I am addressing the plenary of the Scottish Independence Convention at the Scottish Parliament in Holyrood on Thursday 4 February at 6.30pm. The subject of my address is
Might is Right: Torture and the Moral Void of UK Foreign Policy Since Robin Cook.
As ever, I won’t have a text, but I expect to cover extraordinary rendition, Iraq and Afghanistan – and why an independent Scotland ought not to maintain a common defence policy and armed forces with the rump United Kingdom.
The meeting is open (and free, I think) but you have to book in with the Scottish Independence Convention. Contact details are here:
@eddie: you’re confusing ‘criminal’ with ‘convict’. The police go out to catch ‘criminals’; the word is correctly applied to the culprits long before they appear in front of a jury. Some crimes go undetected: the perpetrators are still criminals, even though they’re never caught. What matters is that they have infringed a law. If Tony Blair infringed a law prohibiting war, he’s a war criminal. Simples.
You’re clearly attempting dissembling tactics once again, eddie: nobody can be as persistently dense as you without a motive.
January 27, 2010
“Secret detention may amount to crime against humanity: UN experts”…
http://tinyurl.com/ye44gwq
“if the great majority of Scots were to want it, I wouldn’t stand in their way”
— a sensible line in self preservation 🙂
Yes. An SNP Advocate General would no doubt have sent Goldsmith home tae think again.
Unfortunately, only Jack Straw and Condy Rice were allowed that kind of influence; and by God, they used it.
“if the great majority of Scots were to want it, I wouldn’t stand in their way”
— a sensible line in self preservation 🙂
Living on a traffic island in the middle of the old A6, I’m a bit worried about getting trampled in the northwards rush.
ingo – “Why is indiscriminate warfare against innocent civilians/third parties never an issue?”
That’s the bit I object to, the idea that death, destruction and misery to other people is just fine, so long as it gets you your own way. Collateral damage, in all its manifestations.
If all the people that think you can sort something out by fighting would just go away and do it, maybe on the back side of the moon, somewhere where they won’t trample anyone else’s roses, I’d object to nothing more than the idea that my taxes are supposed to pay for one of the teams.
Thing is, as soon as you’re prepared to accept that the locals are going to get fucked up in the process, you just blew the Humanitarian thing. If it’s all for their own good, the last thing you can do is harm anyone. *Anyone*. It shows you had other interests that were more important, really.
I have to laugh when buffoons like eddie talk about anti-americanism.
What’s wrong with criticising mass murderers?
It’s too much like claims of anti-semitism when you criticise Israeli murderers.
Do these people really think that they can hide behind some sort of perverse political correctness, to protect them from punishment for their crimes?
I suspect they do.
That’s how evil they are.
Do these people really think that they can hide behind some sort of perverse political correctness, to protect them from punishment for their crimes?
Definition of Politically Correct:
Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.
“I don’t support Scottish independence, though if the great majority of Scots were to want it, I wouldn’t stand in their way.”
Gosh, that’s jolly decent of you, Abe.
Can anyone point to any part of the UN charter which allows member states to take it upon themselves to instigate war without Security Council approval?
Nice to see the UK legal system looking at bringing those involved in rendition and torture to justice.
Would expect quite a few american names excluded from being welcome in the UK? anyone to put together a list?
PS good luck craig with the speech
Thanks for that snippet george. No I don’t think that Tony Blair will get to be rescued by american troops should he ever stand for trial in the Hague, but I’d love to see them trying.
More to the point, would they take the human rights of the population of the Dutch into account when taking out such a rescue operation?
Thanks also to ‘for the restless’ you had me in stitches this morning.
I just switched on T Bliar at Chilcot.
Is it wishful thinking on my part, or does he look very strained/stressed?
He sounds a lot more nervous than he was when pushing his war … maybe it’s the group sitting behind him that are making him so jumpy …
I think he is going for ‘slightly humble and well-meaning’ but you can see the nastiness underneath. I echo the howls of disbelief on the Guardian blog when he linked 9/11 to Iraq. And was not even challenged.
ingo
More to the point, The sheer arrogance of them…Chilling.
“or does he look very strained/stressed?”
dreoilin
You would look “very strained/stressed?” if you spent night after night counting blood money and thinking up ways to hide it…
http://tinyurl.com/yzrzoem
George,
The follow-up:
“Mystery of Tony Blair’s money solved”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/dec/17/mystery-tony-blairs-money-solved
hawley_jr
Thanks.
I wonder how it works out as to how many pounds he gets for each of his victims?. Last I heard he was getting £6.000 (I will repeat that £6,000) a minute. Wonder if Tessa Jowell is advising him on offshore accounts?, still no shortage of New Labour members who could do that…me thinks.
hawley_jr – Thanks, seconded.
Also, I’m struck by the Garudina’s technique; offer a prize for the best explanation and then follow peoples’ contributions up. A very neat use of available resources.
I remember the New Scientist doing something similiar when the news started coming out about the hideous poisongassing of poor sodding Iranian conscripts. (’84 ? ’85 ?). One suggestion was, leftover Brit. munitions. It was how I first learnt of that bit of history, though the actual suggestion doesn’t seem to have been borne out.
“since Robin Cook”
That would be the Robin Cook who, as Foreign Secretary, that it was our KLA employees not the Yugoslavs who were engaged ingenocide in Kosovo & then 2 months later was part of a criminal war to help them in their genocide & make extra from selling children to western brothels & cutting up adults while alive to sell in pieces to our hospitals.
Not something I would consider an example of moral completeness. Cook was a Nazi war criminal who should have been hung – & not alone.