Having been roundly defeated in the Court of Appeal, and with it now established beyond doubt that the UK knew that Binyam Mohammed was being tortured by the USA, Miliband has the massive effrontery to welcome the decision.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/feb/10/david-miliband-binyam-mohamed-statement
The truth about the government’s complicity in torture is becoming established beyond doubt. I am still shocked about the virtual media blackout on my own evidence to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF9spgagSHI
But am comforted that the forthcoming dramatisation of Murder in Samarkand with David Tennant will do more for popular understanding than dry evidence ever could.
We will never see justice, but I would strongly support the calls for a public inquiry into UK complicity with torture. Preferably of an inquisitorial kind; but even the cosy conversations of the Chilcot committee have thrown up some truth.
‘dry evidence’
Would it be possible to deduce that the UK populace and politicians inwardly support our continuing colonialism from the dry evidence that they have not rebelled. Is it British reserve that prevents them from rebellion, or a well-rehearsed habit of stealing from others at any human price?
If so, it will not make any difference whether the evidence is dry or dramatised, they will cough politely and ask for another cup of tea. Dry Englishman asking his wife if she would like a cup of tea means: ” Spot of bother on the North West frontier, probably get defeated. Any chance of a shag? There’s too much money in the current account. We can find another colonial project to recoup our losses somewhere else. It does make you dry, all this whizzing round the world, killing and torturing and subjugating the natives.”
“Yes, darling” she says.
There is no evidence that the British people are complicit in their government’s crimes and approve of their skill at covering up after them. Freedom of speech permits the objectors to articulate but the secret supporters of colonialism never speak. They think that their thoughts go undetected because there’s no witnesses or DNA evidence. But Allah knows their inner thoughts.
Allah knows their inner thoughts, and he’s keeping his powder dry.
“There is no evidence that the British people are complicit in their government’s crimes”
Ummmm.. re-elelection of a war-loving PM? >30% are guilty.
@ Craig.
I have the chance to meet Prof. Emeritus W. Scott Thompson next week.
He wrote: _____”Ghana’s Foreign Policy, 1957-1966: Diplomacy, Ideology and the New States, Princeton 1969″_____. I respect many of your opinions and would like to know what your expert opinion is of this gentleman.
Thanks lwtc247.
http://www.recovery-assets.com/DrWSTPublications.html
http://www.recovery-assets.com/DrWSThompson.html
From Rhisiart Gwilym’s comment on yesterday’s Guardian article by Simon Jenkins which was entitled:
The torture memos show how illegal wars turn even the nicest people bad
The deceit, the slaughter, the atrocity, the abuse of human rights. Today, Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil is everywhere
aaa~
‘Also, if you want to know the real low-down about the uk-state’s continuing day-to-day relationship with torture, look no further than Craig Murray’s informed-insider revelations about that: heavily ignored by the ‘principled’ pocket-politicians like Miliband and his corporate-media-hack apologists, because Craig too is dedicated to telling some highly uncomfortable but essential public truths.’
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1265963616.html
It looks very much like this boss of MI5 is attacking the judges, much as Millibrain did yesterday. It’s as if he’s warning them that they’re providing propaganda for our “enemies”.
So don’t criticise us, or else!
Unprecedented stuff.
Just shows how desperate these criminals and gangsters are getting. It’s a very sorry state that the Blair gang brought us to.
And he’s also using the “conspiracy theory” phrase, as an earlier poster suggested they might.
Anonymous re re-election: around 22 percent of the electorate voted Labour, actually.
Lovely to see such sentiments as the ‘human race are wallowing in their own filth’. Reminds me, I must do the hoovering.
Dr Thompson is a member of the CFR.
The bottom line it seems for the British government and MI5 in the Binyam Mohammed case is to protect the fraudulent ‘war on terror’ at all cost (3000 people died on 9/11) and thus perpetuate war and hegemony in the Middle East.
To some this means, if necessary our great British justice system and the men and women who has sworn an oath to uphold it, will be over-ruled and trashed, to, (in eyes of ‘some’) advance Western democracy.
So I say to the great British public, remember, clearly, the Iraq war was also based on government and SIS fraud (the dodgy dossier) and the Iraq war murdered, maimed, disfigured, traumatised and orphaned ten of thousands of innocent Iraqi children.
If necessary I will shout this from pulpit of Westminster Abbey.
The Magna Carta Libertatum (1297), our great charter of freedoms that implicitly supported what became the writ of habeas corpus, and guarantees the right of ‘due process’ – it is this right that ensures our magnificent High court judges must win the day in their ruling, their wisdom and decision that torture is archaic, unnatural, illegal and serves only to produce lying confessions made in the hope of relieving severe pain and threats of death and the destruction of loved ones.
“Given the illegal and disgusting activity (read: murders, tortures, military and economic war crimes, crimes against humanity etc) of the UK state, isn’t it the case that those wishing to attack it, are morally FULLY JUSTIFIED to do so?”
It depends on your morals, I suppose.
Personally, I go with “Which bit of ‘Thou shalt not kill’ is too difficult ?”
@anon at February 12, 2010 2:14 AM:
“Ummmm.. re-election of a war-loving PM? >30% are guilty”.
I don’t think it’s that simple. First of all, had they voted in the Tories in 2005, the war would not have been stopped immediately, and it is anyone’s guess whether it would have stopped earlier.
Or in 2001, would they have had an inkling of what was in store, and voted for the Tories to avoid war? Wouldn’t the Tories have invaded too?
Remember that the millions who marched in 2003 marched under a banner of “Not in my name”. It is an entirely appropriate phrase – there is little the public could have done at the ballot box to have avoided an illegal war.
Said @anno: “Would it be possible to deduce that the UK populace and politicians inwardly support our continuing colonialism from the dry evidence that they have not rebelled.”
No, it would not: it is a possible answer, but not the only one. Study revolution and discover alternative reasons.
My view comprises of several strands, but basically a constant supply of bad news via a virtual medium deadens the compassion in most humans – they call it “compassion fatigue”. What is the individual to do? “Rise up” in revolution with your comrades and neighbours, and find yourself arrested, accused of terrorism, and vilified by the media and the wider public?
People are also inculcated to patriotism, or the idea that being a “law-abiding citizen” is exemplary behaviour, and so there are powerful psychological reasons why the conclusions you have reached are not popular amongst the wider public.
Regarding my comment about studying revolution, this may come about during a period of substantial social unheaval, which itself may give rise to a “pre-revolutionary phase” in which the masses are inclined to overthrow the state. But for the power of the state, and the present atomisation and ignorance of the people, this probably won’t happen in our lifetimes, whatever crimes are committed in our name.
“this probably won’t happen in our lifetimes, whatever crimes are committed in our name.”
So are we left with…
But leave the Wise to wrangle, and with me
The Quarrel of the Universe let be:
And, in some corner of the Hubbub coucht,
Make Game of that which makes as much of Thee.
Now this sounds good. A journalism haven and freedom of expression enshrined in law. No not the UK. Iceland.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8504972.stm
The recent Court of Appeal judgment in the Binyam Mohamed case can be read at the following url: http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2010/65.html
The redacted paragraphs appear at the very end of the judgment.
Mary at February 12, 2010 8:47 AM ?” Thank you for sharing the source of Rhisiart Gwilym’s comment on yesterday’s Guardian article by Simon Jenkins. It ties in nicely with Craig’s topic “The Sheer Front of David Miliband” From personal experience (click on my name), I know the Guardian is only interested in fashionable human rights issues that don’t offend the real establishment, but in its biased excuses for Mr. Milliband it does seem that The Guardian doesn’t understand the concept of Ministerial Accountability either?
I would also recommend that people also look at Ruth’s comment at February 10, 2010 6:23 PM on judicial independence. Independence of the press has always been a bit of a myth, but whatever happened to these old traditional British values like Rule of Law, Ministerial Accountability and Independence of the Judiciary?
Mark: “the power and force of our own individual conscience will always let itself be heard and it is this power that instigates change”.
That’s poetic, but what does it mean? The “power of conscience” is limited because of the pschological barriers I mentioned earlier. True, we had two million march in 2003, but it didn’t stop the war. In fact it didn’t stop the invasion of Lebanon in 2006, the Gaza atrocities last year, and countless drone killings in recent times. We are cowed sheep, though I don’t hold people responsible for that – it would be like holding the public responsible for being human.
I am cynical of the capacity for a natural move away from the neoliberal capitalism based on peoples’ consciences, and I am uncertain that reformism will work, given its long history of failure. But the dilemma with revolution is that the people need to see the need for it and to understand it, but they are a long way away from it at present. I do wonder whether a popular revolution is the only way substantial change can be effected, though I do hope I am wrong.
I should add also: popular revolution that demands social justice need not be violent.
Clare Algar has a very good response to that spook clown who’s been ranting about being caught out.
“Clare Algar, executive director of Reprieve, which represents Binyam Mohamed, said: “It’s incredibly offensive to suggest that the people who are bringing to light the ways in which the British intelligence service and US intelligence service have behaved badly could be responsible for giving succour to the enemy.
“The thing that gives succour to the enemy is the bad behaviour in the first place – and that’s the reason we shouldn’t be involved in torturing people.” ”
“MI5’s propaganda own-goal
The head of the security service is denouncing the media for simply reporting the judicial truth of its complicity in torture”
by Richard Norton-Taylor
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/12/mi5-propaganda-own-goal
“An extraordinary spectacle is being played out with the head of MI5 publicly denouncing the media ?” and implicitly three of the country’s most senior judges ?” for reporting that officers in the security service were complicit in “at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident, by the CIA.”
“The criticism of MI5 officers, to which Evans and the home secretary, Alan Johnson, responded in remarkably intemperate language today , came not from the media, as they suggest, but from a senior judge, supported by two others. It is based on evidence, including 42 unpublished CIA documents, collected over the past 18 months by two high court judges and described in six separate judgments.
Their judgments are strongly critical of David Miliband, the foreign secretary. They show how MI5 withheld evidence from the ISC, contrary to claims made by its chairman, former foreign office minister, Kim Howells. “We can ask for absolutely any classified material we want to see and we do it all the time,” Howells said. The trouble is he does not know what to ask for.”
“Evans expressed the hope in his Telegraph article that the US will not now be “less ready” to share vital intelligence with Britain. The same concerns, repeatedly expressed by Miliband during the court hearings, were dismissed by the appeal court as “logically incoherent and therefore irrational”. While the political and security establishment hits out at the British judiciary and media over revealing sensitive information, the facts of the case were clearly laid out already in a US court that accepted as true detailed allegations of Mohamed being “physically and psychologically tortured”. The US judge added: “His genitals were mutilated. He was deprived of sleep and food.””
by Dominic Kennedy, Investigations Editor
The Times
“His torturers told Mr Mohamed that they knew details of, for example, his British education, London friendships, even the name of his kickboxing instructor. They even wielded the scalpel ?” slicing into his penis ?” a mutilation now confirmed by a court in Washington.
English High Court judges have condemned Mr Mohamed’s ordeal as “at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment”.
But in the Court of Appeal this week the Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge went further, icily reminding politicians and officials that “torture ?” and any of the euphemisms which describe it” is outlawed.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article7025303.ece
Now the criminals who engaged in and allowed this illegality are running around the TV, Radio and Press rooms trying to blame the media and judges for having found them out!!
Just shows that when you lack powerful democratic procedures, criminals and gangsters really do take over. This is Blair’s gift to Britain.
The whole political state, from top to bottom, needs a serious clean out.
Antonio Fargus,
Actually it still works quite well.
Was that you outside my house with a laptop hacking my wireless unprotected network and quoting the works of Shakespeare?
I get loads of such people, and ask them in for a cup of tea when its really cold.
Tony
Posted on a Tory website, who never delete my posts…
Brown maybe an unlikeable controlling, brooding, malevolent, arrogant, psycho’, but Blair is far worse than that.
The Tories actually got it right in 1997 in the way they portrayed Blair, but bizarrely enough the evil has now corrupted them, such they laud him as their hero and have even cloned him to produce another air head, bag of shit.
Anyone who voted for the Iraq war knowing the truth should be in jail with the War Criminal Blair.
He is responsible for mass genocide, based on a pack of obvious lies, that anyone could prove by a simple google search in 2002 of the UK,US Govt and UN websites that demonstrated conclusively that all parties knew that Iraq had been disarmed of all their WMD’s and posed no threat to any other country whastsoever.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/election2001/images/0,9350,449562,00.html
Tony
Unsurprisingly, these criminals and liars now bleating after being caught out again, have “form”.
“Three senior judges today delivered a blistering attack on the Ministry of Defence, accusing its officials of misleading the high court and of “lamentable” conduct over attempts to suppress information on the interrogation of Iraqi detainees.
Lord Justice Scott Baker and Mr Justices Silber and Sweeney described claims made by defence ministers in gagging orders as false. The claims led to decisions that the court had made, to suppress evidence, that were “wrong”.”
“The picture that emerged from the MoD’s handling of the case, and assertions its officials had made, were “truly alarming”, the judges said. The history of the case was “lamentable”, they said.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/10/ministry-defence-judges-iraqi-detainees
Who ya gonna believe, eh?
Looks like at long last the judges are getting a bit pissed off with these criminals and gangsters who’ve usuped our political process under the Blair regime.
Who’s afraid to be interviewed on Channel 4 news tonight?
Step forward
Kim Howells, Spook Overseer
Jonathan Evans, Spook Operations Boss
Alan Johnson, Spook Political Boss
Why are they so afraid to answer questions on the allegations they’ve been making across media these past few days?
Would it be because they’re lying through their teeth and they don’t want to face a real interviewer?
Tony,
‘He is responsible for mass genocide, based on a pack of obvious lies, that anyone could prove by a simple google search in 2002 of the UK,US Govt and UN websites that demonstrated conclusively that all parties knew that Iraq had been disarmed of all their WMD’s and posed no threat to any other country whastsoever.’ Indeed.
But you are forgetting the hearsay of a taxi driver. Such compelling evidence gives an automatic reason to decimate a country and kill up to 1.3m of it’s inhabitants.
In Mr Blair’s mind anyway.
Chris Dooley,
I posted the links before the Iraq War started and I marched down Whitehall with over 1 Million People.
And I posted about 9/11 from Day 1.
And I have had people threatening to meet me on a dark night (even people I know)
And I have had people parked outside my house with a laptop at 1:00 am and I have asked them to come in for a cup of tea and they have been very gracious in their acceptance and told us their life stories.
There is nothing to be afraid of if you speak the truth.
And no I am not into eating red eyes
I prefer poached blue ones
Tony
I wonder when the BBC are going to give this the attention it deserves on their website?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/10/ministry-defence-judges-iraqi-detainees