Our next Prime minister Gordon Brown backs call to extend 28-day limit on detention.
Tag: politics
19 Year Old Diebold Technician Wins U.S. Presidency [via]
President-elect Pustule said he was still working on his platform, but that he had “a lot of ideas about making acne medication cheaper and also making thongs required in more places”.
I, for one, welcome our new acne-faced overlord.
Prime minister Tony Blair in his valedictory speech to the Labour party conference declared
I don’t want to live in a police state, or a Big Brother society or put any of our essential freedoms in jeopardy. But because our idea of liberty is not keeping pace with change in reality, those freedoms are in jeopardy.
Those freedoms are in jeopardy from him and his government that are pushing through legislation that will create a Big Brother society. He went on to say
We can only protect liberty by making it relevant to the modern world.
That is why Identity Cards using biometric technology are not a breach of our basic rights, they are an essential part of responding to the reality of modern migration and protecting us against identity fraud.
I remember when I introduced the DNA database. On it go all those who are arrested. We were told it was a monstrous breach of liberty.
But it is now matching 3,000 offences a month including last year several hundred murders, and thousands of rapes and other violent offences.
The Identity Card system that the government wants to introduce really is the foundation of the Big Brother state that Blair says he doesn’t want to live in. I can only surmise that he intends to leave the UK once it has been implemented.
The BBC reports that the Home Secretary John Reid was heckled by a couple of protesters during a speech he was giving to Muslims about combating extremists in their communities.
He was interrupted by Abu Izzadeen, an individual who it is believed is the leader of the banned group al-Ghurabaa, calling Reid an enemy of Islam.
The home secretary said “our fight is not with Muslims generally”.
Instead, he said, there was a “struggle against extremism”.
And, warning that terrorist fanatics sought to influence youngsters, he said: “There is no nice way of saying this.
“These fanatics are looking to groom and brainwash children, including your children, for suicide bombings, grooming them to kill themselves in order to murder others.”
Does anyone still believe this to be true that there are fanatics grooming young people to become suicide bombers?
What we know of the perpetrators of two of the most significant recent terrorist plots, the 7/7 bombers and the plotters of the failed plot of 21st July 2005, would refute that theory.
These men had become radicalized but there was no indication that they had fallen under the sway of a fanatic who had been a radicalizing force. Meetings with members of al Qaeda occurred after they had already decided to carry out attacks as a response to what they saw as the murdering of their Muslim brothers in the war in Iraq.
Far from these extremist bogeymen that John Reid would have us believe in the thing that is most radicalizing young Muslim men is the actions of the British and American governments overseas and at home. That’s not to say that the ultimate ends of the government’s policies are without worth but the means to those ends were clearly going to have negative consequences.
A free and democratic Iraq is a laudable goal but it is one that was never going to be simple to attain and the incredibly stupid idea of linking it in to the War on Terror gave the Islamic extremists the jihad they were looking for. Furthermore the incompetent manner in which the post-war operations have been carried out have resulted in thousands of innocent Iraqi lives being lost which furthers the extremists propaganda that the West has declared war on Islam.
Regardless of whether you believe that the War in Iraq was right or wrong only a blind fool could truly believe that it hasn’t resulted in an increase in acts of terrorism. How much longer can British ministers continue to perpetuate myths and avoid the stark truth that is obvious to the rest of us?
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) wrote that The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.
Recent history may yet prove him right as it is the blood of innocents that is being spilled at the moment and the tree of liberty is far from refreshed.
Categories
YouTube: School Blair Protests
Leninology has posted on YouTube a number of short videos showing pupils protesting at their school, Quintin Kynaston in St John’s Wood, North London on the occasion of a visit by Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Blair Protest Footage 1
Blair Protest 2
Blair Protest 3
Blair Protest 4
Blair Protest 5
Blair Protest 6
Categories
Regime change for Iran
Newt Gingrich argues in today’s Guardian that attacking Iran is not a long-term solution. He does however believe that a regime change in Iran is needed in order to stabilise the Middle East and maintain the security of the US and the rest of the world.
Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear program in defiance of the United Nations has led some to call for military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities to prevent the terror-sponsoring regime from obtaining a nuclear weapon. While I agree that a military option to replace the regime must be left on the table, I worry that some believe a military strike on Iran’s nuclear installations is a viable long-term solution to stopping the Iranian regime’s pursuit of greater power in the region.
In truth, until the Iranian regime itself is replaced with one that does not sponsor terrorism and does not seek a nuclear program, then the threat will remain and grow.
I agree with his assessment that military strikes are not the most sensible option. Such strikes would undoubtedly have to come from the US and its allies all of whom are currently overstretched as it is and even at full capacity those military forces would face a massive challenge to neutralise Iran.
But I disagree on his other points. Gingrich states that Iran must be stopped not because of its weapons and its pursuit of nuclear weapons but because of its evil intent. I believe it is the characterisation of Iran as evil by the US that is to some extent to blame for this situation.
It is because of the disengagement from Iran by the US that it suffers from significant gaps’ in intelligence, which would undermine any attempts to force Iran to comply with UN directives. I don’t believe that I’m an expert on Iran but even I can see that President Ahmadinejad’s commitment to seeing Israel “wiped off the map” is empty rhetoric to gain public support in a country where such statements can be heard everyday on the streets of Tehran.
I too believe regime change must occur in Iran but I believe it will come from within in fact I believe that it must come from within for it to hold fast. The population of Iran is a young one and the old guard will fall under the liberalising westernised attitudes of that youth. But as Iran is a country with a long history of being manipulated and oppressed by western powers the regime change must be initiated from within or else it will be rejected as yet another intervention from outside powers for the pursuit of their own ends.
It can be seen from the examples of Iraq and the current crisis within the Labour party that forcing regime change ends badly with unforseen long term repurcussions and no one comes out of it smelling of roses.
In an addendum to my previous post about the UK Threat Level it’s good to see Home Secretary John Reid keep his tendency for hyperbole under check. Quoting from this BBC News report.
Home Secretary John Reid said the government was “confident” the ring leaders were in custody but it was not complacent.
He said had the plot been successful, it would have meant “loss of life on an unprecedented scale”.
I think the precedents of massive loss of life in our history are pretty fucking massive even if we only take a single incident rather than the wars or genocides of the last century the precedent of the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima killing instantly about 80 000 people easily outweighs any possible loss of life if this latest terrorist plot had been successful.
At some point today unbeknownst to me the UK entered into the highest level of threat that of critical.
Oh my! How in the world could I have missed such an important event as the changing of our current threat level to its highest possible state? Whatever shall I do now?
That’s the pertinent question what shall we as the public do now? No one knows because there is nothing for the public to do other than get scared.
The Threat Level System has according to the Home Office website been created to keep the public informed about the level of threat to the UK from terrorism. But it’s of no practical use it’s like shouting DANGER in a crowded city centre street, it can do nothing but cause confusion and fear as there is no specific advice associated with each different level of threat.
So what event has caused the threat level to be raised?
It was the arrest of 24 people by police who were suspected of a plot against UK flights to the US. The police believe they have disrupted this plot to blow up these transatlantic flights and are convinced they have detained the key players, but believe the network involved is large and global.
The plot apparently was to smuggle liquid explosives onto around ten transatlantic flights in water bottles or similarly innocuous containers. Airlines have now taken the precaution of preventing people taking anything other than the most essential pieces of hand luggage onto flights leaving the UK. The police have said that the plotters could have caused “mass murder on an unimaginable scale”.
Yes they could have blown up many airliners and killed hundreds of people but for the fact that the people involved had been under surveillance for some time. We shall have to wait and see when more information is released about how far along there really were with their plot whether they were a credible threat to our security. I do not want to get caught up in the politician’s gambit of who can imagine the worst scenario possible.
Security chiefs said the group believed to be planning the attack had been under surveillance for some time.
US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the plot was “in some respects suggestive of al-Qaeda”.
“They had accumulated and assembled the capabilities that they needed and they were in the final stages of planning for execution,” he said.
It had only become apparent in the “last two weeks” that the target of the flights was the US, said Mr Chertoff.
Another problem I see with having a public Threat Level System is that surely it tips the terrorists off to the fact that they might be under surveillance. If the level increases correspondingly as the terrorist group gets closer to the commission of their act of terrorism is that not an indication that the UK Security Services are onto them.
Sunday Times – ID cards doomed, say officials
TONY BLAIR’S flagship identity cards scheme is set to fail and may not be introduced for a generation, according to leaked Whitehall e-mails from the senior officials responsible for the multi-billion-pound project.
The problems are so serious that ministers have been forced to draw up plans for a scaled-down “face-saving” version to meet their pledge of phasing in the cards from 2008.
However, civil servants say there is no evidence that even this compromise is “remotely feasible” and accuse ministers of “ignoring reality” by pressing ahead.
The government seems to want to push through their Identity Card scheme through by any means possible even if it means by way of a much reduced version. They will probably phase it in through the backdoor by way of renewals of passports and ease back on the introduction of ID cards for non-passport holders.
Give this it might be wise for people to renew their passports now even if they have many years before they expire. Renew for freedom from the Identity Register.
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.