There was never any doubt that the accusation of terrorism against Moazzam Begg was, once again, a tissue of politically motivated lies. What is still more appalling, I am told by a Home Office source that the decision to arrest and detain him was taken by Theresa May herself. This involvement of politicians in the abuse of individuals by the state is appalling.
Jacqui Smith did the same thing as Home Secretary, grandstanding about her role in the front page arrest of twelve Muslims in the North West of England, not one of whom was charged with any offence. The “bomb ingredient” the police found on that occasion turned out to be nothing but sugar.
Theresa May was lording it at the Tory party conference with a ludicrous speech about combating the “terrorist menace” which we are bombing Iraq to enhance, not decrease. At the same time as being acclaimed for further attacks on civil liberties, she was responsible for the completely unjustified imprisonment of the Muslim community’s most elegant spokesman against abuses, including torture, of state power against Muslims.
The other disgusting aspect of this case is the complicity of the judicial system with the state in the abuse of liberty by right wing politicians. There are no longer any effective checks on executive power in the British state. To cap this cycle of total power, Sky News last night were suggesting (and I understand behind the Murdoch paywall it is being propagated today) that Moazzam really is a terrorist and had been released as an appeasement to aid Islamic State British hostages. This total lie is a further snide attack by the terror state.
The truth of the persecution of Begg, who was detained to stop him researching British complicity in extraordinary rendition to Syria by Blair and Straw, is evidently something the Establishment does not want to enter a wider public consciousness.
In any decent society, Theresa May would have to resign over her involvement in the appalling mistreatment of Moazzam Begg. Instead she is touted as a future Prime Minister for the toughness on “terrorism”. That tells you everything about what a stinking, corrupt society the United Kingdom now has become.
Aidworker:
27. Refused to allow the UN Human Rights Rapporteur, Makarim Wibisono, into Gaza to pursue his enquiries. He had to do so by video links.
However, it didn’t stop him, er rapporting –
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/14441-un-rights-expert-says-israels-self-defense-claim-in-gaza-untenable-urges-accountability
A massive influx of cheap labour into the UK over the last 15 years.
A huge injection of liquidity into the financial system through Quantitative Easing.
And yet the UK economy managed a measly 0.9 growth in GDP in the last quarter.
British capitalism is fucked.
I wonder if PM Miliband would be tempted to stick with permanent war as a fillip like Obama has?
David Blair certainly has.
David, my information was that Moazzam Begg took generators to parts of Syria where there was no electricity. He informed the spooks before he went. I have only heard that. In the past he may have paid for arming people fighting Saddam Hussein but I also believe he long since put his past behind him.
Your analogy between Milton Mayer’s Nazi Germany and what is happening in the US/UK is spot on, and quite a few informed people can see it too. But the majority are bleaters and baa-baa-ers. What is tragic is that many of them are otherwise intelligent beings. They just turn a blind eye and believe the garbage spewed out by the main channels.
Moazzam Begg was investigating torture. One of the places where torture is said to have taken place during the extraordinary renditions is Syria. What probably happened was the spooks took his computers to see if he had anything on them. What degree of encrytion he uses I don’t know.
OldMark: Thanks for the correction.
BZ: You’re right about the hazards of boys with homemade fireworks. Lots of people have been hurt that way, which is why I forbade our kid from grinding high-impulse rocket fuel in a rock polisher in the basement — I figured we could all get blown up.
“Hasbara are trained at diverting the topic with completely off topic ridiculous posts.”
So let me see if I understand what you are saying here.
Hasbara are people who make posts which have nothing to do with the subject of the thread?
@Fred:
Then MI5 should have revealed the evidence to the police and prosecution services earlier.
If they had it earlier. But how would we ever know?
I don’t believe the evidence suddenly came to light on the morning of the pre-trial hearing. MI5 must have known about it all along.
Must have? That’s putting it more strongly than the evidence warrants. People may have their suspicions, but suspicions are no basis for ministerial resignation.
@ Mike
A massive influx of cheap labour into the UK over the last 15 years.
A huge injection of liquidity into the financial system through Quantitative Easing.
And yet the UK economy managed a measly 0.9 growth in GDP in the last quarter.
Is that so bad? Britain has gone from being a manufacturing nation to an importer of sweatshop goods. True the retail markups are much greater than the FOB cost of the Asian sweatshop products being sold, but whose to buy the stuff?
Heny Ford said he paid his workers the then magnificient sum of five dollars a day sop they could afford to buy a Model T Ford. But what are Britain’s out-of-work miners, former metal workers, etc., etc., supposed to use for money?
Under the circumstances, therefore, it is astonishing that the supposedly inflation adjusted GDP is not in sharp decline.
That said, things would obviously be better if Britain operated as a genuine nation state with a government serving the interests of the people of Britain rather than members of the globalist financial and commercial elite. Then Brits could resume making stuff for one another, gaining technological skills in the process and rewarding the kids able to do the hard subjects like math and engineering with job opportunities outside the military industrial complex.
But that will never happen. It would be racist! So long live the war on those pesky Muslim terrists.
It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that Begg had been working for a Western agency, knowingly or not. There was enough evidence to prosecute him, then there was more evidence, and then there wasn’t enough evidence? Suppose the new evidence was simply “he’s guilty as charged, but he was working for the white hats and his brief can prove it if necessary”? Just a thought. Without wishing to impugn him an any way.
“Must have? That’s putting it more strongly than the evidence warrants. People may have their suspicions, but suspicions are no basis for ministerial resignation.”
Why of course they are, always have been.
Unless you think an independent judicial inquiry would be mare appropriate? Find out exactly who did know what and when?
Maybe a few more heads could roll as well.
Seems establishment don’t trust the electorate in Scottland
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_8PnwQJhlU
“British jobs for British workers”, Canspeccy !
That old nostrum.
Re-localising production would be good for the planet and its inhabitants, yes. But I wouldn’t get all nationalistic about it.
First of all we have to break the power of hard centres like the City of London/Westminster construct. We failed to do that on 18th September. It’s those centres that are driving the current iteration of globalism.
“Seems establishment don’t trust the electorate in Scottland”
At least something good has come out of the referendum. It seems that a lot of people who registered to vote for the first time are now being pursued by councils for poll tax arrears:)
John and David
Like the Seven Commandments of Animal Farm and the pigs ‘unalterable laws’ of animalism
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal.
Squeeler gradually changes some of them in such a way that no one notices things being altered and principles eroded..giving more and more power and privileges to the PIGS!
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol to excess.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal without cause.
then
7. all animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others
“Now Russia is a more just society than UK.” (posted at 20h53):
Smirnov, I think you’ve had too much vodka.
Thatcherism and Poll Tax rears its ugly head yet again and that makes you happy Fred?
Doesn’t it worry you that our electoral process is as sound as a Banana Republics?Not a plus point for a western democracy is it?
Do your sheep sleep soundly way up there in your wee croft miles away from everywhere?
The witchhunt with poll tax wont happen Fred.You are going to be disappointed.
Mike/Canspeccy
I’d like to suggest the Harold Wilson nostrum: pragmatism. The little-England* Right and Socialist* Left are beginning to converge on what’s wrong. Even their solutions, as far as they go, are not incompatible. Drop the doctrinaire ideology, and what division’s left?
*shorthand descriptors, not intended offensively
Captain Komodo-Baal (cashiered)
“I learned recently that is now actually illegal to dismantle commercial fireworks, let alone make your own.”
__________________
Yes, you learned that by listening to the hated and reviled BBC earlier this week. It came up in a programme where the Professor of Explosive Chemistry at Cranfield was being interviewed.
Listening to the BBC, eh? That will never do.
“First of all we have to break the power of hard centres like the City of London/Westminster construct. We failed to do that on 18th September. It’s those centres that are driving the current iteration of globalism.”
___________________
The City of London/Westminster, Mike?
Some would say that globalisation is being driven by those countries with heavily export-orientated economies. Like China, for example.
You could say it’s pragmatic to invest heavily in our security apparatus, Bz. It might be pragmatic to repatriate lots of recent newcomers to the UK.
I’m sure you could even say it’s pragmatic to eradicate an entire section of society. It’s all in the justification. And pragmatism makes any rationale possible.
Ros:
“Please please boycott divest and sanction.
The movement is growing and we can isolate Israel.
Please ignore the growing Hasbara here.
_____________________________
Aidworker1
I couldn’t agree more, and yes there is a growing infestation.”
***********************
May I inquire who started posting about Israel/Palestine again (off-topic on this thread, which is supposed to be about Theresa May, terrorism and Moazzam Begg)??
But I concede that idealism has its risk too !
Aidworker1
“Thanks Republic,
Hasbara are trained at diverting the topic with completely off topic ridiculous posts.”
___________________________
So the people who started posting about Israel/Palestine on this thread, the topic of which was Theresa May , terrorism and Moazzam Begg, are Hasbara?
Lysias
“That the Warren Commission account of JFK’s assassination is absolutely false has indeed been proved, at greatest length in the 2,000-page, five-volume Inside the Assassination Records Review Board: The U.S. Government’s Final Attempt to Reconcile the Conflicting Medical Evidence in the Assassination of JFK, a retired career Navy officer who was Chief Analyst of Military Records of the Assassination Records Review Board, an offical body with subpoena powers that was established by Act of Congress that operated in the 1990′s.”
_______________________
Afraid not, old chap, it proves nothing of the sort.
All it proves, firstly, is the fact that there are two very voluminous reports out there, the one by the Warren Commission and the other by this chappie you mention, and secondly, that you disbelieve the first report but appear the believe the second.
But your belief – or disbelief – is not proof, is it.
I think I might be silent for the rest of the evening, this is like shooting fish in a barrel. Too easy and therefore almost boring. Ho Hum.
I find your denigration and name calling of people who come here to comment childish bullying. Habbakuk, you are insinuating that Mats, new here or not, is drunk on schnapps, you buffon.
You have hounded Mary until she had enough and when you can’t get your daily fix of spitting out your dummy at someone, you’re just not happy.
Go see someone and leave people alone you sad sack.
@Fred Are you trying to make some new friends with your smiley? laughing at someone who is being pursued by some overspending council administrations who waste money by the bucket, who have about as much idea of business nous, as a horse has of making coffee, and you find that funny?
Just don’t answer, Can’t be arsed Fred, you’re wasting your time here commenting, with your IQ you could be in charge of a kitchen towel, go do some washing up, relax, its all over now, despite the yes poster being kept up. Yill next time that is.
Loved your kitchen talk Ba;al, reminded me of a few moments of tree stump removals, it was hilarious, crafty and no cabbages were ever hurt during the making of.
Good boys go to bed at 11.30.
And pragmatism makes any rationale possible.
I’m talking about pursuing an already agreed rationale pragmatically. Probably too much to hope for, but I for one am sick of being told to work harder for less in order that someone whom I have never met can work less hard, or not at all, for more. That’s my rationale.
Issues like immigration – to create a ‘flexible’ (=quiescent) local workforce wherever globalism decides to hang its hat, not for any altruistic motive – aren’t simply resolvable by one-size-fits-all solutions. But given the remnants of a national identity, to further dilute it is to capitulate to the homogenising globalisers, and we do need to be selective and restrictive on this. Security-well, if you recognise the need for national</i. security, we're halfway there, aren't we? If you don't, you badly misjudge human nature, IMO.
Yes Fred, but are they being investigated for poll tax arrears by (Lab/Tory) Councils or to discourage others around Britain from re-entering the voting population?
Good night, Nevermind.
“Just don’t answer, Can’t be arsed Fred, you’re wasting your time here commenting, with your IQ you could be in charge of a kitchen towel, go do some washing ”
It didn’t take the Nationalists long to resort to ad hominem attacks and name calling did it?
Typical Nazi blackshirts.