place", then screams as she saw "bits of bodies, limbs" on the ground while she searched for her 16-year-old son, Alan. She later discovered he had been killed yards away from her, after the two became separated minutes before the blast.


title: Omagh bombing

text: BBC News said that survivors described scenes of "utter carnage," with the dead and dying "strewn across the street and other victims screaming for help". The injured were initially taken to two local hospitals, the Tyrone County Hospital and the Erne Hospital. A local leisure centre was set up as a casualty field centre, and the British Army's Lisanelly Barracks served as a makeshift morgue. According to the Conflict Archive on the Internet, rescue workers likened the scene to "battlefield conditions". Tyrone County Hospital became overwhelmed, and appealed for local doctors to come in to help.


title: Omagh bombing

text: Because of the stretched emergency services, buses, cars and helicopters were used to take the victims to other hospitals in Northern Ireland, including the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast and Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry. A Tyrone County Hospital spokesman stated that they treated 108 casualties, 44 of whom had to be transferred to other hospitals. Paul McCormick of the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service said, "The injuries are horrific, from amputees, to severe head injuries to serious burns, and among them are women and children." The morning after the bombing, a man was killed when his car collided with an ambulance ferrying bomb victims to hospitals in Belfast.


title: Omagh bombing

text: Omagh Leisure Centre was used as a base for relatives and friends of the victims. There they could receive news updates. Twenty nine-people were killed, eighteen Catholics (including two Spaniards), ten Protestants and one Mormon. The last victim to die, Seán McGrath, was in a critical condition in hospital for three weeks before dying from his injuries on 5 September.


title: Omagh bombing

text: There was a strong regional and international outcry against 'dissident' republicans and in favour of the Northern Ireland peace process. Prime Minister Tony Blair called the bombing an "appalling act of savagery and evil." Queen Elizabeth II expressed her sympathies to the victims' families, while the Prince of Wales paid a visit to the town and spoke with the families of some of the victims. Pope John Paul II and President Bill Clinton also expressed their sympathies. The Spanish Ambassador to Ireland visited some of the injured.


title: Omagh bombing

text: Churches across Northern Ireland called for a national day of mourning. Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh Robin Eames said on BBC Radio that, "From the Church's point of view, all I am concerned about are not political arguments, not political niceties. I am concerned about the torment of ordinary people who don't deserve this."


title: Omagh bombing

text: Social Democratic and Labour Party leader John Hume called the perpetrators of the bombing "undiluted fascists". Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness said, "This appalling act was carried out by those opposed to the peace process," while Gerry Adams said, "I am totally horrified by this action. I condemn it without any equivocation whatsoever." McGuinness mentioned that both Catholics and Protestants alike were injured and killed, saying, "All of them were suffering together. I think all them were asking the question 'Why?', because so many of them had great expectations, great hopes for the future." Sinn Féin as an organisation initially refused to co-operate with the investigation into the attack because the RUC was involved. On 17 May 2007, McGuinness stated that Irish republicans would co-operate with an independent, international investigation if one were created.


title: Omagh bombing

text: The security forces believed the Real IRA were responsible. RUC Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan accused the bombers of deliberately trying to direct civilians towards the bomb.


title: Omagh bombing

text: As the trial of a suspect started in 2006, British government prosecutor Gordon Kerr called the warnings "not only wrong but... meaningless" and said that the nature of the warnings made it inevitable that people would be moved towards the bomb.


title: Omagh bombing

text: Three days after the bombing, the Real IRA claimed responsibility for planting the bomb but strongly denied intending to kill civilians and apologised to the victims. It also announced that "all military operations have been suspended". The group came under intense pressure to end its campaign. IRA members visited the homes of sixty people connected with the Real IRA, and ordered them to disband and stop interfering with its arms dumps. On 7 September, the Real IRA called a ceasefire, although it would later resume its campaign. The Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) also called a ceasefire on 22 August. The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism has accused the INLA of providing supplies for the bombing. The INLA continued to observe the ceasefire and later began to disarm. BBC News reported that, "Like the other bombings in the early part of 1998 in places like Lisburn and Banbridge, Omagh was a conscious attempt by republicans who disagreed with the political strategy of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, to destabilise Northern Ireland in that vulnerable moment of hope. It failed – but there is a terrible irony to the way in which the campaign was halted only by the wave of revulsion triggered by the carnage at Omagh."


title: Omagh bombing

text: In response to the bombing, both the British and Irish governments vowed to enact tougher anti-terrorism laws. On 3 September, the British parliament passed the Criminal Justice (Terrorism and Conspiracy) Act 1998, and the Irish parliament passed the Offences Against The State (Amendment) Bill. Members of both governments described the measures as "draconian" and the bills were rushed through, despite protests from members of parliament and civil liberties groups. The new measures included allowing suspected members of terrorist groups to be convicted on the word of a senior police officer, curtailment of the right to silence, and longer detention periods.


title: Omagh bombing

text: The Real IRA claimed responsibility for the bombing at the time. On 7 February 2008, a Real IRA spokesman stated that the group "had minimal involvement in Omagh. Our code word was used; nothing more. To have stated this at the time would have been lost in an understandable wave of emotion. ... Omagh was an absolute tragedy. Any loss of civilian life is regrettable."


title: Omagh bombing

text: On 9 October 2000, the BBC's "Panorama" programme aired the special "Who Bombed Omagh?", hosted by journalist John Ware. The programme quoted RUC Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan as saying, "Sadly up to this point we haven't been able to charge anyone with this terrible atrocity." "Panorama" alleged that the police on both sides of the Irish border knew the identity of the bombers. It said, "As the bomb car and the scout car headed for the border, the police believe they communicated by mobile phone. This is based on an analysis of calls made in the hours before, during and after the bombing. This analysis may prove to be the key to the Omagh bomb investigation." Using the phone records, the programme reported the names of the four prime suspects as Oliver Traynor, Liam Campbell, Colm Murphy, and Seamus Daly. The police had leaked the information to the BBC since it was too circumstantial and coincidental to be used in court.


title: Omagh bombing

text: Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson praised the "Panorama" programme, calling it "a very powerful and very professional piece of work". Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern criticised it, saying that "bandying around names on television" could hinder attempts to secure convictions. First Minister David Trimble stated that he had "very grave doubts" about it. Lawrence Rush, whose wife Elizabeth died in the bombing, tried legally to block the programme from being broadcast, saying, "This is media justice, we can't allow this to happen". Democratic Unionist Party assembly member Oliver Gibson, whose niece Esther died in the bombing, said that the government did not have the will to pursue those responsible and welcomed the programme.


title: Omagh bombing

text: The police believe that the bombing of BBC Television Centre in London on 4 March 2001 was a revenge attack for the broadcast. On 9 April 2003, the five Real IRA members behind the BBC bombing were convicted and sentenced to between sixteen and twenty-two years.


title: Omagh bombing

text: On 22 September 1998, the RUC and Gardaí arrested twelve men in connection with the bombing. They subsequently released all of them without charge. On 25 February 1999, they questioned and arrested at least seven suspects. Builder and publican Colm Murphy, from Ravensdale, County Louth, was charged three days later for conspiracy and was convicted on 23 January 2002 by the Republic's Special Criminal Court. He was sentenced to fourteen years. In January 2005, Murphy's conviction was quashed and a retrial ordered by the Court of Criminal Appeal, on the grounds that two Gardaí had falsified interview notes, and that Murphy's previous convictions were improperly taken into account by the trial judges.


title: Omagh bombing

text: On 28 October 2000, the families of four children killed in the bombing – James Barker, 12, Samantha McFarland, 17, Lorraine Wilson, 15, and 20-month-old Breda Devine – launched a civil action against the suspects named by the "Panorama" programme. On 15 March 2001, the families of all twenty-nine people killed in the bombing launched a £2-million civil action against Real IRA suspects Campbell, Murphy, Daly, Seamus McKenna and Michael McKevitt. Former Northern Ireland secretaries Peter Mandelson, Tom King, Peter Brooke, Lord Hurd, Lord Prior and Lord Merlyn-Rees signed up in support of the plaintiffs' legal fund. The civil action began in Northern Ireland on 7 April 2008.


title: Omagh bombing

text: On 6 September 2006, Murphy's nephew, Sean Hoey, an electrician from Jonesborough, County Armagh, went on trial accused of twenty-nine counts of murder, and terrorism and explosives charges. Upon its completion, Hoey's trial found on 20 December 2007 that he was not guilty of all 56 charges against him.


title: Omagh bombing

text: On 24 January 2008, former Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan apologised to the victims' families for the lack of convictions in relation to the Omagh bombing. This apology was rejected by some of the victims' families. After the Hoey verdict, BBC News reporter Kevin Connolly stated that, "The Omagh families were dignified in defeat, as they have been dignified at every stage of their fight for justice. Their campaigning will go on, but the prospect is surely receding now that anyone will ever be convicted of murdering their husbands and brothers and sisters and wives and children." Police Service of Northern Ireland Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde stated that he believed there would be no further prosecutions.


title: Omagh bombing

text: On 8 June 2009, the civil case taken by victims' relatives concluded, with McKevitt, Campbell, Murphy and Daly being found to have been responsible for the bombing. McKenna (died 14 July 2013) was cleared of involvement. The others were held liable for of damages. It was described as a "landmark" damages award internationally. Murphy and Daly appealed and were granted a retrial, but this second trial also found them responsible for the bombing, with the judge describing the evidence as overwhelming.


title: Omagh bombing

text: On 10 April 2014 Daly was charged with murdering the twenty-nine victims of the Omagh bombing and with other offences. He was arrested in Newry by police after he crossed the border into Northern Ireland. The case against Daly was withdrawn in February 2016, with the Public Prosecution Service deciding there was "no reasonable prospect of conviction".