There are several things which annoy the hell out of me regarding the ongoing ruckus over whether or not the British intelligence services have been spying on Kofi Annan and the UN generally, as alleged by Claire Short.
Firstly, the UN is nothing less than a logistics agency for tyrants around the world, insulating them from the economic consequences of their policies and ostensibly giving them equal standing with liberal human rights respecting regimes. Thus the notion that this institution’s leader, Kofi Annan, is some sainted figure beyond reproach (and beyond espionage) is both bizarre and repugnant. If we are to get any value from our pilfered tax money at all, I would hope some of it is spent spying on the corrupt functionaries at the United Nations.
Secondly, whilst I will defer to our in-house lawyer David Carr as to whether Claire Short’s actions constitute treason, at the very least I can only marvel how she was not immediately charged under the Official Secrets Act and thrown in jail… but silly me, I forgot there is one rule for the political, establishment and another everyone else.
You and me both, Perry. You and me both.
If you want your blood pressure to shoot up dangerously, go to the BBC’s Have Your Say where every pinko tranzi moron with a vague grasp of English has written in, heart aflutter with righteous wrath, about the injustice perpetrated on that pillar of truth and spiritual beauty, Kofi Annan. Frankly, they opine, it may even be against this famous “international law” that doesn’t exist save in their fevered tranzi imaginations.
Given that the UN is probably the most corrupt organisation in history and that at least two-thirds of Kofi Annan’s clients are third world thugs, chancers and kleptomaniacs responsible for untold human misery, one certainly hopes that he is being spied on by other nations with somewhat more robust leaders than Tranzi Blair. I suspect the French have a very realistic handle on Mr Annan.
Clair Short, in my opinion, has a long history of treachery; towards her child, her political party; her Prime Minister, her country. But most of all, to her gender: any woman who has apparently spent a lifetime devoted to becoming a body-double of Mao Zedong is unworthy of the designation ‘female’. But this time she has surely pressed the self-destruct button. Even if Glum Gordie or Rorbin Kuke were to succeed their great and glorious leader in the ensuing shake-out, surely neither would be prepared to grant office to an advocate of scorched earth politicking who has a startling resemblance to the erstwhile Father of Communist China and author of the Little Red Book.
As for the UN, it is hardly possible to pen a more succinct and coruscating condemnation than that already posted by the valiant Verity. Perfect!
Good point about the UN as the Tyrants logistics agency. Let’s also remember that they also provide catering services for terrorists.
The UK may not be spying on Kofi Annan and Co. They may instead be intercepting the transcripts or signals from other people’s bugs. Or getting the data from a 3rd party with their agreement.
Just a theory that would explain why Blair and Co can say We’re abiding by International Law and why it was so utterly stupid of Ms Short to reveal the existence of transcripts.
Alan Brain – No, it wasn’t “utterly stupid” of Short to reveal the transcripts. It was utterly treasonous. That she thought she was going to further her career by so doing was utterly stupid; but revealing even an insignificant detail about how the intelligence services work was the knowing work of a traitor.
Will Blair punish her? Oh, please! Help me up off the carpet where I fell down laughing! He’s frightened of Claire Short for some reason. He has never reprimanded her for any of her disgraceful performances. Strange, that.
Also, if you want utter stupidity, you can find it in the statement: We’re abiding by international law. What international law? Through what governing international body was it legislated? By whom is it enforced? Details, please.
Does the UN have secrets? Isn’t it supposed to be open and transparent? What sinister secrets do they harbour ? Couldn’t those transcripts be had by just asking for them ?
“UN as the Tyrants logistics agency” ???
The UN is a tyrants support & finance agency, including moral and political support.
Spying is not enough. Spec-ops and sabotage teams are required.
Why did Short have access to this sort of information? Of what use was it to her in her job? There has been some sloppy handling of highly classified intelligence. Short needs to be investigated, but so do the procedures by which she got access to the information.
Short should go to jail.
Why did Short have access to this sort of information? Of what use was it to her in her job? There has been some sloppy handling of highly classified intelligence. Short needs to be investigated, but so do the procedures by which she got access to the information.
Short should go to jail for a Long time.
Indeed. The world has come to a sorry state of affairs if the British (and Americans) cannot spy on a NIGERIAN working at the UNITED NATIONS 😉
Of course we’re spying on the UN. We started from the founding meeting in SF, which was probably about as wired, bugged and intercepted a meeting as every existed on the face of the Earth.
The UN is based in NYC for one primary reason. So it is easier for us to intercept.
First off, who in their right minds would give Claire Short security clearance? Madness!
Secondly, as far as I can tell, her outburst is a direct infringment of S1 of the Official Secrets Act. Surely someone in her circle must have known that? Perhaps they are banking on the ‘martyrdom’ effect of a prosecution.
Well, I say we give it to them. In fact, it might be a good idea to start fund-raising for the legal costs – for her prosecution.
“cannot spy on a NIGERIAN working at the UNITED NATIONS”
Kofi Annan is Ghanaian. Small difference, I know.
David Carr – As a member of the Cabinet, wasn’t she granted privy counsellor status or something automatically? (I’m asking; don’t know. Because otherwise, of course, you are ragingly correct.) There was a piece on her in yesterday’s Telegraph by one Brian Wilson, Blair’s representative or something in Iraq, and I was surprised to see that a socialist could wield such a fine scalpel dripping with vitriol. They’re usually wielders of blunter instruments. Here’s the opening paragraph: “Clare Short was in her favourite mode – striding towards the Millbank studios, the burden of martyrdom imprinted upon her countenance, haughtily brushing aside photographers as if they were irksome impediments to the march of truth. We had seen it all before.” I recommend it, because it gets meaner.
David, I think Clare’s martyrdom days are not just dead but have already been cremated and her ashes scattered. She is totally isolated. And, of course, she should be prosecuted, in my unlawyerly opinion.
And so should that vapid, self-righteous scold Katherine Gunn, who decided to take on herself a task reserved in democracies for elected representatives. Who the hell is she to betray the taxpayer funded service she worked for? Why did this harridan think her judgement was superior to that of her superiors? Why did she think it was OK to betray her employers, the British taxpayers?
Equally important, why didn’t they proceed with the prosecution? Was it because they feared what she had in her power to reveal? In that case, one pinko malcontent can bring down the intelligence service of an entire country. I seldom do this, but once again on this thread, I will speak up for France. It may no longer be an option to find her floating face down in the Seine, which is a shame, but I believe the French would not have chickened out in the prosecution of this awful woman.
And worse, for anyone who didn’t read it, when she told her superior she was going to betray Britain, her superior “gave her a hug and a shoulder to cry on”.
I love it. Pro-liberty Perry is now throwing around that favorite charge of govt under fire: treason. Why? Because the info revealed reflects poorly on Perry’s precious war (in the minds of others, at least), so principles be damned. Official Secrets Act? Lovely name for a bill, but useful when used against opponents of Perry’s War. I said before that Perry was simply vomiting out the same pro-govt arguments for his war that the left uses for socialized medicine. Now Perry drifts further toward a final loving embrace of The State by accepting just a little bit more, then just a little bit more, then just a little bit more, all because each step is necessary in protecting the war.
If we don’t care about spying against the UN, why should we care if someone spills UK govt secrets?
Scott your a muppet…you have to have standards of some secrecy during the time of war. (We are truly at war with the Islamo-kazis.) Why do some of you seem to insist that in order for libertarians to remain consistent they have to surrender to the enemy. Short and that stupid cow at GCHQ signed their name to the Official Secrets act and they breached it.
We should care about spying on the UN because they a judenhass organisation that continues to help the enemies of the US & UK at these two country’s expense. They consistently moddy-coddle tyrants, terrorists and judenhass. It amazes me that the US hasn’t told them to leave the US. The only possible reason to keep them in New York is to keep an eye on them.
Did revealing this info help any terrorist plan an attack, or is your justification simply that revealing this would cause some loss of political support for the war by causing some loss of political support for the govt that’s fighting it?
When I complain that Bush and Blair lied us into the Iraq war, Perry says “who cares, they all lie”. OK then, I don’t care if Short and Gun signed the act then violated it, because nobody in govt can be trusted anyway.
Or does that only work when it benefits the War Party?
Scott,
Re: Official Secrets Act
The nature of the weapon is nowhere near as important as the nature of the foe you are deploying it against.
So political opponents are now lumped in w/ terrorists, and revealing what the govt is doing is the same as mass murder?
Actually Scott, I would regard it as having reflected badly on ‘my’ war (I love that bit) if the British were not spying on that toxic organisation. For me it seems there is indeed such a thing as treason and in any minarchist libertarian utopia that would continue to be the case. Of course the devil is in the details and yes, the charge of treason is often used to just mean opposing the policy of the ruling government. However what Clair Short did was materially different and involved undermining a core national capability (foreign espionage). I regard that sort of thing as one of the few legitimate functions of state and any state which wants to survive in the real world now or in any forseeable future, will need to be able to spy on people who are quite obviously ‘the bad guys’.
It is strange how some ‘libertarians’ find the need to side with ghastly groups like the UN and the Ba’athists. Tyrants and their logistics providers have the strangest supporters these days.
Scott,
The Official Secrets Act is no use whatsoever against either terrorists or murderers.
It may, however, have some value when up against gobby, posturing lefty relics like Ms. Short
Interesting how I’m ‘siding’ w/ the Ba’athists by opposing your war (are you siding with disease by opposing socialized medicine?), but you’re not siding w/ every tyrant who ever lived by accepting what would be an obviously politically motivated prosecution. Saddam would have loved your logic.
One hears that the US govt spies on British citizens, and the UK govt spies on Americans, and both govts trade the info to get around limitations on domestic spying. Will you demand that people pointing that out be jailed, for “undermining a core national capability (foreign espionage)”?
Well yes, Scott, by opposing the overthrow of Ba’athism in Iraq, you were, um, siding with the Ba’athists. Or are you saying you were not siding with the Ba’athists, you just wanted things to happen so that they were not removed from power? And the difference is…
I oppose socialised medicine because I think there are better ways to fight disease (i.e. free market solutions). As I did not see any way to remove Saddam Hussain from power other than removing him from power at gunpoint, I supported the war on the basis that what followed was highly unlikely to be as bad as letting him remain in power. So far I have quite obviously been born out in that.
If you could come up with a better way which was plausible and did not actually involve going to war, I would be all for it. If you come up with a way to do tyranicide on the cheap for fun and profit, count me in as a happy investor. However until such a time, that pretty much leaves the US and UK militaries. You did not come up with any alternatives which did not in reality amount to doing nothing and neither did anyone else.
The phrase ‘flogging a dead horse’ comes to mind.
Which the left would call “doing nothing”, because you’re waiting for people to handle the issue themselves, while you consider letting the Iraqis handling their situation themselves as doing nothing.
If govt occupation was the solution to problems in Iraq, those problems would never have existed in the first place. Iraq turned out the way it did despite earlier British occupation, didn’t it? You’ve never given me any reason whatsoever to believe that occupation by countries that supported Saddam when he was at his mass-murdering height in the 80s will result in a free Iraq a generation from now (when the TV networks stop caring what happens there).
Put up or shut up about ‘tyranicide’; either support removing every tyrant and occuping every nondemocratic country on earth, or drop the argument. Liberals also say “give me an alternative that you can prove to my personal satisfaction is better or support my govt program.”
You’re also neatly sidestepping the original issue of this post – you (and David Carr) calling for an obviously politically motivated criminal prosecution of people who released info embarassing to war supporters.
“Tyrants logistics agency”
“tyrants support & finance agency”
Personally I like Brutal Dictators Employment Security Agency, but yours are good too! A little wordy maybe?
I’m waiting for Bush to turn Iraq over to the hated UN just to hand the problem off before the November elections.
Sorry Scott but your argument is far weaker than I have ever seen you try before. Claire Short did reveal an intelligence operation, probably an ongoing one in fact, using privileged info she had access to. That is not an invention of the government; it is what she has done in her own words. How prosecuting her for that is a ‘political’ prosecution is not clear to me. She has clearly broken a law and violated a contractual undertaking. But as you think she should not be prosecuted for that, I guess you really do think there should be one law for the political class and another for everyone else. I expect you will probably get your wish.
There are plenty of examples of realistic private sector health alternatives that could be implemented tomorrow which I can point at. Can you show me a realistic private sector alternative that would have gotten rid of Saddam that did not involve waiting for him to die of old age? As for using force against other tyrannies (and please, since when have I been a democracy fetishist? I want to end tyrannies, not start democracies), sure, I would indeed be quite happy to see as many tyrannies put to the sword as possible and I have said so in the past on many occasions.
Every one on earth? Ideally, yes, but we have to be realistic as be do not live in an ideal world and one does not want to spread the volunteer military too thin. North Korea, Cuba, Syria, Burma, Zimbabwe would be a nice start however. North Korea might be too late if they have nukes (loosing Seoul is too high a price), but Syria could be done with forces ‘in-theatre’, Cuba should have been done with the fine folks in Florida (whilst Bay of Pigs was a fiasco, it should have just been the first in a series of annual armed émigré invasions of Cuba until Castro’s number finally came up). The last two could be done almost entirely with sundry eager locals who just need some logistic support.
Of course some places are just too strong and have nuclear weapons to ‘do an Iraq’ on (such as China), but sending weapons to Tibet would be a nice start. I realise that is not going to happen however.
Sure, if we could wave a magic wand and undo the past idiocies which created these messes, that would be great. But barring some tachyonic technological breakthrough, we are faced with tyrannies like Saddam Hussain in the here-and-now. Your solution is… well you don’t have one other that just ignor these monsters, just so long as they aint in on your patch.
Regardless of whether Ms. Short damaged the particular operation, it may be of much greater (albeit unintentional) service to our cause that the average citizen has been made aware that Britain is bugging the UN. If the conventional wisdom becomes “Claire Short’s revelation of our covert operations against the UN amounts to treason”, this tends to legitimize the covert operations, which could conceivably lead to more overt opposition to the UN.
Perry…. you ask Scott: “Can you show me a realistic private sector alternative that would have gotten rid of Saddam that did not involve waiting for him to die of old age?” Maybe not, but it turns out we didn’t need one; our democratic governments were lying to our volunteer armies about the threat Saddam posed.
On the idea that the voluntary nature of the armed forces justifies whatever action of noble intent they pursue: Soldiers sign on (for whatever reason), and thereafter they are kept in the service by force. I needn’t explain how the willingness of our soldiers to go on this adventure would have dissipated had its true nature — that of unmitigated self-sacrifice — been shared with them.
And, Scott, you’ll appreciate this link: Lew Rockwell hit it out of the park in his just-reposted demolition of the rationale for the first Iraq war.
>>If you could come up with a better way which was plausible and did not actually involve going to war, I would be all for it. If you come up with a way to do tyranicide on the cheap for fun and profit, count me in as a happy investor.
No problem: If the tyrant is a serious enough threat, simply have Congress issue a Letter of Marque and Reprisal against the tyrant (say, Mr. Hussein), with a small reward for his capture or execution. How about a reward of, say, ONE BILLION DOLLARS? That’s a 99% savings over the cost of Gulf War II + occupation by central-planning Pentagon statists.
For ONE BILLION DOLLARS the Mossad would do it in a matter of months. (They were strongly considering hitting Mr. Hussein anyway.) That’s enough dough to pay their annual budget, retire the operatives involved to Fiji, hire new staff AND recarpet the office.
Lets look at the benefits: It’s constitutional! It’s faster! It’s CHEAPER. No state-corporatist corruption of Iraq during the lack of foreign occupation!
For those of you who REALLY don’t want to get the state involved, why not just PUT OUT A PRIVATE CONTRACT on the dictator’s ass. To quote the Godfather, “If history has taught us anything, if anything in this life is certain, it’s that you can kill anyone.” The dictator, whoever he is, is just a man. And a single 30-06 round through the skull will kill him just as surely as it would us.
Let’s get those Swiss bank accounts put to some productive use. Let everyone who has been screwed over by the dictator (and lived to talk about it) put into the pool. Let the pool grow over time, as people channel their swelling hatred of the dictator into it.
Eventually somebody with the correct combination of balls, rifles, access, and attitude will take that shot and cash in. BANG! Problem solved.
Jason Briggeman and Scott – Multi culti happy clappy lefty tranzi Blair misrepresented the reason for the war to the British citizenry. Mr Bush put rather more faith in the intelligence and patriotism of the American citizenry. Blair conned the British into thinking we were going to war to stop a wicked dictator, which is ridiculous. Mr Bush said Saddam was the first stop in an ongoing war against terrorism.
Mr Bush intends to change the geo-political map in that region of the world. Secular Iraq was a good place to start because, not being a theocracy like the rest of the Middle East and N Africa, it would be fairly easy to overlay democracy on it once the dictator was out of the way. Thereafter, it becomes a beacon of what a Muslim country can accomplish and serves as an aide-memoire for the royalty, dictators and citizenry in the rest of the region. In other words, it was Iraq, not Saddam, that the Americans were after. Saddam was an impediment and was removed.
That Blair dissembled about the reasons for the war, and dithered around with his adored UN for six months while wagging his tail for Jacques and Gerhardt and getting a pat on the head from Bush, had now slewed around and bitten him in the ass.
“I’m waiting for Bush to turn Iraq over to the hated UN just to hand the problem off before the November elections.”
I’m afraid too that this is going to happen.
And the Iraqi people (or those from Iraq that blog) are afraid too, because under UN guidance – the most likely outcome is another tyranny, probably of the Islamo-Fascist-terrorist variety. This the US must prevent, but I doubt it will.
Like Perry, I’m no “democracy fetishist”, but the occupation should continue until it is ascertained that the new regime is of an acceptable, benign type like, say, in Jordan or Egypt, and not like in Syria or Saudi Arabia.
But, Jacob, that would negate the entire point of the war, which was to install democracy in Iraq pour encourager les autres. Bush has a gut hatred of the UN and he knows its involvement would set back the cause of the defeat of terrorism in a devastating way.
Mr Bush does seem to heed his advisors, and I absolutely cannot imagine Donald Rumsfeld not taking the strongest possible exception to any such suggestion. Condi, too, I don’t believe would countenance it.
I think you’re being too pessimistic about President Bush’s determination to win the war on terrorism. Also, the dirt has started coming out about Kerry’s time in Viet Nam now. Admiral Zumwalt had a few choice words to say about him all those years ago … strange how he got three Purple Hearts in three months and didn’t suffer a single wound.
The trouble with assasinating Saddam is that it would not have destroyed the regime. One of Saddam’s son could have taken over, and if it was Uday, it would be far worse for the Iraqi people. The “let the Iraqi people do it” approach was tried between the end of GWI and GWII. It failed and got a lot of people killed. Iraq is not Haiti, with a government that is barely better armed that its populace, Saddam had a formitable military for use against his people. How many more slaughers like that of the Marsh Arabs and Kurds would it have taken before the left would have agreed that force was the only option?
I, too, worry that UN is going to go back into the UN and make a right mess of it. Then again when have the UN gone anywhere and not made a right mess of it?
Do want to make it a general rule that its OK to prosecute people for revealing when the govt is doing something it “shouldn’t” do (legally, at least), because you have a legal fig leaf to cover the prosecution? Do you see how that would make restraining govt that much harder in the future, when they have a green light to retaliate against those who spill the beans?
It couldn’t be more obvious you want Gun and Short punished because their anti-war activity angers you, and if you found someone else’s violation of the Official Secrets Act politically beneficial (i.e. it exposed something you personally think the govt should not be doing), you’d write posting after posting in support of him or her against Big Evil Government.
This is a case of the govt not prosecuting someone who harmed it politically, which is, IMHO, a good thing, not a pro-govt double standard. They backed off for political reasons, not out of the goodness of their hearts, but they still backed off prosecuting someone for revealing something embarrassing.
That would deprive Perry the opportunity to cheer on the govt military like they’re his favorite sporting team, and get a vicarious testosterone thrill out of seeing someone else (w/ his country’s flag on his uniform) killing hapless Iraqi draftees.
Anyone else think Perry will be a run of the mill, reactionary conservative when he’s old and gray?
I liked Dale Amon’s comment about the first UN meeting in San Francisco.
I’ve heard stories about that city being specifically chosen as the site so that the allies (excluding the Soviet Union) could have the best listening post to know what was really going on with that weird group.
The allies had suspicions about the behemoth antidemocratic [& expensive] debating society right from the start.
John J.
“the behemoth antidemocratic [& expensive] debating society ….”
The UN is much worse than that, much worse than useless. It’s hypocritic, morally depraved. It bestows respectability and gives moral (and financial) support to corrupt, murderous tyrants.
It piggybacks on the US financial support and does it’s best to destroy the US and what it stands for.
John Coupal – “the best listening post for the allies” was on the West Coast? The other side of the world from Britain and France (honorary ally)? And easy for Russia? That doesn’t make sense at all. America could listen in from anywhere in the US but …
Besides, I thought it was the League of Nations that were HQd in SF. I thought the UN was always New York …? That godawful building was purpose built for them.
How Britain and the US keep watch on the world
…Its junior partner is Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) at Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, the eavesdropping organisation for which Katharine Gun worked. Like NSA, GCHQ is a highly secret operation. Until 1983, when one of its officers, Geoffrey Prime, was charged with spying for the Russians, the Government had refused to reveal what GCHQ’s real role was, no doubt because its operations in peacetime were without a legal basis. Its security is maintained by massive and deliberately intimidating security.
Newspapers have been discouraged from mentioning it; a book by a former GCHQ officer, Jock Kane, was seized by Special Branch police officers and a still photograph of its headquarters was banned by the Independent Broadcasting Authority, leaving a blank screen during a World in Action programme. As with NSA, the size of GCHQ’s staff at Cheltenham, about 6,500, gives no real indication of its strength. It has monitoring stations in Cyprus, West Germany, and Australia and smaller ones elsewhere. Much of its overseas work is done by service personnel.
Its budget is thought to be more than £300m a year. A large part of this is funded by the United States in return for the right to run NSA listening stations in Britain – Chicksands, Bedfordshire; Edzell, Scotland; Mentworth Hill, Harrogate; Brawdy, Wales – and on British territory around the world.
The collaboration between the two agencies offers many advantages to both. Not only does it make monitoring the globe easier, it solves tricky legal problems and is the basis of the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday that all Britain’s bugging is lawful. The two agencies simply swap each other’s dirty work.
GCHQ eavesdrops on calls made by American citizens and the NSA monitors calls made by British citizens, thus allowing each government plausibly to deny it has tapped its own citizens’ calls, as they do. The NSA station at Menwith Hill intercepts all international telephone calls made from Britain and GCHQ has a list of American citizens whose phone conversations interest the NSA.
The NSA request to GCHQ for help in bugging the diplomats from those nations who were holding out for a second Security Council resolution to authorise an attack on Iraq is unsurprising. Nor is it surprising that both organisations wanted to provide their political masters with recordings of private conversations of high-ranking international diplomats….
Scott:
I asked already this question but nobody answered, maybe you could: does the UN have any secrets? Why? Aren’t they supposed to be peaceful and transparent? Why is it necessary to eavesdrop on them? Why don’t they just hand out transcripts of all their proceedings to anybody, just for the asking? Is it wrong to eavesdrop on a conversation which a-priori should not be secret ?
Question 2:
Would you propose to close down the NSA and GCHQ ?
The Tories grew tired, venal and stupid after 18 years in power, guilty of matricide and worse: promoting a failed bus conductor-cum-pox-doctor’s clerk to run the country as a compromise candidate. The arty-farty-literati; the multi-culti-Gramsci-inspired hegomony freaks among the boomers, having been brainwashed in their red-brick and Oxbridge leftist culture factories, saw their opportunity and pushed Tony the Trojan Horse (he who had never held high political office, or done a day’s real work in his life, probably) through the gates of the Westminster Gas Works on the say-so of their credulous peers within the electorate.
The Trade Union hard-school went along for the ride, thinking that could burst from the belly of Trojan Tony and storm the citadel, once through the Pearly Gates of Power. Wrong!
The traditional voters, devoid of a credible political party with a charismatic leader, had declined to vote. We now have what we, as an electorate, deserve and what has happened is entirely of our own making. We have voted in, or failed to vote out, this incompetent bunch of traitors – twice! Now it’s come-uppance time, for them as well as us.
Our sovereignty already holed below the waterline in favour of a Belgian bureaucracy; our time-tested Constitutional Monarchy under constant attack from both the tranzi polticos and a schizoid tabloid press; our judicial system thrown into confusion by the PM’s bloated erstwhile bed-sit landlord; the government, the opportunist opposition and the odious liberal democrat party, with it’s piss-head leader Chuckling Charlie and it’s Scottish shyster spokesman Mangy McCampbell, pandering to every wacky, perverse and depraved bunch of minority militants and bending over both backwards and forwards for anyone who wants to bugger us as individuals and as a nation, we are, as subjects of a once great nation, left with no credible representation.
Now our own standing as trustworthy comrades-at-arms with our allies has been destroyed by an ugly, Brummy ball-buster who couldn’t hack it in the corridors of power, firstly because she is stupid, secondly because she is petulant, thirdly because she is willing not only to put her own personal spite before the interests of her country but also to sabotage the interests of our country’s most constant ally, under whose aegis we derive the only available protection from carnage and chaos.
And a two-bit tranzi neurotic translator with multi-culti aspirations drives a coach and horses through the OSA with complete impunity. Why? Because we have a craven Prime Minister – who wants to be loved by everyone, and is consequently voluntarily offering up his jacksy for a shafting by anyone who fancies it on his way to Knacker’s Yard for Trojan Horses. She has put a Gun to his head and he has crapped in his pants and backed off. And this after he had made the best decision, the only possible decision, to back the US as they went proactive against the world’s loonies. Which means of course that the only thing he got right since he has been in power, he got right for the wrong reasons.
I am afraid David Carr’s reassurance that we will all be saved by a bunch of bright young things in Brussels, who pissed up his back at a party and told him it was the future’s golden rain, doesn’t impress me one little bit. The only time I ever visited Brussels, just over a year ago, my wife and I were robbed by two Arab footpads and thereafter we spent four miserable days attempting to overcome the incompetence of the Belgian and British bureaucracy in an effort to get our passports replaced. We didn’t get around to going to any parties, all we wanted was to get out of that God-forsaken shit-hole and that was difficult enough.
Mere entrepreneurism will fail unless we have strong British government that tells Europe on what terms it will trade with the various branches of the Continental mafias and is prepared to enforce the law of our own land regardless of any group vested or cultural interest, within or without.
I’d vote for any party that would guarantee to repeal all the tinkering and amendment of laws during the past 40 years; a government that would disband that bunch of buffons aka the CPS, give back the police their independence; free them from political interference; recruit police with stature, courage and common sense, sack all the brainwashed and effete Bramshill bred butteflies; reinstate police powers to prosecute and insist that all criminal offences witnessed by police are prosecuted, willy nilly; that all prima facea evidence adduced through efficient investigation is presented to a magistrate (in cases of summary jurisdiction) and to a judge and jury for major offences; that the police are represented only when they need assistance by well paid prosecuting lawyers from efficient law-firms and chambers, rather than vice versa with second division lawyers calling the shots. Let the Magistrates and Juries decide on who is guilty and not guilty and bugger the matrix probability factor of a successful prosecution. Where in law does it decree that the CPS are prosecutor, jury and judge when they see fit. It is outrageous. The victims of unresolved crime over the past 20 years or so could be forgiven for marching on the HQ of the CPS and dismantling it brick by brick. There has been more corruption since the CPS was inaugurated, than at any time in the ‘bad old days’ when a cadre of crooked cops disgraced the service before getting their just deserts. They threw out the baby with the bathwater and adopted a monstrous mob of legal incompetents to replace the system that previously worked well, despite the problems of the Yard’s Central Squads of the late sixties and seventies, which were miniscule compared with the vast majority of routine successful and honest coppering done by street cops, with nous and no cultural sub-agenda, throughout the Metropolis. The biggest scandal of the last century was the betrayal of the service by its politically motivated senior officers cowed by subversive politicians pulling their strings, applying threats and making promises on career prospects. They turned a service into a career for the overweening ambitious who lacked a public service ethos.
And for those who seem to have missed the fact that being ‘anti-war’ after the war has been won; that a tyrant has been deposed and banged up; that the erstwhile oppressed people can now, with some help and guidance, decide on their own destiny and join the free nations of the world – for Fick’s sake stop whinging and get back into your CND bolt-holes where you can jerk each other off to your heart’s delight and canonise St Kofi and all his works. What a bloody shower! Those of you that were born here, look up the word PATRIOTISM. Those of you that were not, well, as the old Yorkshire saying goes, “If tha know’s of a better hoil, get thee to’t!”
And by the way, Verity for PM!
If you want to argue that spying on the UN is no big deal, go ahead. Its the demand for prosecuting those who squealed about it I’m objecting to here. The War Party claimed UN backing for their war (because of earlier resolutions), their attempt to manipulate the vote to give them another resolution (which they kept claiming was unnecessary) just gives me more reason to never believe anything said by anyone who supported invading Iraq.
Q2: Sure, close down the NSA. Its a bigger threat to us than it is to terrorists.
Perry, does it bother that your stance on the war has made your website so attractive to wannabe-Nazis like this clown?
Ah! I see, a point of view you do not agree with makes Frank P a clown, and a wannabe Nazi.
His stance on the EU would seem to echo the feelings of the majority, that he has a forthright way of expressing himself, is undeniable.
That he detests socialism in whatever form it may take, whether Communism, Marxism or even Nazism, he makes equally clear.
I read his comment to try an find an example of racism, anti-semitism, or anything mildly politically incorrect, or anything that could be construed as Nazism, maybe you are reading a different comment , because I couldn’t find one.
It would appear that he really hates the present Gvernment, maybe that makes him a clown in your eyes, but then, he would still be in the majority….
Voicing his opinion does not make him a Nazi, it is called ‘free-speech’, and it one of the many freedoms that we in the UK enjoy. You may not like what he says, but then he obviously does not like what you say either, so you just have to grin and bear it – tough!
>>The trouble with assasinating Saddam is that it would not have destroyed the regime.
Saddam was running pretty close to the end of people he could trust to run the regime — having executed too many people.
>>One of Saddam’s son could have taken over, and if it was Uday, it would be far worse for the Iraqi people.
Ok, make it 2 Billion, 500 mil each for the sons.
>>The “let the Iraqi people do it” approach was tried between the end of GWI and GWII. It failed and got a lot of people killed.
It got a lot of people killed because the rebels assumed that the US would send military assistance — or at least let them use captured equipment. Had the rebels not been so misled, they would have waited, bided their time, and gained strength.
>>Sure, close down the NSA. Its a bigger threat to us than it is to terrorists.
For sure. The Panopticon will destroy our liberty LONG before Al-Qaeda.
Where should we start talking about the logistics of a hit on Mugabe?
Democracy – Government by the will of the majority.
Not my favourite form of government, but if that is what we have, we should all abide by the implied rules, i.e. argue all you want during and before an election, but when the vote is counted, and your side has lost, it behoves you to support the elected governmnt, after all, THE MAJORITY has voted, and your side lost.
Perhaps you will know a bit better the next time it comes to vote on something, and perhaps give a little more thought to your choice of candidates.
That Ms. Gunn and Ms. Shortt are anti-war and they don’t like it when their democratically elected Government declares war, is neither here nor there, they acted against the majority interest, and that, in time of war, is treason. That Ms. Shortt did it for personal gain, is especially reprehensible.
Somehow, I do not see either of the above named voting for the opposition at election time, but maybe they will take a bit more interest in the issues and the candidates at that time, rather than having an emotional ‘knee-jerk’ reaction at a later date, when things are not to their liking.
Like all commitees, there comes a time when the Chairman’s casting vote is the one that counts…..and if you believe in democracy, and expect it work, then you have to abide by the decision….
And if the govt lied to get that majority vote, we still have to just shut up and obey?
Perry, does it bother that your stance on the war has made your website so attractive to wannabe-Nazis like this clown?
It bothers me more that a self styled libertarian wanted Saddam Hussain to remain in power. Feel free to kid yourself you were not Ba’athisms useful idiot. I have no problem with spying on all manner of people. It is nasty world out there.
Then you’re the useful idiot of every tyrant that you’re not demanding be overthrown. If Iraq doesn’t turn out to be Iowa a few years down the road, will you admit you were wrong? If Iraq breaks down into civil war, will you admit that the blood is on your hands, and take responsibility for the results of your actions? Will you post pics of Iraqis killed in any civil war, or by any future tyrant, and say “Perry got his way”?
So if your govt gets around laws against spying on its own people by having my govt do it for them, that’s just fine by you? “Its a nasty world out there” covers any and all anti-liberty govt sins, including ones you claim to oppose.
“And if the govt lied to get that majority vote, we still have to just shut up and obey?”
You voted them into power long before war was declared, and “yes”, that is what democracy is all about, you don’t vote on every issue, but on a broad base of issues, these ‘leaders’, or whatever you care to call them, are your choice – not mine.
You like the Welfare State, and the class struggle, so you vote with that foremost in your mind, conveniently forgetting that socialist governments have a more bloodthirsty record than conservative ones.
I too am anti-war, but at least I hope I am not such a hypocrite as most socialists seem to be….
Voting is a social responsibility, and you should excercise due diligence before selecting a candidate or party to vote for. It’s too bad, and too late to complain when they ignore your plaintive bleatings, war in defense of the downtrodden is part of their package – perhaps you will know better next time…..
No, I don’t like the Welfare State any more than I like the Warfare State. One is just a mirror image of the other, w/ supporters of one making the same arguments as supporters of the other, while rejecting those same arguments when made by their political opponents.
Can voters be told what our govts are doing (like spying on the UN), so they have that info the next time we go into the voting booth, whether our ‘leaders’ like it or not? Does the vote decide what we’re allowed to know (which will decide the next vote)?
Scott: spare me you asinine potted characterisations of my views. I have answered you before and as you are just posturing I see no need to feed a troll.
You’re ducking my question: If Iraq doesn’t turn out to be Iowa a few years down the road, will you admit you were wrong? If Iraq breaks down into civil war, will you admit that the blood is on your hands, and take responsibility for the results of your actions? Will you post pics of Iraqis killed in any civil war, or by any future tyrant, and say “Perry got his way”?
“Can voters be told what our govts are doing (like spying on the UN), so they have that info the next time we go into the voting booth, whether our ‘leaders’ like it or not?”
Well you know now – will it make a difference next time you vote – I think not….
just take a good look at the people you vote for, be judgemental, make a decision. Then tell me that Ms. Shortt , and others, have your confidence to make sensible decisions where your health and wealth are at stake… only an idiot would vote for the present sick and sorry crowd, or a commited ‘welfarian’.
re spying on the UN, that is a positive…..
We know now, but some on this thread are calling for punishment for those who told us. If they had their way, we wouldn’t know.
Scott: You mean as opposed to if you got your way and Saddam Hussain and his psychopathic offspring were still murdering in Iraq right now? If that had happened, would you admit you have ‘blood on your hands’? Of course not. I do not need to duck your questions because you are not actually asking any, you are just posturing.
Yes, things could get nasty in Iraq in the future, but they were nasty before, not that you cared. I look forward to you admitting things are better right now. Of course you won’t.
The punishment called for is for the betrayal, not the content.
If she was so sensitive to her principles, perhaps she should not have accepted the job in the first place, but then she might not have had the nice pensionable sinecure, that meant more to her at the time than her principles.
To the Tower with her – and her supervisor, and hold the trial in secret… better yet – no trial, just incarcerate her. Then she can explore her feeelings as much as she wants.
Ernest Young from earnest old Frank P
Thank you for defending, in my temporary absence, my right to free speech. Had I answered the pseudo- intellectual gasbag myself I may have been more ‘forthright’ as you do delicately express it. I may even have called him a pompous a-hole, but that would have been very rude – and an insult to the fundamental orifice. Where do these Gramscian gremlins hide when they are not infesting the blogosphere?
I will give credit to the Scott character to be a few steps up from the late Kodiak. Gets boring almost as quickly, however.
Scott, I’ll volunteer to take all this hypothetical future Iraqi blood from Perry’s evil warmongering hands. But only if you agree to take all of Saddam’s. You know, all the people he killed in Iran, in Kuweit, all the Kurds in the north, the Shias in the south, the Marsh Arabs, the mass graves, the torture chambers…and all the blood he would have spilled since last year if nothing had been done to remove him, pro-rated on the Iraqi state’s blood consumption of the past 25 years. Or, roughly, and depending on the estimate : 1.2 to 2 million lives. Say 1.6 million average. Or 64,000 a year, 5350 a month, 177 a day. Every day. Seven days a week. We’re running a business here dammit. That’s your price. And if you insist, I am sure we can find a formula to account for the blood spilled by 2+ million maimed and injured in his name.
(Someone is getting royally screwed on this deal…Or as Chirac would say when he gets angry with De Villepin : “Assume the position of principle !!”)
Frank P,
You’re welcome…..
Nice to see the difference between ernest and earnest being duly appreciated. 🙂
My point is that if Perry chooses to assign blame for Saddam to those who oppose his war, he should accept blame for any negative consequences of his war. Perry refuses, because doing so would be betting his reputation on the basic competence and good faith of the US/UK govts, and Perry lacks the faith in them to make that bet. Perry will, however, bet the lives of Iraqis on the good faith and competence of those govts. Why bet their lives, but not his own public image? Draw your own conclusion.
buddy, the only conclusion is that what other people write and what u seem to read have damn little in common.
Ernest Young – A very able defence of Frank P, who encapsulated in one glorious rant what many of us have been feeling for the past seven years. I also enjoyed the thrashing you and Perry have given to the loutish Scott. Sylvain is correct when he notes that although Scott is marginally more articulate than the unlamented Kodiak, he comes across as just as thick.
For Scott, very simply put: Clare Short, as a member of the Privy Council and therefore privy to privileged information, committed an act of treason and should be tried for it. Other than an inexplicable belief that she walks on a higher plane than the entire intelligence establishment, I don’t know exactly what crime this Gunn shrew committed, but it was disappointing that the prosecution didn’t have the bottle to go through with the case. I suspect they got a wink and a nudge from the Imperial Palace in Downing St.
Scott, pay attention, I’m still talking to you: Clare Short has a history of disloyalty and betrayal and placing her own ambitions above duty. In the furtherance of her career as a class warrior and self-righteous harridan, she abandoned her own illegimate baby for adoption and only revealed his existence (he votes Tory) when she needed a bit of human drama to perk up her publicity ratings. Regarding the well photographed drama of the reconciliation, you’d have had to have had a heart of stone not to burst into tears of hearty laughter.
Her behaviour over the last seven years has been unrelentingly destructive, fraudulent and self-seeking. That she hasn’t ever been clipped back by Blair is interesting, is it not?
Which has nothing to do w/ whether she should be prosecuted, unless you’re just giving reasons to hate her and want her jailed for that.
I’m still waiting for Perry to say he’s willing to accept responsibility for any negative consequences of the war he demanded. It should be easy, since we all know that the govt will succeed in making Iraq a land of peace, love, and happiness and the govt cannot fail, so accepting responsibility for govt failure won’t cost him anything.
Scott, all right, I’ll bite one more time. This is getting rather silly. I don’t think Perry refused anything, except engage in your posturing challenge, which is starting to turn into a standard pissing contest.
I do believe he implied that if you could blame future Iraqi blood on him – which is utterly preposterous by the way – then, at a minimum, the considerable amount of Iraqi blood that would have been spilled had Saddam remained in power should be blamed on those who considered it a “principled position” to preserve the status quo, whatever those principles were.
I am not happy either with the way this war was argued and justified, given how the evidence turned up. Or rather didn’t. It is one thing for the French intelligence services, with their 300m Euro budget, to believe there was something, somewhere. But for the $30bn US intelligence agencies to not have a better clue is literally a bit too rich for my taste. And I am certainly both tickled on my cynical side and deeply concerned about the fact Pakistan had been committing all the crimes we were afraid Iraq might commit if we did nothing. Yikes.
However, there is no doubt in my mind that getting rid of Hussein and his minions is excellent news for the millions who live there and the rest of the world.
And I’m not interested in marching in the streets to demand how come the US/UK govts dared remove a sick stalinist pig for the wrong reasons. As if the process and paperwork involved were what mattered most.
I live in the US. There are worse things that could be done with my taxes than removing the Saddams of the world at gunpoint.
Like nationalizing healthcare.
As for Perry, if you don’t like him, don’t read him. (Personally, I’m only here for the occasional pic of the lovely, gunslinging Adriana. But don’t tell anyone).
Scott – Short betrayed her country. This is treason. Why is that so hard to understand?
Bush & Co want to get democracy going in the Middle East. They chose to start with Iraq because it makes a nice, easily understood illustration for the 5,000 princes of Saudi Arabia and for Boy Assad over there in Damascus. Democracy is either going to bloom in the desert or Bush and Co will go over there and explain it to them again.
You are a troll-y little dimwit. Maybe we could fix you up with a blind date with Kodiak.
OK, so if I don’t think we should be the world’s policeman, I’m responsible for the bad acts of others, but the War Party isn’t responsible for any bad result of their war. Cute.
Perry, over and over and over and over again, claims that war opponents would be responsible for anything bad that would have happened in Iraq if we left it alone (but Perry’s not responsible for anyone killed by North Korea’s govt despite his being willing to hold off invading – go figure), but won’t accept the same standards he wants to force onto others. Betting the lives of Iraqis on this war is one thing, but betting some personal embarrassment on this war is too much to ask.
Scott, you’re like the proverbial dog chasing his own tail, running even faster after the same circular reasoning.
Neither of you is refusing anything. You are both asking each other to accept the consequences of your respective positions. Except the consequences you are asking Perry to accept responsibility for are future and hypothetical. While the consequences Perry thinks you should assume are backed by 25 years of murderous evidence. So yes, he does seem on much firmer ground.
This could last a while…Have fun.
Your “25 years of murderous evidence” has most of its killing back when Saddam knew we supported him no matter what – Saddam was pretty much in his cage at the time of the invasion.
If what I’m asking Perry to accept responsibility for is merely hypothetical, then why the resistence? Its not like things are going to go bad in Iraq, ’cause we all know the govt cannot fail here.
Scott Sassenach
Scores of people were murdered today in Iraq on a ‘holy day’. It is being reported by the world’s press. The massacre will be investigated by the embryonic caretaker goverment, assisted by Americans and other allies on the spot, whilst being attacked from many sides by Islamists with a Great Satan and anti Zionist perspective, encouraged by subversive propaganda in the western liberal media.
Under Saddam’s regime larger numbers would have been killed and it would not have been reported at all, moreover nobody else would have been there to do anything about it all, apart from perhaps George Galloway, Clair Short and Tony Benn who would no doubt have been praising Saddam for his bravery. So -horrific as today’s atrocity was, it is still an improvement on the status quo ante.
What is even more horrific is that you and those of your ilk, in pursuit of an internationalist socialist agenda that caused untold misery and countless millions of murders during the last century, are prepared to undermine the efforts of the free world to bring about any kind of democracy in the area and peace for all Iraqis to pursue whatever democratic political or peaceful religious agenda they, as a nation, chose.
Luckily your above bogus analysis of the GCHQ function, probably cribbed from Duncan Campbell (if indeed you are not he) will have brought you to the attention of Echelon, who will henceforth arrange to have tabs kept on you lest you stray into the field of real suberversion and sabotage, rather than pontificating and trolling your way around patriotic blogs attempting to stem the flow of free speech in defence of democracy and liberty. Or, on the other hand, perhaps a junior analyst will immediately infer from your puling that you are just a silly young prick and not worthy of further surveillance.
Thank you, Perry.
Scott, nobody in the West has supported Saddam for a decade – except Chirac maybe – yet the regime’s murderous practices have persisted. Or are you implying our support is what indirectly killed all those people back in the 80s ? That, maybe, he has been a sweet little angel since we quarantined him after the first Gulf War ? How many mass graves from the early/mid 90s do you need ?
I think Perry is only saying he shouldn’t take responsibility for these if you won’t accept responsibility for those. And since you’re “resisting” every bit as much as he is, your implicit claim of moral superiority is inherently bogus.
And yes, his position is supported by a quarter century of evidence. Yours is based on conjecture.
Which makes the choice rather easy.
Out and over.
And lots of people were not murdered the day before or the day after the holy day because Saddam Hussain is no longer in power, no thanks to you, Scott. I was not really a great supporters of the war but now that it is over, I do think it turned out for the best and the argument is over regardless what some putz might wanna believe.
I have read this blog a lot and no article I ever saw ever said it would be roses and smiles afterwards, just that it would be better without the fascists who were ruling before. Seems like the predictions were damn near on the money.
Lots of people leave comments disagreeing with stuff here but this guys is just throwing a tantrum and sticking his fingers in his ears even when his questions, are answered again and again, if you can even call them questions that is. Just IP ban the jerk until he grows up.
When you tell Saddam he can kill w/ impunity because we need him against Iran, then he kills w/ impunity, then yes, our support did indirectly kill all those people.
Its not “conjecture”. If nothing bad happens, Perry has nothing to take the blame for. If it does happen, then its not conjecture. I’ve never said Perry should take the blame for a civil war or tyrant that doesn’t happen.
Just as Kodiak did with such dull, thudding predictability, Scott Cattenach has subverted the point of this thread with a tedious refusal to address the issue.
I believe we were discussing the legitimacy of spying on the Mahatama Kofi in that oasis of delights, the UN?
We were discussing a politically motivated prosecution for ‘treason’ because someone revealed something that embarased the govt and the supporters of its war, which is a “crime against the state” – that favorite charge of out-of-control govt.
Scott, you contradicted yourself yet again. Stop digging, take a break.
Verity, I give the guy credit for being a few steps up from Kodiak. At least, there seems to be a brain there, and more logic than madness.
Enlighten me, oh wise one.
As this thread is now little more than playground chants of ‘nah nah’… thread locked. Take your marbles, if you have any, and go home