yet another blog

Whilst I personally don’t have a particular problem with being stopped and questioned by the police regarding my identity and movements I firmly believe this is an extension of police powers that has to be rigorously opposed on principle.

Indeed, it seems to me that much of the anti-terrorist legislation that Blair and his government have introduced is politically motivated and deeply flawed.
Terrorism is a criminal act and, other than extending the powers of the police and the State to control and dictate to the population, I still fail to see how all the new anti-terrorist legislation is that much superior to existing criminal law in dealing with terrorists.

What it has achieved, unquestionably, is a further erosion of civil liberties and human rights and a reversal of many of the principles of Common Law that have been cherished for so long.

And now, with this new piece of proposed legislation, we will move another step closer to a world in which the people serve the State, rather than the State serving the people - serfdom in other words!

Moreover it will undoubtedly feed into the arrogance and authoritarianism that the police are only too willing to demonstrate nowadays.
That such increased powers will be abused by those who disingenuously claim they act by the “consent of the people” goes without saying. Even more worrying though is the virtual certainty that the principal victims of this new power will be those least able to defend or speak out for themselves - the young, the poor, the uneducated, the minority groups etc; and of course all those who stand in opposition to current political trends - the protestors, the demonstrators, the activists.

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AFP - Monday, May 28 04:11 am
uk.news.yahoo.com

LONDON (AFP) - Prime Minister Tony Blair Sunday accused courts and parliament of putting the rights of suspects before national security as it emerged that police may get powers to stop and question people in the street.

Writing in The Sunday Times, Blair argued that the disappearance last week of three terror suspects under control orders, a form of house arrest, was due to society’s mixed-up priorities rather than government mistakes.

“The fault is not with our services or, in this instance, with the Home Office (interior ministry). We have chosen as a society to put the civil liberties of the suspect, even if a foreign national, first,” Blair wrote.

“I happen to believe this is misguided and wrong.”

A government proposal to grant police officers powers to stop and question people under anti-terror laws also emerged Sunday to a volley of criticism, with a member of Blair’s own cabinet joining the sceptics.

Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain, who is running for the Labour party deputy leadership, warned that the move could become “the domestic equivalent of Guantanamo Bay.”

The laws could not be passed before Blair leaves office and hands over to finance minister Gordon Brown at the end of next month.

Shami Chakrabarti, of civil rights campaigners Liberty, accused Blair of “political machismo, a legacy moment.”

“Stopping and questioning anyone you like will backfire because people will be being criminalised,” she said.

The Sunday Times said that anyone who refused to cooperate could be charged with obstructing the police and fined up to 5,000 pounds (7,371 euros, 9,923 dollars).

The measures are currently in place in Northern Ireland and Irish premier Bertie Ahern told Sky News television that it would be “a pity” if the powers, which had been due to be ditched there, were kept on.

Elsewhere, police currently have the power to stop and search individuals on “reasonable grounds for suspicion” that they have committed an offence but have no rights to ask for their identity and movements.

The proposal came after three men went on control orders went on the run Tuesday — Lamine and Ibrahim Adam, aged 26 and 20, and Cerie Bullivant, 24.

The Adams pair are the brothers of Anthony Garcia, 25, who was imprisoned last month for his role in a fertiliser bomb plot aimed at attacking targets in London and across Britain.

Blair’s government stepped up its approach to terrorism after the US attacks on September 11, 2001 and again after four British-born Islamist suicide bombers killed 52 commuters and injured hundreds of others in London on July 7, 2005.

» The Unmentionable Hypocrisy: Hussein Hanged, Bush and Blair Remain in Power

Saddam Hussein was hanged a week ago, today, for executing 148 people. Yet, even by conservative estimates, George W. Bush and Tony Blair are responsible for hundreds, or thousands, of times more deaths due to their war of aggression - the supreme international crime - in Iraq.But, while Saddam Hussein is hanged, Bush and Blair remain in power with apparent impunity.

Why the double standard?

Read the full post here…

Independent Online Edition

The Government’s case for going to war in Iraq has been torn apart by the publication of previously suppressed evidence that Tony Blair lied over Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.

A devastating attack on Mr Blair’s justification for military action by Carne Ross, Britain’s key negotiator at the UN, has been kept under wraps until now because he was threatened with being charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act.

more…

A Big Stick and a Small Carrot: Liars and Their Lies

It is often claimed that Blair has absolutely no influence over Bush. Today, evidence suggests that this isn’t quite true. Here’s coverage of their press conference:

“It’s bad in Iraq,” Mr Bush conceded to reporters. But he said the violence was not a result of “faulty planning”.

“It is a deliberate strategy. It is the direct result of outside extremists teaming up with internal extremists… to foment hatred and to throttle at birth the possibility of a non-sectarian democracy.”

Now where have I heard that before? Ah yes. Blair has passed on to Bush his ridiculous “nothing to do with us” nonsense. He does have some influence after all.

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Getting sidetracked from what I was originally doing into following a series of links through successive webpages (as one does!) I finally ended up watching this excellent documentary about the London bombings.

The accompanying text describes it as follows:

On the 7th of July 2005 London was hit by a series of explosions. You probably think you know what happened that day. But you don’t.

The police have, from the onset of their investigation, chosen to withold from the public almost every bit of evidence they claim to have and have probably lied about several aspects of the London Bombings.

The mainstream news has wilfully spread false, unsubstantiated and unverifiable information, while choosing to completely ignore the numerous inconsistencies and discrepancies in the official story.

The government has finally, after a year, presented us with their official ‘narrative’ concerning the event. Within hours it was shown to contain numerous errors, a fact since admitted by the Home Secretary John Reid. They have continuously rejected calls for a full, independent public inquiry. Tony Blair himself described such an inquiry as a ‘ludicrous diversion’. What don’t they want us to find out?

But that really doesn’t do it justice.

For not only does it raise important questions about the bombings and the events that followed therefrom, it also addresses some much more profound issues that touch upon all our lives (here in the UK at least).

This is a documentary you absolutely owe it to yourself to see… and sooner rather than later!

Ludicrous Diversion - 7/7 London Bombings Documentary

Brilliant article posted on the “Suspect Paki” blog on 14th November. Missed it then; so pleased I’ve stumbled across it now…

– mike

Where’s the Evidence, Liar?

Dear Mr. Blair,

Please excuse the formality. My rage against your brazen lies and self-aggrandising, preening arrogance, your demonisation of Islam and your deference and obsequiousness towards your god, President Bush, has led me in the past to address you as “Bliar”, or more prosaically on occasion as “cunt”; so it might surprise you to find me addresing you more formally on this occasion. The situation demands it, even if my opinion of you is as low as it has ever been.

Sir, would you please stop feeding the country you were partially elected to serve garbage, lies and drivel - and would you please, finally release the evidence that you have surrounding the events of July 7th, 2005?

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Saddam: Let’s now charge the accomplices

By John Pilger

11/09/06 “Information Clearing House” — – In a show trial whose theatrical climax was clearly timed to promote George W Bush in the American midterm elections, Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced to hang. Drivel about “end of an era” and “a new start for Iraq” was promoted by the usual false moral accountants, who uttered not a word about bringing the tyrant’s accomplices to justice. Why are these accomplices not being charged with aiding and abetting crimes against humanity?

Why isn’t George Bush Snr being charged? In 1992, a congressional inquiry found that Bush as president had ordered a cover-up to conceal his secret support for Saddam and the illegal arms shipments being sent to Iraq via third countries. Missile technology was shipped to South Africa and Chile, then “on sold” to Iraq, while US Commerce Department records were falsified. Congressman Henry Gonzalez, chairman of the House of Representatives Banking Com mittee, said: “[We found that] Bush and his advisers financed, equipped and succoured the monster . . .”

Why isn’t Douglas Hurd being charged? In 1981, as Foreign Office minister, Hurd travelled to Baghdad to sell Saddam a British Aerospace missile system and to “celebrate” the anniversary of Saddam’s blood-soaked ascent to power. Why isn’t his former cabinet colleague, Tony Newton, being charged? As Thatcher’s trade secretary, Newton, within a month of Saddam gassing 5,000 Kurds at Halabja (news of which the Foreign Office tried to suppress), offered the mass murderer £340m in export credits.

Why isn’t Donald Rumsfeld being charged? In December 1983, Rumsfeld was in Baghdad to signal America’s approval of Iraq’s aggression against Iran. Rumsfeld was back in Baghdad on 24 March 1984, the day that the United Nations reported that Iraq had used mustard gas laced with a nerve agent against Iranian soldiers. Rumsfeld said nothing. A subsequent Senate report documented the transfer of the ingredients of biological weapons from a company in Maryland, licensed by the Commerce Department and approved by the State Department.

Why isn’t Madeleine Albright being charged? As President Clinton’s secretary of state, Albright enforced an unrelenting embargo on Iraq which caused half a million “excess deaths” of children under the age of five. When asked on television if the children’s deaths were a price worth paying, she replied: “We think the price is worth it.”

Why isn’t Peter Hain being charged? In 2001, as Foreign Office minister, Hain described as “gratuitous” the suggestion that he, along with other British politicians outspoken in their support of the deadly siege of Iraq, might find themselves summoned before the International Criminal Court. A report for the UN secretary general by a world authority on international law describes the embargo on Iraq in the 1990s as “unequivocally illegal under existing human rights law”, a crime that “could raise questions under the Genocide Convention”. Indeed, two past heads of the UN humanitarian mission in Iraq, both of them assistant secretary generals, resigned because the embargo was indeed genocidal. As of July 2002, more than $5bn-worth of humanitarian supplies, approved by the UN Sanctions Committee and paid for by Iraq, were blocked by the Bush administration, backed by the Blair and Hain government. These included items related to food, health, water and sanitation.

Above all, why aren’t Blair and Bush Jnr being charged with “the paramount war crime”, to quote the judges at Nuremberg and, recently, the chief American prosecutor - that is, unprovoked aggression against a defenceless country?

And why aren’t those who spread and amplified propaganda that led to such epic suffering being charged? The New York Times reported as fact fabrications fed to its reporter by Iraqi exiles. These gave credibility to the White House’s lies, and doubtless helped soften up public opinion to support an invasion. Over here, the BBC all but celebrated the invasion with its man in Downing Street congratulating Blair on being “conclusively right” on his assertion that he and Bush “would be able to take Baghdad without a bloodbath”. The invasion, it is reliably estimated, has caused 655,000 “excess deaths”, overwhelmingly civilians.

If none of these important people are called to account, there is clearly only justice for the victims of accredited “monsters”.

Is that real or fake justice?

Fake.

This article first appeared in the New Statesman.

The Rules of the Game: Terrorism, Community and Human Rights

The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust

Commissioned and published by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Ltd, the report by Professor Stuart Weir, Director of Democratic Audit at the University of Essex, Dr Andrew Blick and Tufyal Choudhury, is an investigation into the human rights and community consequences of the government’s counter terrorism legislation and practice.

The main conclusion is: “The key to successfully combating terrorism lies in winning the trust and cooperation of the Muslim communities in the UK. However, the government’s counter terrorism legislation and rhetorical stance are between them creating serious losses in human rights and criminal justice protections…they are having a disproportionate effect on the Muslim communities in the UK and so are prejudicing the ability of the government and security forces to gain the very trust and cooperation from individuals in those communities that they require to combat terrorism.”

The report follows on from the briefing and scoping report, The Rules of the Game: the government’s counter terrorism laws and strategy which was published in late 2005.

You can download a .pdf format copy of the report from the Joseph Rowntree Trust

Independent Online Edition: Robert Fisk
So America’s one-time ally has been sentenced to death for war crimes he committed when he was Washington’s best friend in the Arab world. America knew all about his atrocities and even supplied the gas - along with the British, of course - yet there we were yesterday declaring it to be, in the White House’s words, another “great day for Iraq”. That’s what Tony Blair announced when Saddam Hussein was pulled from his hole in the ground on 13 December 2003. And now we’re going to string him up, and it’s another great day.

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Blair faces vote over Iraq inquiry - Yahoo! News UK