The Osterley Times

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Tall stories: The plot to topple Chicago's Sears Tower was not all that it seemed

As the smoke begins to clear and the hype settles, it would appear that the stories of terrorists planning to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago were slightly overdone.

For instance, the seven young black men arrested had no explosives and the "plan" to blow up the building was little more than wishful thinking, which one them passed on to an FBI informant masquerading as a member of al Qaeda.

Even the FBI admitted as much. John Pistole, the bureau's deputy director, described the plan on Friday as "aspirational rather than operational" and admitted that none of the seven (five US citizens and two Haitian immigrants) had ever featured on a terrorist watch list.

In essence, the entire case rests upon conversations between Narseal Baptiste, the apparent ringleader of the group, with the informant, who was posing as a member of al-Qa'ida but in fact belonged to the South Florida Terrorist Task Force.

At a meeting "on or about 16 December" according to the indictment made public as the men made their first court appearance in Miami, Mr Baptiste asked his contact to supply equipment including uniforms, machine guns, explosives, cars and $50,000 in cash for an "Islamic Army" that would carry out a mission "just as good or greater than 9/11".

In fact, the conspiracy seems to have extended little further than those words. By last month, it had all but fizzled out.

Not that this stopped the US Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, from calling a press conference and telling the world that these men were attempting "to wage war against America."

It now appears that this is another case of Gonzales hyping a story beyond it's true merits.

The precedent was famously set by his predecessor, John Ashcroft, who called a press conference during a visit to Moscow in 2002 to announce the arrest of Jose Padilla, the so-called "dirty bomber" said to be preparing an attack on Washington with a radioactive device.
Mr Padilla languished incommunicado in a navy brig without charge for over three years. He has been transferred to a civilian prison, and faces trial in Miami later this year on different, much vaguer, terrorist charges. An alleged sleeper cell was unearthed in Detroit, but those convictions were quashed in 2004 when it emerged that prosecutors had manipulated evidence. In December 2005, the trial of Sami al-Arian, accused of links with Islamic Jihad terrorists, ended in embarrassment for the government when the Florida university professor was acquitted.

The truth is that America has not suffered a single terrorist attack since 9-11, almost five years ago, but the wish to keep the people in a constant state of fear, means that these stories must be hyped for all they are worth.

The US State Department has attributed ten attacks world-wide to al Qaeda since 9-11. As far as enemies of democracy go, al Qaeda - in terms of the number of attacks they carry out - can hardly be described as the most prolific enemy we have ever faced.

Indeed, apart from the horrific attack of 9-11, what's followed has been the kind of attack that Brits became used to facing during the days of IRA activity on the mainland. Bombs. Bog standard bombs.

Not that I'd know that if I flicked my way through a newspaper. There, I read of "dirty" bombs and nuclear devices being exploded over American cities, attacks on our water supply and a thousand other ways that they may attack us.

It's almost as if they want us to be afraid.

It reminds me of the Two Minutes Of Hate in 1984:

The programmes of the Two Minutes of Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principle figure. He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the party's purity. All subsequent crimes against the party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching. Somewhere or other he was still alive and hatching his conspiracies: perhaps somewhere beyond the sea, under the protection of his foreign paymasters, perhaps even - so it was occasionally rumoured - in some hiding place in Oceania itself.

The present US administration's attitude towards the public seems radically different from the one of Franklin D. Roosevelt who famously proclaimed, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

The Bush administration, like Big Brother, seem to imply that the only thing you have to fear is not being fearful enough.

A population driven by fear will always rally around their leaders. When I hear of yet another story being exaggerated beyond it's merits, I can't help thinking that this is exactly why they are telling us it.

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Saturday, June 24, 2006

Effects of Iraq War.

A quick visual that needs no explanation from me. This is how the world sees the effects of the Iraq war and whether or not it made the world a safer or a more dangerous place.

Sleepy Marlow Fights Back

The sleepy market town of Marlow, nestled against the Thames river in beautiful Buckinghamshire, is one of Britain's wealthiest towns and the last place that one would expect to find the locals up in arms against globalisation and corporate greed.

However, the "bully boy" tactics of Waitrose, one of Britain's largest supermarket chains, has incensed locals and brought about a wave of protest rarely seen in such a languid town.

Waitrose propose expanding their store in the heart of the town's Georgian conservation area, where they wish to double their existing premises and build a three-storey supermarket with an underground car park and a café, and are going to extraordinary lengths to get their own way.

They are planning to force out a family run funeral business that has operated in the town since 1925, evicting 84 year old Marjorie Sawyer who lives in a flat above the business in the process, by applying for a compulsory purchase order for the Sawyer's funeral service.

A poster signed by Marjorie Sawyer and her daughter, Anne Howlett, is displayed in the window. It says:

"We are once again facing the unwelcome prospect of a renewed threat to our business as the supermarket giant Waitrose has submitted revised plans to the council. It is hard enough keeping a small business going in the best of times, but it is that much harder when being harassed by a covetous multi-national company."

Campaigners found a little-known rule in the Local Government Act which states that if 10 residents sign a motion, the council must hold a parish referendum on an issue. They used the law to trigger a referendum on whether a compulsory purchase order (CPO) should be executed on the Sawyer's property.

Despite having only one polling station, voting hours of 6pm and 9pm and no official publicity, 2,214 of the 10,734 eligible population turned out on the issue, with 94 per cent voting against the prospect of a CPO.
Jo Baybrooke, the president of the town's Chamber of Commerce, said: "The support for the campaign has been really quite extraordinary. People in Marlow are very much Waitrose-type customers and don't tend to get up in arms about things, but this is different. Waitrose are not listening to local residents. I used to think they were better than other supermarkets on things like this, but they are just bullies."

Even Waitrose, the middle class British shopper's favourite store - the kind of business that the residents of Marlow imagined shared their values - find that when it comes to making money, they will destroy your sleepy town and erode your beautiful Georgian conservation status, if it means more money for their shareholders.

Who but the crassest capitalist could seriously propose building a three storey building with underground car parking and cafe here?

God bless Marlow for fighting back.

Click title for full article.

O'Reilly on the Daily Show

Okay, it's Saturday and maybe time for a laugh. The more serious stuff is at the bottom of the page. To lighten the mood we're going to have a look at some clips of Bill O'Reilly.

Bill's rather insane outburst about boycotting France.

Bill's obsession with "the far left"

Bill's obsession with "the far left" is amply demonstrated here.

Jon Stewart on O'Reilly

Jon Stewart on some of O'Reilly's more outrageous statements.

Letterman Takes on O'Reilly.

Letterman takes on O'Reilly and it's not a pretty sight from either of them. However, I was struck at the end when Bill says Letterman can't state that 60% of what O'Reilly says is crap without giving references to things that Bill has actually said. On this Bill is correct, although I notice that he states during the interview that Cindy Sheehan is being controlled by "far left elements" without ever offering any proof of this or even attempting to name who those "far left elements" are.

By the way, is there any "left" out there that is not "far left" or "extreme left"? Not in Bill's world.

BillO'Reilly Doesn't Do Personal Attacks.

Bill O'Reilly wants it to be known that he does not indulge in personal attacks. This video says he's telling porkies.

Cheney Assails Press on Report on Bank Data

The Vice President for Torture, Dick Cheney, has attacked the media for disclosing the fact that the government have been trawling through people's bank records, saying that this action is legal and implying that the media are merely aiding terrorists.

It's a familiar enough refrain whenever this administration are caught doing anything secret, but Cheney added a new twist this time by adding, "That offends me."

This seems to be the new way for the administration to defend itself against criticism, withTony Snow taking it to new heights when he told veteran White House reporter, Helen Thomas, to stop pestering the teacher.

Add to this Bush's claim that he is the decider, and we begin to get the framework in which the Bush regime would like the media to operate.

However, those pesky reporters seem determined to undermine the Bushites at every point and they insist on reporting dissenting views to the ones Cheney would like to hear discussed.

The executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, Anthony D. Romero, condemned the program, calling it "another example of the Bush administration's abuse of power."

Lauren Weinstein, the head of the California-based Privacy Forum, an online discussion group, raised concerns about lack of independent review of the operation. "Oversight is the difference between something being reasonable and something being abuse," he said.

Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he had sent letters on Friday to both Treasury Secretary John W. Snow and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales on the issue. While he declined to release the letters, he said he was concerned about the legal authority for the operation.

So even Arlen Specter is questioning the legality of the programme. My favourite quote though came from one of the banks executives:

Initial reaction from global banks was muted, with one executive saying that while the privacy of information was a contentious issue within the industry, the Swift operation had so far generated few complaints.

Erm, that might be because it was secret and we didn't know about it, buddy.

Now I have no idea at this point whether or not this action is illegal or not, but Cheney hardly strengthens his argument when he likens the Swift operation to the recent discovery of the National Security Agency eavesdropping, which has been done without warrants.

"The fact of the matter is that these are good, solid, sound programs," the vice president said at the fund-raiser in Chicago for David McSweeney, a Republican who is running against Representative Melissa Bean, a freshman Democrat.

"They are conducted in accordance with the laws of the land," Mr. Cheney continued, adding, "They're carried out in a manner that is fully consistent with the constitutional authority of the president of the United States. They are absolutely essential in terms of protecting us against attacks."

The NSA eavesdropping was done outside the limitations set by FISA which itself states it is "the exclusive means" by which wiretapping may be authorised on US citizens.

If FISA is "the exclusive means" by which wiretapping can be authorised then it is rather obvious that ANY wiretapping done out with it is illegal.

But maybe teacher knows best and we should all quieten down lest we offend him.

Afghan leader condemns U.S. anti-terror tactics

In a sign of a split amongst the coalition of the willing, Hamid Karzai has condemned the US's methods of fighting the war on terror saying the current approach of hunting down militants does not focus on the root causes such as money, training, and motivation.

“I strongly believe ... that we must engage strategically in disarming terrorism by stopping their sources of supply of money, training, equipment and motivation,” Karzai said at a news conference.

“It is not acceptable for us that in all this fighting, Afghans are dying. In the last three to four weeks, 500 to 600 Afghans were killed. (Even) if they are Taliban, they are sons of this land,” he added.

The actions in Afghanistan have involved Afghan forces, so Karzai's words must call into question who is actually in charge of the Afghan army?

The President of Afghanistan does not seem to agree with what they are doing in his country's name.

Nor do his complaints stop there. I well remember Tony Blair promising that the international community would not walk away from Afghanistan, but since our illegal foray into Iraq that appears to be exactly what we have done.

Although there has been international funding in some areas of reconstruction, Karzai said he did not get help in strengthening the national police, the army and the government administration to prevent a resurgence of extremists.

“There has been help and assistance from the international community in some areas, but unfortunately, in some areas, there is no assistance or cooperation,” he said. “This is one of the reasons for the unhappiness between us and the international community. We did not get the assistance and cooperation that is necessary for a strategy for counterterrorism.”

And so Bush's bungled War on a Noun stumbles on, with another of it's supposed beneficiaries complaining bitterly about it's lack of direction.

Not that the current incumbants of the White House will listen to the opinions of their man on the ground. He has gone distinctly "off message" so, like any intelligence pre the Iraq war that didn't tell them what they wanted to hear, they will simply tune out.

Expect Condi to make a speech soon telling us why Karzai is wrong.

You see things better from 5,000 miles away from Kabul. Distance provides perspective.

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The battle to close Guantánamo

You've got to admire the sheer chutzpah of Bush. Having set out to create a Gulag in Guantanamo, outside of the reach of any legal process, and having manoeuvred constantly over a four year period to ensure that this immoral detention centre has remained outside of the reach of any American or international courts, Bush now claims that he wants to shut down Guantanamo but is waiting for direction from the US supreme court.

Talk about trying to sell a defeat as a victory.

Knowing that he is about to lose, Bush now pretends that this coming loss at the Supreme Court is simply the "clarification" that he has been waiting for.

It takes balls to carry off a lie that huge.

"The Bush administration boxed itself into a corner by the choices it made in treating the people at Guantánamo," said David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University. "Had it given individuals hearings at the outset to ensure they were, in fact, fighters for al-Qaida, had it treated them humanely while they were detained there, rather than coercively interrogating them, and had it asserted the authority to hold them only for the duration of the conflict with al-Qaida - rather than the duration of the war on terror, which is never ending - I don't think Guantánamo would be a problem.
But the practicalities of dismantling the prison are daunting. For Guantánamo to go, prisoners must be brought to trial, or released. So far, only 10 have been formally charged by the much-maligned military tribunals. A study this year by a New Jersey law school found 90% of the inmates had nothing to do with terrorism. That means America must now release scores of men who, while innocent, have been branded as terrorists by virtue of their long stay at Guantánamo. While the majority are from Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, there are also smaller contingents from two dozen smaller countries. So where do the former inmates go?
So far, the process of repatriating prisoners has been painfully slow, say detainee lawyers. In part, countries are nervous about taking back prisoners whom the US has labelled dangerous terrorists. They are also frustrated with the stonewalling of US military officials when asked for evidence of links to al-Qaida.

The Bush administration has held some of these men for the best part of four years all the while proclaiming them "terrorists".

We are about to discover the size of that lie. Bush will now be forced to do what many of us have been saying he should do for the last four years. Charge them or release them.

More than 750 men and boys have been detained there. It will be very interesting to see, when the demand is made to put their cards on the table, just what evidence Bush and Rumsfeld have against any of them.

I suspect they have very little evidence, as any time they have previously taken their suspicions in front of a court their evidence has been remarkable simply because of how flimsy it has been.

Nor should we celebrate the closing of Guantanamo as a great break through for human rights.

But if Guantánamo does close, what then? Over the last few years, America has moved its detention centres in the war on terror even further offshore to Poland and Romania, as well as to other secret locations where some 30 high-level al-Qaida prisoners are believed to be held. Closing Guantánamo will not bring those detainees closer to a courtroom, or spare them from possible abuse. "They want to shut it down so they can create hundreds of small Guantánamo Bays that will not attract attention or serve as such a symbol," said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University. "The president has not said he wants to stop the policies that created it ... there is no indication the administration wants to comply with domestic or international law in the treatment of detainees."

Guantanamo will close simply because it has become too visible a symbol of the Bush regime's illegality, but this does not signal a desire by the regime to return to operating within the established legal framework, rather it signals a desire by the regime to move it's illegal actions to places where they will come under less scrutiny.

The hidden prisons of Poland and Turkmenistan, where people are ferreted in rendition flights who's very existence are denied by European governments will be the new destinations for those the US wishes to keep out of the reach of any legal process.

I have no doubt that, when historians look back on this period of America's history, they will regard it as it's most shameful.

A time when a great nation, fuelled by grief, lost it's moral compass. And those on the right, who's knee jerk response has always been to defend the governments actions at all times and at any cost, will find themselves in the same position as many Germans did in 1946.

"How could I have supported that?"

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Friday, June 23, 2006

Bush asks aide, "Does torture work?" shortly before Zubaydah is tortured.

When President Bush stood before the American people and described the captured al Qaeda member, Abu Zubaydah, as "one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States", Bush not only was lying, but he knew he was lying, as by that point he had already been informed that Zubaydah was mentally ill and nothing like the pivotal figure the CIA and intelligence services had supposed him to be.

Later Bush revealed his concern's about this to Tenet. Did he ask how the CIA could have got the info so wrong and worry about the implications of bad intelligence impacting on the War on Terror? Hmmmm. Not quite.

"I said he was important," Bush reportedly told Tenet at one of their daily meetings. "You're not going to let me lose face on this, are you?" "No sir, Mr. President," Tenet replied.

Bush then appears, according to a new book, "The One Percent Doctrine" to personally approve the torturing of this mentally ill individual.

Bush "was fixated on how to get Zubaydah to tell us the truth," Suskind writes, and he asked one briefer, "Do some of these harsh methods really work?"

That's the President of the United States, who believes Zubaydah to hold vital information that could be useful to them, asking "Do some of these harsh methods really work?"

What is that, if not a green light from the Oval Office to torture someone?

Interrogators did their best to find out, Suskind reports. They strapped Abu Zubaydah to a water-board, which reproduces the agony of drowning.

They threatened him with certain death. They withheld medication. They bombarded him with deafening noise and harsh lights, depriving him of sleep. Under that duress, he began to speak of plots of every variety -- against shopping malls, banks, supermarkets, water systems, nuclear plants, apartment buildings, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty.

With each new tale, "thousands of uniformed men and women raced in a panic to each . . . target." And so, Suskind writes, "the United States would torture a mentally disturbed man and then leap, screaming, at every word he uttered."

I think the more that comes out the more it appears obvious that this administration is knowingly indulging in torture.

The President is asking, in effect, does torture work? Oh, he might not think of it in those terms, but that's what he's asking.

And that's what took place.

A few bad apples? Maybe. But they're in the Oval Office!

Click title for full article.

Bank Data Sifted in Secret by U.S. to Block Terror

Not content with going through your phone records illegally it appears that Bush is also going through American's bank details as well, under a secret programme initiated after 9-11.

Of course the usual caveats have been added claiming that this programme is only being used to trace Al Qaeda money, but if you believe that - after the same lies were told about the illegal wiretapping scheme that turned out to be far more invasive than admitted- then I can sell you London Bridge.

The program, however, is a significant departure from typical practice in how the government acquires Americans' financial records. Treasury officials did not seek individual court-approved warrants or subpoenas to examine specific transactions, instead relying on broad administrative subpoenas for millions of records from the cooperative, known as Swift.

That access to large amounts of confidential data was highly unusual, several officials said, and stirred concerns inside the administration about legal and privacy issues.

The right to privacy in the United States appears to have completely vanished. And worse than that, there appears to be a large part of the population who have willingly sacrificed their rights.

This is, of course, no real surprise as the Bush administration has encouraged a climate of fear for the populace to live under, by constantly moving the levels up and down on their terror alert scale literally telling you how fearful you should feel today.

Of course there are historical precedents for this type of behaviour.

Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

Hermann Goering.

Olmert: Israeli lives worth more than Palestinian ones

Ehud Olmert has made a statement that one can only think he will one day come to regret.

Whilst apologising for the deaths of 14 innocent Palestinians over the past nine days, he said the lives of Israeli citizens threatened by Qassam attacks were "even more important".

Almost three times as many Palestinian civilians have been killed in Gaza in the past nine days as Israeli civilians in Sderot killed by Qassam rockets in the past five years.

Often when one seeks to defend the rights of the Palestinians one is accused by Israel and it's supporters of attempting moral equivalence.

There is moral equivalence here. Innocents are innocent whether they be Israeli or Palestinian and the deaths of both are to be abhorred.

For Mr Olmert to imply that the lives of Israelis are of greater worth than the lives of Palestinians is simply shocking.

One would hope that this is merely a phrase that slipped out inappropriately and that it will be swiftly corrected.

Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, this week called on Israel to ensure its responses were "proportionate and do not put civilians at grave risk ".

If Mr Olmert's statement is allowed to stand uncorrected then it will be impossible to believe that Israel could ever comply with Annan's wish.

All human lives are of equal value. And protecting the lives of one group of innocents cannot be "more important" than the lives of others.

Olmert should realise the danger of any one group deeming itself of greater value than another and withdraw this statement immediately.

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Iran accuses Washington of using nuclear issue as an excuse to topple government

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, has accused the US of using the nuclear issue as an excuse for their actual policy of "regime change" within Iran and has stated that "regime change" will continue to be the Americans primary aim even were Iran to stop enriching uranium.

I have to say, he has a point. The US's insatiable need to tell everyone else who should and should not lead them, must never be overlooked when examining US motives or US perceived grievances.

We mustn't forget that the people of Palestine are currently being starved because the US disagrees with the democratic choice they made when they chose Hamas as their representatives.

And this extraordinary decision was made at a time when the US, under Bush, claims to be exporting democracy to the Middle East.

Mr Larijani claims that if it was not nuclear enrichment of uranium then the US would simply have found some other reason to attack the regime. He also questioned why Bush would demand that Iran stop enriching uranium before any talks could take place.

"If they want to put this prerequisite, why are we negotiating at all? Mr Bush is like a mathematician. When the equation becomes very difficult to work out, he likes to wipe it out altogether ... the pressure they are putting on us is reason enough for us to be suspicious."

He also questioned US efforts to undermine the regime from the inside.

The $70m earmarked by the Bush administration to aid propaganda efforts inside Iran was an insult, he said. "I think that money is very little, to be honest," he said with a wry smile. "The minimum acceptable amount should be $70bn so the citizens of this country would at least get something out of it."

He also makes the better point that the Iranians would be more likely to listen receptively to US points were the US to offer a non aggression pact.

Mr Larijani said there was no doubt that security guarantees were badly needed as part of any deal - "but not what they have talked about. They should not try to repackage their needs as incentives and offer that to us as a concession".

The Bush regime, more than any other American administration since Reagan, have set about attempting to destabilise nations who's leadership they disagree with.

It is worth remembering that "regime change" is actually illegal under international law, despite Bush's willingness to publicly state it as official US policy.

It is little wonder that Bush finds it so hard to make progress through the UN when he has already announced intentions that are out with of international law.

In this way Bush's arrogance actually works against him as he forewarns the world of his actual goal, and dares people to try and stop him.

Unfortunately for Bush, with Iraq eroding his political capital on the world stage, this becomes more likely to happen, as Russia and China have recently demonstrated by failing to accept his central premise regarding Iran.

If Bush was not perceived as a man who desires regime change in various country's then he would find people would take his fears of Iranian nuclear weapons much more seriously.

As it is, his real intentions will always be suspect. And, in this way, Bush really becomes his own worst enemy.

Justice system is not biased against victims, says Blair adviser

Tony Blair's plans to redress what he sees as the propensity for the justice system to favour the accused as opposed to the victim has come under attack from one of his own advisers.

Leading criminologist Ian Loader said ministers were uncritically following public anger on crime rather than acting as a "voice of reason and restraint".

He challenged the central assumption in Mr Blair's strategy, which will be set out in a major speech today, that the system needed to be "rebalanced" in favour of the victim even if that meant eroding the rights of the offender.

He told Mr Blair: "Yet you are now asking us to believe that during this period the criminal justice system has become 'unbalanced', such that it today unduly privileges the rights of suspects over those of the victim in ways that have led society to be poorly defended against crime.

I think you need to offer more serious evidence than any I have seen that this is in fact the case, rather than simply assert that it is so, or that 'the public' believes it to be so."

The professor, who attended a recent No 10 seminar on crime, warned Mr Blair: "One isn't going to tackle the problem you have identified with a prime ministerial statement on, and yet more legislation about, the criminal justice system."

His paper, which was posted on the Downing Street website, added: "This has become, under your Government, an area of legislative hyperactivity (with in excess of 40 Acts of Parliament passed in this field since 1997), and endless proclamations of intent."

Admitting that he felt "somewhat baffled" by the Government's actions, he suggested that they had more to do with electoral competition than a serious effort to address problems of crime and disorder.

The professor said: "It may even be - as the Home Office has found to its cost in recent weeks - that the dizzying pace of new initiatives has made it more difficult to keep one's eye on the ball of sound administration and delivering programmes that stand some chance of achieving positive results on the ground."

Instead, Professor Loader recommended that the Government try to "reduce the political and media heat" on crime by finding, funding, delivering and explaining to people programmes that work - such as on prison education, reassurance policing and better detection.

He also questioned criticism by ministers of the Human Rights Act, which they are reviewing. He said the Government "seems to have convinced itself that rights exist for a minority, and that too often they protect 'others' who are undeserving, or else threatening of 'our' security".

Mr Loader makes very good points. Blair has constructed a case on very little evidence and, as I have always argued, with the readers of the Daily Mail as it's proposed recipients.

Mr Blair's main argument against the Human Rights Act, for example, is that it prevents him deporting people to country's where they may face torture.

One would have to question why anyone would want to do such a thing.

Blair's other line of argument seems to be public perception, a button he has hit many times. It does not seem to me a sound way to conduct policy. Public perception of crime is sometimes at variance with reality.

For instance, fear of crime has been shown to be rising at a time when the crime figures have actually been falling.

Likewise a victim feeling that the system favours the accused does not mean that this is necessarily so. After all many victims would remove the presumption of innocence from trials, especially if they know the person who is accused did it, by the very fact that they were the victim when the person did it.

No doubt to them the presumption of innocence is tiresome and gets in the way of having their injustice redressed.

Whilst these feelings are understandable, they are hardly a sensible way to conduct fair trials.

A fair trial assumes the innocence of the accused until guilt is proven beyond reasonable doubt. If Blair thinks that is "favouring the accused" then I say we will just have to go on "favouring the accused".

The system is built around what all of us would like to happen if we were standing in that dock accused of a crime we did not commit.

I think that's a sensible humane system, and I think Blair should leave it well alone.

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Blair accuses legal establishment and insists on summary justice drive

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Soweto: Thirty Years On.

Thirty years after the Soweto uprising of 1976, the children of Soweto are once again in the frontline of a yet another struggle – the new fight is against the deadly AIDS virus. On June 16, 1976, the students of Soweto took to the streets to protest against being taught maths in Afrikans and the oppressive apartheid regime. This was the beginning of the end of white dominancy and lead to today's democratic South Africa. Children have always been a catalyst for change in South Africa, and today the story is not so different. This story takes a look at what today's youth are doing in the new fight and adresses some of the reasons for the HIV crisis.

Rallied by Bush, Skittish G.O.P. Now Embraces War as Issue

The Republican Party are rallying around the Iraq war as a way of attacking the Democrats in the upcoming mid-term elections, convinced that this will provide a formula for victory if they can persuade people that the Democrats are a party who "cut and run".

In a war who's legitimacy is constantly being defined by sound bites, "cut and run" is simply the latest Republican take on their "staying the course" philosophy which seeks to highlight stoicism as a replacement for an actual plan.

It is a deeply flawed argument and one that seems born out of desperation.

People who attended a series of high-level meetings this month between White House and Congressional officials say President Bush's aides argued that it could be a politically fatal mistake for Republicans to walk away from the war in an election year.

White House officials including the national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, outlined ways in which Republican lawmakers could speak more forcefully about the war.
The meetings were followed by the distribution of a 74-page briefing book to Congressional offices from the Pentagon to provide ammunition for what White House officials say will be a central line of attack against Democrats from now through the midterm elections: that the withdrawal being advocated by Democrats would mean thousands of troops would have died for nothing, would give extremists a launching pad from which to build an Islamo-fascist empire and would hand the United States its most humiliating defeat since Vietnam.

The Republicans are going well against the public mood on this one, where opinion polls show that a majority of Americans favour a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

The Democrats should not back off from having this argument, nor should they be cowered into accepting the premise that withdrawal hands the United States it's most humiliating defeat since Vietnam.

When pro-Republican pundits like Bill O'Reilly see the only hope for US victory to be if the US begins emulating Saddam and shooting people on sight, I think it's safe to say that the situation on the ground is so grim and unyielding that humiliating defeat has already taken place and the only question remaining is how many more have to die before Bush admits this.

"Staying the course" is hardly a rallying call that inspires hope as it implies a lack of vision, it offers no solution but, rather, attempts to make a virtue of stubbornness.

Bush has lived in a parallel universe for the past three years, in a Utopian place where he has been able to discern progress where the rest of us have witnessed only it's opposite.

His claims that Iraq is moving forward are contested by every available measurement. And the newly established government of which he is so proud is, in reality, merely the means by which Iraq's eventual disintegration will be assured.

In Iraq, Bush has lost.

If the Republicans are foolish enough to choose to make Iraq the battleground for the Mid Term elections, the Democrats should respond with three words made famous by the current White House incumbent.

"Bring It On."

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Hamas agrees to Israeli state

Hamas have agreed to recognise the state of Israel.

In a historic climb down from their previously held position, the Hamas government of Palestine have agreed to a bitterly contested document that recognises Israel's right to exist and a negotiated two-state solution, according to Palestinian leaders.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's executive committee and a lead negotiator on the prisoners' document, said Hamas had agreed to sections which call for a negotiated and final agreement with Israel to establish a Palestinian state on the territories occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem.
"Hamas is prepared to accept those parts of the document because they think it is a way to get rid of a lot of its problems with the international community. That's why it will accept all the document eventually," he said.
Hamas, facing a deep internal split over recognition of the Jewish state, declined to discuss the negotiations in detail.
If it formally approves the entire document, it will represent a significant shift from its founding goal of replacing Israel with an Islamic state and its more recent position of agreeing a long-term ceasefire, over a generation or more, if a Palestinian state is formed on the occupied territories but without formally recognising the Jewish state.
Mr Abed Rabbo said he expected an agreement in the coming days, but that important differences still had to be settled, particularly over the document's call for the formation of a national unity government.
He described that as "the major issue that will determine the fate of two nations for decades" because a unity administration, built around a common policy of negotiations with Israel, would be the only way to combat its plans to unilaterally impose its final borders and annex parts of the occupied territories.

This could be interpreted as a victory for Bush and Olmert who have advocated a tough stance against the Hamas regime. However, that presupposes that Bush and Olmert were serious when they said they hoped that Hamas would step down from their previous position and that negotiations could therefore take place.

I'm going to stick my neck out here, although I genuinely hope that I am proven wrong.

I have never bought into the US/Israeli script that they are genuinely looking for partners to negotiate with. I fully expect the US and Israel, either to come up with a brand new set of demands that will precede any future negotiations, or for Israel to dismiss Hamas' recognition of them as disingenuous.

If they do as I suspect they will, Israel and the US will merely be repeating a pattern they have laid out over the last forty years, where they claim they are seeking partners for negotiations whilst continually raising the bar that must be reached in order for those negotiations to take place.

I really would be delighted if Israel and the US prove me wrong.

I have long said that the election of Hamas and Kadina represents the greatest chance for peace in the region in my lifetime. Israel have a real opportunity here to negotiate with the organ grinder rather than the monkey at a time when a majority of Israel's population favour disengagement.

As Max Hastings points out in a piece I've included in related articles, Europe's Jews are growing tired of paying the price of Israel's intransigence. The olive branch has been extended. If Israel is serious about peace, it is time to grasp it.

The ball is now in Israel's court. Just how serious is she about a negotiated settlement? The world is watching.

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Related Articles:

Hamas performs about-turn on Israeli state.

Israel can no longer rely on the support of Europe's Jews

Do as we say, not as we do.

The Labour Chancellor, and possible future Prime Minister, Gordon Brown has signalled his intention to breach the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty by recommissioning Trident at the very same time that Britain, the US and others are pressuring Iran to suspend the enrichment of uranium and citing the Treaty in their demands.

The Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty asks that country's that currently possess nuclear weapons make plans to disarm and demands that non-nuclear country's desist from attempts to obtain nuclear weapons.

By announcing his intention to proceed with the recommissioning of Trident, Brown joins President Bush - who has announced plans to develop a new range of "bunker busting" nuclear weapons - as a western leader who demands that the rest of the world do as we say rather than as we do.

Kate Hudson, chairwoman of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said: "At this point, when we face no nuclear threat, to decide on a new Trident replacement is beginning a new nuclear arms race."

Labour MP Ian Gibson, an opponent of Trident, said many young Labour backbenchers had been weaned on CND and had not lost those early political views.

"So it may not be as easy [to agree to replace Trident] as people might think because the chancellor says so," he told BBC News 24.

Another Labour backbencher, Gordon Prentice, asked: "How are we going to persuade other countries not to go for nuclear weapons when we are spending millions of pounds not disarming but upgrading our nuclear weapons?"

One has to seriously wonder how long the nuclear west can hope to get away with this basic hypocrisy. We seem to be demanding that we have the right to retain the power to destroy other nations at the touch of a button whilst simultaneously demanding that other nations - especially those who are as technologically advanced as we are - desist from making such technology available to themselves.

And with a President in the White House who is the first ever to have threatened to use nuclear weapons even against non-nuclear states, one has to say the desire to join the nuclear club has probably never been more profound.

The logic behind our argument is one of Empire. It's the same logic that the British used when it's tentacles covered half the globe and it set out on it's mission to "civilise the natives."

It's the argument of a discredited period of history who's values should have been long ago abandoned. At the root of this argument is the notion that we get to say who is "civilised enough" to possess such weaponry and who is not.

It should come as a surprise to no-one when the rest of the world rejects this particular brand of racism and colonialism.

For Blair to make this argument will surprise no-one. But for anyone hoping that Brown represents a return to Old Labour values, this announcement should serve as a warning shot across the bows.

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