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Politics Reviews Terrorism TV

Andy McNab and the NNPT

Andy McNab was on This Week tonight giving his take on the week. A week in which the headlines have featured every day the British military in some way from the 90th anniversary of the Somme to the deaths of two special forces soldiers in Afghanistan.

The programme turned to Andy McNab, best-selling author and former SAS Patrol Commander, to answer the following questions.

So what is the role of our armed forces in the modern world of warfare? And do we sufficiently care?

A number of interesting points arose.

Politicians that have never fought in a war have insufficient understanding of the difficulties of waging war and McNab sees this worsening as the next generation of people that have grown up on videogames and the embedded reporting of war from the frontlines grow up and take power in Westminster. He fears that they will believe that war is a relatively easy thing to carry out.

A related point is the lack of clarity of mission and clearly defined rules of engagement. This is especially true for those on the ground in Iraq where they are required to act in a way that they have not been trained to do. With only the vague rhetoric of politicians to guide them coupled with the fear that any action they take may be seen as a war crime the soldiers on the ground have lost morale.

Finally is the fact that the British military is underfunded for it’s purpose. Now I see this more of a problem of funds being spread too thinly as the British military tries to be all things to all people in effect a mini-US rather than insufficient funds being made available.

We have a perfect opportunity to reassess the British military soon as the question of the replacement of Trident is to be discussed (although both Blair and Brown seem to have already made their minds up). At the projected cost of £25 Billion does Britain still need an independent nuclear deterrent?

The Warsaw Pact plan Seven Days to the River Rhine which was recently released by the Polish government indicates that during the Cold War that Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent really was a deterrent. But as the Prime Minister is so fond of saying the rules have changed and we face a new enemy.

We no longer face the enemy that we faced during the Cold War and I believe that Britain no longer needs an independent nuclear deterrent particularly when the replacement of Trident surely would constitute a violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which this country signed in July 1968 and which commits us to long-term disarmament of our nuclear weaponry.

It is inexplicable particularly in the light of the British government’s view on that other signatory of the treaty Iran and their burgeoning nuclear program.

How can me maintain our international standing when we don’t respect the disarmament provisions of the treaty whilst insisting other countries abide by the non-proliferation provisions of that same treaty?

So I believe that
1. Britain does not need a replacement for Trident given the changing geo-political situation and the nature of the new threat we as a country now face.
2. In the light that we do face a new threat in the form of terrorism which cannot be deterred by nuclear weapons surely the money could be better spent tackling a threat we do face rather than one we no longer do.
3. Our international standing is reliant on our honouring our commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the replacement of Trident would constitute a breach. We could of course withdraw from the treaty but I believe that would be equally as damaging to our international standing.

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Politics Reviews TV

Question Time: Israel

Watched Question Time (the show is viewable online here) on the BBC tonight and one of the panellists Melanie Phillips showed her typical restraint on the issue of Israel actions in Gaza.

She basically said that the Palestinian people deserve to suffer as they voted for Hamas and therefore are complicit in the murder of Eliyahu Asheri and the capture of Corporal Shalit.

I cannot but condemn the actions of those militants responsible for those two acts they are disgusting and evil acts but neither can I but condemn Melanie Phillips for her views and the actions of the Israeli military.

Israel vowed to take “extreme action” if the Corporal Gilad Shalit was not released and they have indeed.

Thankfully Israel has halted it’s push into northern Gaza amid reports of new talks aimed at freeing its captured soldier.

The destruction of infrastructure in Gaza such as the bridges and power station was to put pressure on Hamas to secure the release of Cpl Shalit. But how can it be seen as anything other than collective punishment of the Palestinian people for the acts of a militant minority? Surely the actions of the Israeli military will do nothing but cause ordinary innocent Palestinians to become more militant.

Melanie Phillips apparently believes that they are already all extremely militant why else would they have voted for a Hamas government. The ordinary Palestinians just want to get on with their lives and voted for Hamas as a response to the corrupt Fatah government they had previously, who they viewed as being ineffective at securing a free independent Palestine.

I hope that this rumoured dialogue works as otherwise I cannot see the situation failing to escalate and further innocents being made to suffer on both sides of the conflict.

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Politics Terrorism Uncategorized

US Guantanamo tribunals ‘illegal’

BBC News: US Guantanamo tribunals ‘illegal’

The US Supreme Court has ruled that the Bush administration does not have the authority to try terrorism suspects by military tribunal.

Justices upheld the challenge by Osama Bin Laden’s ex-driver to his trial at Guantanamo, saying the proceedings violated Geneva Conventions.

The ruling is seen as a major blow to President George W Bush – but it does not order the closure of Guantanamo.

So the tribunals are ruled as illegal, doesn’t surprise me as they seem as fair as the trial of General Tomoyuki Yamashita. But having fair and open trials was never the reason for the prison at Guantanamo the prisoners were not there to be tried and punished for their crimes they are there solely for the extraction of intelligence in order for the US to carry out their War on Terror. Any open and fair trials would jeopardise this and would reveal the true nature of the detainees there including that many of them are probably innocents that were sold to the US by corrupt members of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. The fact that children were picked up and held before being released is surely an indication that people were detained without first establishing who they were and what threat they constituted.

I think that the pressure has built to such an extent that the prison will soon close particularly as the Bush administration seem to have finally woken up to the fact that it is a PR disaster. But any such closure will simply be the next step in a PR campaign as it will not mean the closure of those less well-known prisons around the world and the unknowable numbers of secret and hidden US military prisons.

I would be very surprised if we ever see more than a few token open and fair trials conducted under US law occur.

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Politics Terrorism Uncategorized

Cameron’s wrong on British Bill of Rights

The leader of the Conservative Party has said in an interview on the BBC that they are considering replacing the Human rights Act with a British bill of Rights.

A US-style bill of rights would outline the rights of citizens, while the Human Rights Act incorporates European rules into British law.

Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer said Mr Cameron’s plans were “unworkable”.

The Conservatives have long-pledged to look at the 1998 Human Rights Act, which incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law.

During the 2005 general election campaign, former leader Michael Howard pledged he would revise or scrap the act if elected, claiming prisoners’ rights were being put before those of victims.

A British Bill of Rights sounds like a great idea but it should have been done decades if not centuries ago and is now irrelevant and unworkable now that Britain is signed up to European rights legislation.

Mr Cameron explains that he is not proposing a withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights but instead wishes to set up a panel “to examine the issue to ascertain whether a bill of rights could be given legal status instead.”

Well I would think that such a panel will find that a separate British Bill of Rights will be contradictory with the European Convention on Human Rights and will therefore not be possible for them to exist in parallel.

Both the Government and the Conservative party have been attacking the human rights laws we have claiming they are hindering the fight against crime and terror.

The problem as I see it isn’t the legislation but perhaps it’s application in the courts.

This seems to be all political rhetoric with no real meat to it. Be seen to attack what the tabloid media have portrayed as ridiculous examples of the use of Human Rights Act whilst still being in favour of human rights as a concept.

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Politics Terrorism Uncategorized

Guantanamo suicides a ‘PR move’

The Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Colleen Graffy has described the suicides of three detainees at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a “good PR move to draw attention”.

Colleen Graffy told the BBC the deaths were part of a strategy and “a tactic to further the jihadi cause”, but taking their own lives was unnecessary.

But lawyers say the men who hanged themselves had been driven by despair.

A military investigation into the deaths is under way, amid growing calls for the centre to be moved or closed.

The suicides may have brought the Guatnanamo Bay detention camp back into the news but I don’t think that any rational person could believe that the suicides were designed to draw attention. It’s not like the camp is not an albatross around the neck of the US government in any case.

It has probably been the greatest tool for recruitment to the ranks of Al-Qaeda ever. It undermines the reputation of the US around the world amongst nations friendly to it and feeds it’s enemies by giving them a talisman of propoganda about how the US hates Muslims and mistreats and tortures them.

What makes the notion that the suicides were just “a tactic to further the jihadi cause” even more sickening is the news that one of the three detainess was due to be released but hadn’t been informed yet by the American officals.

Seriously if he was considered to be of such a low level of threat that he would be released is he really likely to commit suicide as an “act of asymmetric warfare”.

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Politics Terrorism Uncategorized

Asymmetric warfare by suicide

BBC News: Guantanamo suicides ‘acts of war’

These are the first suicides at the base, despite dozens of attempts
The suicides of three detainees at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, amount to acts of war, the US military says.

The camp commander said the two Saudis and a Yemeni were “committed” and had killed themselves in “an act of asymmetric warfare waged against us”.

That’s just sickening isn’t it.

How dare they commit suicide. Think of the poor US soldier that had to discover their dead bodies how he must have suffered to see such a sight, that must surely be a breach of his human rights no soldier should have to experience such horrors. The sooner the detainment camp at Guantanamo Bay is closed the sooner these US servicemen can return home and no longer have to suffer at the hands of the terrorists.

Who knows if these were indeed members of Al-Qaeda committed to destroying the US through their own suicide or if they were innocents picked up by the Northern Alliance and sold to the US military who through despair took what they saw as the only possible route out of their unending detention.

I don’t think the line given by camp commander Rear Adm Harry Harris that

I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.

really stands up to analysis.

Martyrdom is only effective if the outside world and one’s followers are aware of the sacrifice. But the detainees have no contact with the outside world they could not possibly know that their deaths would be reported. Would they really make such an empty sacrifice as an act of war against the United States.

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Politics Uncategorized

Reshuffle farce

The notion of best man for the job was never really the case in cabinet reshuffles of the past but at least many times ministers were chosen from the brightest and the best of a party’s MPs.

The floundering Blair is I feel trying to shore up his premiership by shuffling in his most loyal supporters into key positions at the expense of the quality of the members of the cabinet. Back in November 2005 Tim Ireland wrote. [via]

The only people Blair can appoint to his cabinet or count on in the pursuit of his reforms have to have backed him over the war on Iraq then and continue to back him to this day. And anyone who can do that with a smile on their face is duplicitous, stupid or woefully misinformed. It’s no longer a case of the best man or woman for the job.

The removal of John Prescott’s portfolio whilst retaining his services as Deputy Prime Minister is the most bizarre result of this recent fiasco. Hopefully this farcical thing will doom Blair but I have a feeling that yet again for Teflon Tony the shit won’t stick to him.

Does give the chance to make an awful political joke though about Prescott losing his briefs yet again. Expect to see that one in the Daily Mail if it hasn’t already appeared there.

The Conservative leader David Cameron could be right when he says that the Cabinet reshuffle shows the government has lost its authority and is in terminal decline. There is still plenty of time and opportunity for the party to win back the electorate though and I hope they can see that ditching Blair would be an excellent step towards doing that.

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Politics Uncategorized

Local election results.

The Labour party were given a bit of a bloody nose in this election but it wasn’t enough for them to get rid of the liability that is Blair. Sad to see that the voters swung the way of the Tories instead of the other way towards the Liberals or Green.

That bullying venal fat fuck Charles Clarke is out of a job though which is great news.

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Politics Uncategorized

Don’t Vote Labour

Well there’s only a couple of days to go now and the man known as Blair is still the Prime Minister so the only choice now is protest against the Labour party and show them we mean it when we say that Blair has stayed in office long after he should have been ousted.

As I have no local elections this Thursday (ours happened at the same time as the general election last year) I can’t make the protest myself so I’m calling on my readers to do so on my behalf, I know some of you exist and reside somewhere in the UK. My visitors can’t all be searching for information on Admiral Isoruko Yamamoto surely.

http://www.backingblair.co.uk

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So this is how democracy dies.

Not only a common misquote of the line from the Revenge of the Sith

So this is how liberty dies… with thunderous applause

it’s a genuine sentiment expressed by critics, such as Henry Porter of The Observer, of the Government’s Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill.

The ‘reform’ in the title allows ministers to make laws without the scrutiny of parliament and, in some cases, to delegate that power to unelected officials. In every word, dot and comma, it bears the imprint of New Labour’s authoritarian paternity.

Rather than the thunderous applause that accompanies the death of liberty in the Star Wars Empire the death of democracy seems to be with a thunderous silence as the bill has slipped under the radar of the British public.

If ever there were a piece of legislation to ensure the United Kingdom’s traversal through the event horizon of the Panopticon Singularity it is the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill.

I’m probably far too paranoid and could possibly even be wrong given the almost impenetrable legalese used in parliamentary bills about the implications of the bill. However it would seem to me that this bill sets the ideal stage from which to modify not only existing legislation but legislation yet to be passed due to various obstacles being placed in the government’s way such as the current situation with the Identity Card bill. The government can make any necessary concessions to ensure the bill gets passed and then modify any legislation introduced by such a bill back to a form they would have liked in the first place but that parliament didn’t approve of.

According to Murky.org the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill was discussed on Law in Action on BBC Radio 4. From Murky’s transcript of the programme comes the following quote from Cambridge Professor of Law, John Spencer QC plus a comment from Murky.

It is unbelievably dangerous. It means potentially marginalising parliament. It moves us a big step toward the elected dictatorship every five years, it’s a step toward a system under which the only break that we have on our ministers is the fact that there’s a general election every five years. (He seems to overlook the fact that even this may not be guaranteed, as, if I recall correctly, the five years is set by the parliament act, which is itself changable by the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act – Murk)

As if I don’t already have enough paranoid nightmares at the moment.