“Security state” fruitcake Rupert Sutton of the ultra neo-con Henry Jackson Society has an article on the puzzlingly named and indescribably dull Zionist blog Left Foot Forward, in which he attacks Moazzam Begg.
Sutton displays precisely the mind-set of the security state, that led GCHQ to intercept the webcam chats of 1.4 million completely random British people, in the hope of finding Islamic terrorists. (They didn’t find any terrorists, but they did look at over 100,000 people masturbating). Sutton states that Begg must be a terrorist because “a convicted Groupe Islamique Armé (GIA) supporter identified as ‘D’ ” had used Begg’s bookshop. And he calls me “conspiratorial”! The poor man must see terrorists everywhere. The fact that Moazzam Begg is now detained again, had been detained for years, has had everything belonging to him searched microscopically, and nothing has ever been found to justify a criminal charge of any kind, means nothing to witchfinder Sutton. That anti-Muslim bigot is plainly convinced of Moazzam Begg’s guilt, though as he has not been charged, of what is unsure.
I strongly suspect Sutton supports the torture and extraordinary rendition which Begg was investigating in Syria. If Sutton opposes torture by the state, all his pontificating on how to counter terrorism has never mentioned such opposition to torture. Sutton manages not to mention what Begg has said he was doing in Syria at all in his article.
You may wonder why a blog called Left Foot Forward is giving space to an odious warmonger like Sutton. All becomes clear when you realize that Left Foot Forward was founded by Will Straw, the son of Jack Straw, the enforcer of Britain’s torture policy, and the subject of Moazzam Begg’s researches into British complicity in torture. Will Straw has succeeded to his father’s hereditary Labour candidacy for Blackburn. The most recent article on Left Foot Forward attacks Venezuela’s socialist party and supports the CIA funded Venezuelan opposition. Will is plainly a chip off the old block.
Release Moazzam Begg National Protest
Saturday 1 March: 12 Noon
Outside West Midlands Police Headquarters
Lloyd House, Colmore Circus Queensway
Birmingham B4 6NQ
“I see we now have a spambot from Thailand. How do spambots get past Captcha?”
They aren’t bots Mary, they are people in poor countries paid a pittance to post to as many forums and blogs as they can. I think they may get two or three dollars for posting to a thousand. They’re working hard to feed themselves the only way they can.
Another hypocrite. Cameron.
‘Prime Minister David Cameron has said there can be “no excuse” for outside military intervention in Ukraine.’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26399412
He had no misgivings in invading and attacking Libya and seeing the assassination of Gaddafi, nor in planning to do the same to Syria and Assad.
PS Off topic. Have you noticed the early electioneering. Photo ops with Merkel in his flat at No 10 http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/73262000/jpg/_73262319_73261897.jpg
and Queenie at Chequers
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/02/28/article-2570148-1BEACE0E00000578-110_634x400.jpg
“Q & A. In the context of Northern Ireland what does ” Tonyish ” mean?”
Coming from Charles Moore, I suspect it just means playing fast and loose. Remember that Charles Moore and others went against much of the restructuring of NI institutions, which was about de-Unionising these as power centres for Unionism.
These were necessary steps of course, but it is interesting the haste with which Tony turned UK policy on a sixpence and wrapped everything up rather sharpish. They had to turn around their propaganda too. Suddenly the IRA became noble freedom fighters who fought bravely and fairly. This was coming from UK military figures and spooks.
It’s almost as if someone knew there was a new, even more “dangerous” enemy on the horizon.
I got news from a friend in London who did not get to the magistrate’s court on time.
“I was at Westminster Magistrates Court but arrived too late for the hearing. We stayed for another couple of hours until he left by van – where, we don’t know. Plenty of supporters there, including Victoria Brittain and solicitor Gareth Peirce. Another demo outside the Home Office tomorrow.”
The Home Office demo tomorrow is at 1.30 p.m. according to this website.
http://www.5pillarz.com/2014/03/01/breaking-news-moazzam-begg-charged-with-terrorism-offences/
“Obama DOJ’s New Abuse of State-Secrets Privilege Revealed”
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Obama-DOJ-s-New-Abuse-of-S-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Eric-Holder_No-Fly-List_State-Secrets-140301-924.html
“On the Meaning of Journalistic Independence”
“By Glenn Greenwald 1 Mar 2014,”
“This morning, I see that some people are quite abuzz about a new Pando article”
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/03/01/journalistic-independence/
Fred The ads have always been referred to here as spambots. I wouldn’t know but irrelevant in the scheme of things as it exists currently.
Putin wins approval to send Russian troops into Ukraine
Britain requests emergency UN Security Council meeting
•Klitschko calls for mobilisation to ‘save’ Ukraine
•Gazprom may raise gas prices for Ukraine
•Obama warns Moscow over Ukraine
Last updated: March 1, 2014 7:34 pm
Putin wins approval to send Russian troops into Ukraine
By Kathrin Hille in Moscow, Roman Olearchyk in Kiev and Courtney Weaver in Simferopol
Unidentified armed men in military uniform block a Ukrainian military base in Balaklava, Crimea, Ukraine, 01 March 2014. New elected Crimea’s Prime The armed men, described by Interior Minister Arsen Avakov as Russian naval forces, took control at 28 February, of the airports in Simferopol and near the port of Sevastapol where the Russian Black Sea Fleet has a base. Russia ratcheted up the tension in the Ukraine crisis on 01 March with its upper house of parliament approving the use of armed forces in the Crimean peninsula, which is part of Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin asked the Federation Council to approve the use of armed forces in the Crimea, Interfax news agency reported, “until the normalization of the socio-political situation in that country.” Russian lawmakers had urged Putin to take measures to stabilize the situation in Crimea and protect the Russian-majority population. EPA/ANTON PEDKO©EPA
Key developments
– Obama on Friday warns of “costs” to Russian military intervention in Ukraine
– Moscow gives Putin green light to send troops into Ukraine
– Crimean leader moves autonomous region’s referendum forward to March 30 from May 25
– Protests mount in a number of eastern Ukraine cities calling for unification with Russia
– UN Security Council meets in New York
The Russian parliament gave President Vladimir Putin clearance to send troops into neighbouring Ukraine on Saturday, raising the spectre of war on the European continent for the first time since the Russia-Georgia conflict of 2008.
Responding to a specific request from Mr Putin, who invoked threats to Russian citizens and the Black Sea Fleet inside Ukraine, the upper house of parliament unanimously approved the deployment, although it was unclear whether Mr Putin would send Russian forces immediately.
In the face of a rapidly escalating threat of Russian invasion, just hours after US President Barack Obama had warned Russia there would be “costs” to any military intervention, Britain requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to be held a 2pm New York time, while EU foreign ministers will not meet until Monday.
William Hague, UK foreign secretary, summoned the Russian ambassador, and Nato’s secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen weighed in on Twitter saying there here was an “urgent need for de-escalation in Crimea.”
But so far, international efforts to defuse the crisis have achieved nothing. As thousands of pro-EU protesters huddled on Kiev’s main square, the country’s national security and defence council met for consultations.
Speaking by phone from the discussions, Hryhory Nemyria, a close aide to Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, said: “The west’s reaction has been too little and too late allowing the situation to escalate to outright aggression. Diplomacy must not only intensify, but having heard President Obama last night warn that there will be a price for Russian military intervention, the time has come for that price to be elaborated,” he added.
On this topic
Klitschko calls for mobilisation to ‘save’ Ukraine
Gazprom may raise gas prices for Ukraine
Obama warns Moscow over Ukraine
Russia in a bind over Yanukovich
The Russian president’s move came after Ukraine’s government and foreign observers said an invasion in Crimea, the majority Russian-populated peninsula in Southern Ukraine, was already under way. The interim Ukrainian government, which has the support of the country’s army, has yet to respond directly to Moscow’s decision, though it has repeatedly said it won’t be drawn into a broader conflict by these “provocations”.
Mr Putin said in a statement: “Due to the extraordinary situation in Ukraine, which has threatened the lives of citizens of the Russian Federation, our compatriots, the personnel of the military contingent of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation located […] on the territory of Ukraine, […] I am requesting the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation to approve use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine to the normalisation of the political situation in this country.”
“This action is a potentially grave threat to the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine. We condemn any act of aggression against Ukraine.
– William Hague, UK foreign secretary
Interfax quoted deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin as saying: “The consent our president received does not mean that it will be exercised quickly.”
Thousands of pro-Russian protesters gathered in eastern Ukraine’s largest cities including Kharkiv and Donetsk, calling for unification with Russia and describing Kiev’s current leadership as illegitimate. Russian media reported that Russian flags had been raised in three more Ukrainian towns.
A local Russian government official claimed that people from several regions of Ukraine were fleeing to Russia because they feared the new government in Kiev.
Although as a non-Nato country, Ukraine does not fall under the alliance’s common defence treaty, Kiev signed a “charter of a distinctive partnership” with Nato in 1997 that committed the alliance to supporting Ukrainian “sovereignty and independence.”
“Russia must respect Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and borders, including with regard to movement of Russian forces in Ukraine.”
– Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato secretary-general
while there were a few hundred pro-Russia demonstrators who began chanting “Russia! Russia!”, while carrying larger-than-life Russian flags above their heads, while parading down Sevastopol’s main streets, many residents continued going about their every day business and there was no sense of panic.
The Ukrainian government, before Moscow gave the green light to send troops to Ukraine, protested to Russia over incursions by the government’s troops and said that a de-facto military invasion of the peninsula was under way.
Arseniy Yatseniuk, Ukraine’s newly-appointed prime minister called upon Russia to “immediately pull back” its troops in Crimea and “not provoke”. Otherwise “responsibility for the stand-off will lie solely on the Russian side and personally on its leadership”.
Earlier in the day, Sergey Aksyonov, the new Russia-friendly Crimean prime minister, whose government has been denounced by Mr Yatseniuk, confirmed that armed men guarding buildings and patrolling the streets were Russian soldiers.
In the morning, the Russian foreign ministry had accused “prominent political circles in Kiev” of trying to violently seize control of the interior ministry in Crimea, a claim denied by local police and residents.
Earlier, Mr Aksyonov had declared he was taking control of local security and police forces which were earlier subordinated to the central government.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5e71a73c-a12a-11e3-b721-00144feab7de.html#axzz2ukFIi2bY
You can register for free on FT with limited access. 8 articles a month I think. The above is the only Ukraine related article on their front page.
John Goss’s information reinforces my concerns about what lies behind the “evidence” of Moazzam’s supposed illegality. Guano’s question about the meaning of “Tonyish” is largely rhetorical. I would just add that I think it dangerous to regard Blair and others – Jack Straw, David Cameron, William Hague – as being solely motivated by self-interest.
Cynics are also idealists [and vice-versa], like Guano, Craig, John Goss, Mary, Resident Dissident, me and others. Blair’s toxicity and that of his ilk is due far more to his misguided idealism – allied to his considerable and genuine ability to articulate his arguments – than to his and Cherie’s love of lucre and celebrity. Attributing base motivation to others is a principle cause of failure in both personal and political relationships. BioDiplomacy listens and watches, but judges by deeds not words.
How is the exploitation of the poor irrelevant?
Herbie, in the Charles Moore link Tonyish is how Blair is describing his own decisions in his memoirs. A cross between Tony and selfish, smugly used about his own callous megalomania.
Guano…
Well Done for getting along to the demonstration, and John Too
i was telling friends about it… one of them alerted me to it being on the news ” that guy you were talking about is on ” Total Gov.com Propaganda… And NOT ONE WORD about the Protest… i said to them 100% proof of what i’ve been telling you about MSM
good question Tabitha, how do they indeed keep on suffering,how will the human psyche evolve faced with full frontal glogalisation and cultural excesses.
Why, oh why can we not disconnect from the political and unite on the cultural level?
I was the election agent to Bushra Irfan in Blackburn, the first ever Muslim woman candidate in town, and I can report to anyone that the electoral system is fraudulent to the extend that it is geared towards party political survival and the ar.. licking of the establihment.
How come unpopular celebrities are dropped by the BBC whilst the worst dregs you can scrape out of a party political corner can act/do/ and say as they like? however unpopular they are.
The BBC will love them and promote them, however unpopular or sordid,or fraudulent, or unrepresentative of their constituency, however much they kicked their voters.
Party politics, the establishement, their life suckering schmarotzers/ are all presented as a big fat game to us.
Worst of all, we are compliant, talk about what they want us to talk about and we suck eggs, continously.
I have listened to a quiet and contented Moazzam Begg when he came to Blackburn for a charity event, and we were faced with Jack Straws intimidations and local Government harrassments, him in desperation calling in the troops from Glasgow, his emminence the most dodgy Mohammed Sarwar, trying to counter the press publicity, making out that Moazzam was an outsider, a terrorist and sucking up to Jacks vitals.
He is not an outsider, buit an ordinary family man who would love to be living a normal but engaged life. I have not been In Birmingham, hope it went OK.
Iain
If you are correct about Blair’s motivation, why has that idealistic motivation kicked in and self-corrected the man? Why has he not detached himself from Israel and Zionism? Why has he not detached himself from banking de-regulation and Victorian corporate bullying?
Are you commending him as a Middle-East envoy because he he has learnt how overlook bad motivation and therefore to engage very political Muslim and very political Zionist elements into war.
He is a good warmonger? He is a good ignorer of the ordinary people? He is a good stoker of human destruction and misery?
Bloody good chap on a par with Churchill. The Bulldog one-year-old baby savager every patriotic Englishman should keep in his bedroom?
He knew perfectly well, as we did, that Iraq would self-destruct if the dictator was removed and Petraus and others could lay enough false-flag bombs to set off a sectarian war.
And he also knew perfectly well, as we did not know, that Al Qaida whom he personally used in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan, wanted to fight that internecine war to purify Islam from Sufism, Shi’ism, polytheism, and general corruption, because they were unable to win their arguments by logic and good behaviour, except by war assisted by Western political and military force.
Well, what a pair of bloody heroes. Thanks for Tony Blair and George Bush.
Error. Why has it not kicked in?
Guano, I don’t think Iain Orr is praising Blair so much as looking for diplomatic means of crossing impenetrable barriers and making judgments on action rather than rhetoric. I was amused, but not surprised, to read of Blair trying to convince the guy who tried to arrest him of his motives behind what we all consider to be war-crimes, adn Blair does not. I too think Blair has (had) an outstanding brain, was (is) very articulate. I also believe that he wasted his talents and caused misery worldwide. I no not believe that Blair and others are solely motivated by self-interests. They already have more wealth in financial terms than any individuals ought to possess and they are working for perpetuating an elite in which they believe. This is where Iain is coming from.
http://www.biodiplomacy.net/
However I don’t know whether biodiplomacy can work if somebody steals your island, like the US did with the Chagos islands to build yet another US base. And like they are doing with Jeju island. And like the prime minister of Haiti, Laurent Lamothe, with the aid of Qatari money is trying to do to the islanders of Ile a Vache.
http://newsjunkiepost.com/2014/03/01/land-grab-at-ile-a-vache-haitis-peasants-fight-back/
I realise this is going off topic but if Iain Orr thinks he can help the islanders of Ile a Vache, Dady Chery, I am sure, would like to hear from him.
Blair never had an outstanding brain. When he was surrounded by the brilliant, hand-picked graduates of the UK lying bastard Crown, he had a perspective on political intrigue and dirty national-interest tricks which was well ahead of the game. But after they dumped him, as all politicians get dumped after they have been used to take the blame, he was nothing.
Basically if you do not use power and influence to further the cause of good in this world, you have no friends when you lose them again. I am not being idealistic. I hate seeing those who are imbued with power for a short period of time spending that time donning affectations of arrogance instead of using that power to bring about their inner dreams.
Using power to carpet-bomb Afghanistan, driving millions into refugee camps from which many have never returned, or to sink 20 metre holes into the city of Baghdad, destroying civil society for the benefit of Israel, were not what he aspired to. So why does he not try to continue to strive for his aspirations now he is free from those conniving bastards in No 10?
If he ever had them.
Oh, the blackmail..Yes, what goes around, comes around. You set up a spy-state, and you end up getting caught in the frame.
Thanks for the update on Straw ‘per et fils’. Nothing surprises me about the dynastic enterprises of the (so-called) Labour Party. What amazes me is that anyone can see this elitist cabal as representatives of the “hard working” people of Britain.
I notice that P. Hewitt is having her CV raked over at the moment and a whole heap of non-exec directorships and other high earning sinecures has been turned out for our delectation.
Iain Orr: ‘Cynics are also idealists … Blair’s toxicity and that of his ilk is due far more to his misguided idealism – allied to his considerable and genuine ability to articulate his arguments – than to his and Cherie’s love of lucre and celebrity. Attributing base motivation to others is a principle cause of failure in both personal and political relationships. BioDiplomacy listens and watches, but judges by deeds not words.’
Hmmm. I think Blair’s a psychopath. That’s judging by his deeds. As his words are generally emollient platitudes. we can safely ignore the sense of those completely, while vigorously resisting the temptation to construe them as having any meaning with which we can agree. (They can usually have any meaning we choose). Like any other utterly self-obsessed manipulator, he has plausible excuses for his actions – largely based in the perception that states which are trading are unlikely to be at war. It’s a perception which goes down well with the rich merchant class of which he would like to be a member. But it ignores any consideration of the converse: countries which are at war are most unlikely to start trading, and a slippery, obviously partisan, foreign ex-politician with form for starting wars himself is hardly likely to alter matters.
Blair isn’t a cynic. He believes unquestioningly every word issuing from his own lips. If he didn’t, he couldn’t sell anyone anything. He’s a conman.
In response to Guano and others, and to pick up on John Goss, I am no apologist for Tony Blair. I never voted for him and the legacy of his time in Government has been largely deplorable. That said, I give him and his ministers credit for some good legislation, on gender/ race issues and also on Freedom of Information, though he has since disowned the latter – and in office sought to weaken the impact of FoI.
Domestically, there may be a few other areas (education, health) where he deserves some credit for good intentions; but for the most part the results have not matched the intentions, largely because of adopting practices which have allowed the destructive elements of the Thatcher years to become deeply rooted, especially the application to public service and policy areas of inappropriate and misunderstood models from the private sector.
On foreign policy the legacy has been dire, partly because of Blair’s missionary zeal for liberal intervention (wrong even in cases which are often mistakenly thought to have been successful, like Sierra Leone); and continuing reliance on the cynical doctrine that “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”. It would have taken real courage to tell George W. that 9/11 provided NO justification for a war on Iraq fuelled primarily by the psychological need of a reformed frat-boy to show he could achieve what his father had failed to (and do a good turn for the US oil industry).
I don’t see the need as being, as John Goss suggests, to look for “diplomatic means of crossing impenetrable barriers”; more, that effective diplomacy means needing to understand the conscious motivation of both enemies and friends when they see the world differently. Yes, people are hypocritical; but the way to expose hypocrisy is to show up the inconsistency between the claimed motivation and the actual results of action or inaction. That is precisely what those of us campaigning for justice for the Chagossians have been doing for years … and perhaps making some progress. Please support the Chagossians by joining the demonstration on 31 March at the Royal Courts of Justice from 10.00am, when an appeal will be heard against the Tribunal decision last year that David Miliband’s declaration of a Chagos Marine Protected Area on 1 April 2010 was lawful. This issue is complex and those who want to follow it closely should look at
https://sites.google.com/site/thechagosarchipelagofacts/home
[NB the date will need to be checked closer to the time on the Royal Courts of Justice Case List]
Aidworker1.
Sorry, the correct link for ‘Some very interesting info about the (false flag ‘terrorism’ attributed to the) GIA’ is here.
Read the 5 pages of that thread & see how the case in the UK courts against the three Algerians Sofiane Kebilene, Sofiane Souidi & Farid Boukemiche collapsed after an MI5 informant refused to appear in court after evidence which senior ministers tried to suppress revealed that Algerian government forces were involved in atrocities against innocent civilians.
The Algerian secret service (the DRS) systematically infiltrated groups such as the GIA and from 1992 onwards launching fake guerrilla groups, including death squads disguised as Islamists. In 1994, the DRS managed to place someone it controlled (Jamel Zitouni), at the head of the GIA.
& a coupla things re Jack Straw:
Jack Straw, whose ‘Procedural Farce‘ in the House of Commons on 9th November 2009 forced through the Coroners and Justice Bill & paved the way for the use of secret inquests for the coronial system…
Jack Straw he who confirmed the existence of the UK “Secret State in League with Dark Forces in the United States”
Thanks for that clarification Iain. Thanks also for information about the Chagossian demonstration on the 31st.
On the subject of dispossessed islanders did you get time to look at the link to islanders of Ile a Vache.
http://newsjunkiepost.com/2014/03/01/land-grab-at-ile-a-vache-haitis-peasants-fight-back/
If there is any way you think they may helped I should like to hear of it.
One of the three people arrested at the same time as Moazzam Begg, Gerrie Taharie, will appear in court today charged with I think the Midlands News reader said “activities in Syria”. The word terrorism was not mentioned.