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| In article <memo.20060111120515.804N@veloceraptor.free-online.co.uk>,
alan@veloceraptor.free-online.co.uk (Alan) wrote:
> In article <dq20ni$5sm$1@domitilla.aioe.org>, 1c3m4n@gl4c13r.0rg (Iceman)
> wrote:
>
>
> Yes, but I live in the U.K.
>
>
> I hope they lock them both up and throw away the key.
>
> Now do come on Iceman. Don't try the paranoid games with me. That fire at
> Buncefield knocked New Labour's web-site off-line cos they are too stupid to
> even have back-up. My sister-in-law worked for the Inland Revenue and she
> told me all the troubles they have with their system. The C.S.A. is one
> all-mighty cock-up, and the number of times you hear about them struggling to
> get their systems up and running at the dole-office is beyond belief. This
> isn't America. The whole system stumbles along from one XXXX-up to another,
> and if you have been here then you know that is true. The British Government
> couldn't run a piss-up in a brewery. And in this country, I have the right to
> be a communist if I like, or I have the right to be in the B.N.P. if I like.
> I actually voted Conservative last time, and in case you haven't noticed, the
> Conservatives opposed the war, and both the Conservatives and the Lib-Dems
> have promised to remove identity cards, and like I said on my web-page, I can
> just imagine the chaos at Heathrow aiport the first time their wonderful
> proposed system goes down. All it usually takes is a decent thunderstorm and
> with all this "global warming", we do seem to be getting more of them.
>
> So why should they be watching me in particular, when only 1/3 of the voting
> population voted New Labour to begin with; and even his own party members,
> who are supposedly left-wing, opposed the war and have been deserting the
> party in droves? They have got an awful lot of watching to do in this
> country. I haven't broken any laws by expressing opinions. Look at what the
> left-wing Guardian is saying today:
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnist...1683657,00.html
>
> Listening to Tony Blair talk about his "respect agenda" yesterday, I wondered
> if he was losing his marbles. What is "investing in good behaviour"? When was
> "spitting at old ladies always a crime"? We have had this drivel for eight
> years.
>
> That's the left-wing saying that; the ones who voted that twat in.
>
> and look at the letters:
>
> http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq...1683568,00.html
>
> General Rose also speaks for me.
>
> I take my hat off to Gen Michael Rose. Finally a senior military commander
> has spoken of the idiocy of the war in Iraq (Comment, January 10). Perhaps
> others, such as Gen Michael Walker, will only do so after their retirement.
> As a retired infantry captain who served in Iraq in 2004, Gen Rose has spoken
> for me and countless other officers and soldiers whom I served alongside. We
> wondered what on earth we were doing risking both our lives and those of our
> men every day; we knew there was no justification for war.
>
> This guy is also British military. Do you think that military inteligence are
> going to be taking any interest in me when their own people are opposed to
> the war?
>
> And the Blair Impeachment Newsfeed is such fun to watch:
>
> http://newsnow.co.uk/newsfeed/?name=Blair+Impeachment
>
> But in the States, all those rich folks are going to be putting their money
> into keeping Bush in power, while Blair is become ever and ever more isolated
> over here. Now if you told me that the CIA were watching me, then I might
> believe it, especially as I have been supporting Code Pink, SOAW, and The
> Catholic Workers, but am I worried about the U.K. government? No! Like I
> said, they couldn't manage a piss-up in a brewery.
>
> http://theawaremind.com/videos/EveryBreath.wmv
Oh yes *Liceman* and this is what One of Britain’s top judges, the recently
retired Lord Steyn, said:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/d.../stey-d08.shtml
One of Britain’s top judges, the recently retired Lord Steyn, said Tuesday that
the Bush administration’s policy of rendition and its treatment of detainees at
Guantánamo are war crimes. He added that anyone who knowingly participates in or
facilitates such practices is also guilty.
Steyn was interviewed by Channel 4 news presenter Jon Snow on December 6
regarding the CIA’s practice of kidnapping and flying terrorist suspects through
European airports to secret detention centres outside the US, where they are
subject to torture.
According to press reports, such “black sites” have been located in at least
eight countries, including two former Soviet bloc countries in Eastern Europe.
Some media reports have identified those countries as Poland and Romania, and
ABC television in the US said terrorist suspects being held there were moved to
facilities in North Africa only last week, ahead of the European trip by US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Steyn dismissed Rice’s assertion that existing international law was unsuited
for dealing with twenty-first century terrorism, and said her claim that the US
was not involved in torture could not be sustained.
“Specifically, when you refer to torture it is very important to know what is
meant by torture,” he said. “I’m speaking purely as a lawyer. The US
administration has adopted a definition of torture which is extremely narrow. It
involves causing death, total organ failure and so forth. The true definition is
much wider and it includes coercive questioning.”
Questioned by Snow as to whether the US military camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba
was a “template for what is happening,” Steyn replied, “I think Guantánamo Bay
is the clue to much of what we have seen unravelled even over this weekend. We
have seen a scale of lawlessness unravel which in my opinion is the logical
extension of Guantánamo Bay, because Guantánamo Bay involved taking prisoners
from Afghanistan, and many other places, to an island where there would be a
lawless black hole where they can never escape from, where they have no right to
trial. This logically is not very different from what the Americans call
rendition which, in truth, is abduction. It is not authorised by international
law and the connection between this and Guantánamo Bay is very close.”
Snow was asked whether Rice’s assertion that the practise of rendition was legal
was valid. Steyn replied emphatically, “It is undoubtedly not legal.” All
prisoners “must be dealt with in accordance with the Geneva Conventions,” he
said, and “the Geneva Convention is not something you can opt into or opt out as
you like. Those are binding conventions.”
Regarding the Bush administration’s claim that those it was holding in
Guantánamo and elsewhere were not prisoners of war, but illegal combatants
because they did not wear uniforms, Steyn said he could not accept this. “In any
event, if the Geneva Conventions are not binding, then customary international
law is of the same effect.” This body of law “binds the United States and it
binds the United Kingdom government,” he added.
Snow put it to Steyn that “Even the British government has gone some way to
saying what is happening is legal.”
Steyn replied, “Well, it is true that the British government has said through
the defence secretary that what the Americans are doing in Guantánamo Bay is
legal, but that is a very surprising thing for the British government to have
said. I have a copy here of what the defence secretary said. Mr Hoon said:
‘There is no doubting the legality in the way these combatants have been
imprisoned.’ He added: ‘There is no doubting the legality of the US to move them
for trial.’ That’s at Guantánamo Bay. That’s a very surprising thing for the
British government to have said, and I’m not sure the British government would
want that to be repeated today.”
Steyn accepted Snow’s point that the “international legal system has so far
totally failed” to hold the Bush administration to account.
“That is true, of course,” he replied, noting that a ruling by the US Supreme
Court in favour of Guantánamo detainees had been essentially reversed by a
subsequent decision “to the effect that it was lawful to try these prisoners by
military commissions on the island.”
The cumulative effect of Guantánamo and rendition “is lawlessness on a truly
grand scale,” he continued, adding that this had set back all the precedents
upholding human rights that were established after the Second World War “for a
very, very long time.”
Steyn drew a direct connection to the international response to the crimes of
the Nazi regime in Germany. “I’m specifically referring to Nuremberg, to the
United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the
international covenants,” he continued.
He stated that the Bush administration’s flouting of international law has
“hugely damaged” institutions such as the International Criminal Court. However,
responsibility for this did not rest with the US alone. Those countries which
had allowed the US to take such actions could also face charges of war crimes,
he insisted.
The Nuremberg trials had established not only that those directly participating
in torture were guilty of war crimes, he explained. “The person who authorises
someone to do the beating may be guilty of torture and of a war crime. And
what’s more, somebody who set up a system calculated to cause such events to
take place himself could be guilty of war crimes.
“... If prisoners are tortured at Guantánamo Bay or at black sites—if they
are—those who commit those acts will be guilty of war crimes, and those who
authorise it can be similarly guilty of a war crime.”
Moreover, if the British government, or any others, knew that planes landing at
airports under their jurisdiction contained detainees that might be tortured,
“there is the risk that the British authorities may themselves be guilty of war
crimes,” he said.
Steyn suggested that this might be difficult to prove retroactively. In fact,
there is a wealth of evidence already in the public domain pointing to British
collaboration in US renditions. It is, moreover, impossible to believe that
British intelligence was unaware of the CIA flights. In any event, Britain, no
less than the US, is implicated in planning and carrying out a war of
aggression—the basic crime laid down in the indictment against Nazi leaders at
Nuremburg.
Steyn concluded: “From a legal perspective, I would say we are at least entitled
to ask of our government that it must stand up to the international rule of law,
that it must do so unambiguously and publicly. That necessarily involves that
there should be no kow-towing to the lawlessness of the US administration.”
In his interview, Steyn explained that one of his major concerns was that
America’s actions “have outraged a very large part of the world.” He continued,
“They’ve outraged the devout Muslim world, the moderate Muslim world. It is just
simply a fact that events, for example, like Abu Ghraib would have outraged
moderate Muslims throughout the world.”
Steyn speaks for a section of the British bourgeoisie that fears the
consequences of the unilateralist and reckless policies of the US and British
governments and their open disregard for international law. As seen in his
references to Nuremberg, he is concerned over the abrogation of the
international legal framework that helped maintain relatively peaceful and
stable relations between the major powers in the postwar period.
He is also concerned that trampling on democratic rights and undermining the
authority of the judiciary threatens social and political instability at home.
Steyn is now chairman of the human rights group Justice, and took a leading role
in opposing the Blair government’s efforts to criminalize the act of
“glorifying” terrorism, calling it an attack on free speech, as well as Prime
Minister Blair’s measures to extend the period in which a person can be held
without charge.
He denounced as a “fairy tale” Blair’s assertion following the July 7 terror
bombings in London that “the rules of the game are changing.” The “maintenance
of the rule of law is not a game,” he responded. “It is about access to justice,
fundamental human rights and democratic values.”
His concerns are shaped not only by his decade as one of the country’s senior
law lords. Steyn was born in South Africa in 1932. After studying at Oxford, he
returned there to establish a law practice in 1958.
He has written that the country’s legalised tyranny led to him to leave once
again in 1973, just three years before the Soweto uprising. As such, Steyn has
had direct experience of revolutionary consequences arising from a regime that
governs without democratic legitimacy. Steyn’s fear is that the Blair
government, in its repudiation of long-standing democratic norms, is fatally
undermining, both legally and ideologically, central pillars of bourgeois rule.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/d.../stey-d08.shtml
So *Liceman* if one of Britain’s top judges, the recently retired Lord Steyn, is
saying the same things that I am saying, do I need to be worrying that the
British police might be watching me? I'll have some good company in jail, won't
I? And of course, being a real Lord, he gets to vote in the House of Lords, and
I thank God that we still have a House of Lords to protect us from power-mad
politicians, who are just as dangerous as power-mad Kings. But of course, you
don't have a House of Lords in America, do you?
Lord Cerne Abbas
Humpty Dumpty Bush fell off the Iraq wall.
Humpty Dumpty Bush had a big fall.
All his spin doctors and all the President's men
couldn't put Humpty Dumpty Bush together again.
http://www.veloceraptor.free-online.co.uk/identity.html
http://www.veloceraptor.free-online.co.uk/mylinks.html
http://www.insurgent.org/~jhd/kookway.htm
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