A Quick Write-up of Last Night's Meeting About Iraqi Employees
Also posted on The Nether-World
This was a very interesting meeting and I'm glad I was able to attend. My only regret was that I didn't take any notes so this is largely from memory. First of all, much kudos to Dan Hardie for working so hard to make this meeting happen and for chairing it so well. The speakers at the meeting were:
- Richard Beeston, senior Foreign Correspondent for ‘The Times’ newspaper
- Mark Brockway, a former Warrant Officer in the Territorial Royal Engineers, who ran the British Army’s Quick Impact Reconstruction Projects in 2003 and who hired a great many Iraqi staff in 2003.
- Ed Vaizey MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
- Chris Bryant, Labour MP for the Rhondda
- Lynne Featherstone MP, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for International Development
- Andrew Alderson, banker responsible for reconstruction projects in Basra
Richard Beeston spoke about the important work Iraqi interpreters do for the military and also for journalists and diplomats. The Times has provided the best media coverage by far on the plight of Iraqi employees and the moral obligation Britain has to protect them. From Richard Beeston's speech it was evident that the plight of Iraqi employees is an issue close to his heart. He has reported on last night's meeting in today's edition of The Times with an excellent article that highlights the problems with David Miliband's offer in a concise way.
Serious shortcomings have been exposed in the Government’s plan to offer compensation or resettlement to hundreds of serving and former staff in Iraq.
During a discussion at the House of Commons last night, MPs and campaigners argued that the assistance package, announced by David Miliband in a written statement, was too little and too late.
The Government ordered a review two months ago, after The Times highlighted the plight of Iraqi interpreters working for the British who face persecution by insurgents for being “collaborators”.
The compensation package would offer existing or former staff who worked for the British for more than 12 months either a cash payment to help them to resettle in Iraq or the region, or the chance to move to Britain.
Mark Brockway spoke at some length on his experiences in Basra working with Iraqi interpreters. He was passionate about the problem and showed a Power Point presentation which outlined various aspects of the issue in great detail. He stressed the urgency of solving this issue now as former employees are in hiding while death squads tour the Basra region looking for them and threatening their families. Mark also relayed the close relationship military personnel have with their interpreters and recounted some incidences where they actually saved British lives. From his presentation and speech, Mark showed just how inadequate David Miliband's announcement is. It is impossible for many of the Iraqi employees to prove that they have been working for the British for 12 months because of the chaotic record keeping of the British. Added to this problem is the fact that many interpreters move to different employers. For instance, an interpreter may work for six months with a British regiment then move to work in a diplomatic capacity or translate for the Americans - and nearly always under a false name. Mr Brockway also highlighted the extreme difficulties of moving to Syria or Jordan in order to get asylum.
Conservative MP, Ed Vaizey stressed the cross-party support for the plight of Iraqi employees and how this is a moral issue rather than a political one. This sentiment was echoed by Labour MP,Chris Bryant and Lib Dem MP Lynne Featherstone. All three MPs acknowledged the important points about the danger of the '12 month' stipulation but that as frontbenchers they aren't free to criticise this without checking with their bosses, as it's an implicit commitment to a new policy. However, they all showed a keen interest to learn more and continue to campaign. Chris Bryant invited campaigners to email him with important points which ought to be raised and Lynne Featherstone drafted an Early Day Motion (EDM) for MPs to sign.
Andrew Alderson is a banker who was responsible for the allocation of funds for reconstruction projects in the Basra region. He has written a book on his experiences called Bankrolling Basra which has just shot up to the top of my list of books I want to read. Mr Alderson spoke of the problems he had in protecting the Iraqis he employed, particularly his personal assistant who was shot three times and left for dead while people close to her were murdered. She has now found asylum in Australia. She was further endangered by being visited by military personnel while recovering in a Basra hospital. This story outlined another part of the problem. If someone is wounded or killed while out on patrol with the British army, for instance, it is reported as such. However if an Iraqi employee is murdered on his or her way home, away from military or diplomatic installations, it is merely chalked up as just another murder in a lawless area.
There is a new website which has information about the campaign to grant asylum to Iraqi employees. It's called We Owe It To Them and it has details of the dangers faced by these people and their families. It is well worth viewing and supporting.
Among the people in the audience was an Iraqi exile, Mazin, who had worked for a Kuwaiti construction firm which constructed US bases. He gave a passionate speech on the difficulties in finding asylum and the horrors experienced by his friends and family. It was very moving and did much to ram home the message of the urgent need to solve this problem.
Here is a Radio Five clip with Dan Hardie explaining the inadequacies of the Government's current position on asylum for Iraqi employees of the British armed forces (courtesy of Ministry Of Truth).
More bloggage on this from David Cole, Sunny Hundal in CiF, Yorkshire Ranter (I'll add the reports of other bloggers as I find them).
For those unfamiliar with this campaign, here are some pointers.
- Watch the video.
- Write to your MP.
- Let us know if you get a response.
- Sign the petition.
- Join the growing list of supporters.
"It is impossible for many
"It is impossible for many of the Iraqi employees to prove that they have been working for the British for 12 months because of the chaotic record keeping of the British. "
There we were being told what a wonderful job our brave lads were doing ! Shirley elementary security or what they like to call "force protection" means you have to be very careful in vetting such people as they could so easily be infiltrated ... and probably were.
Who is to say who is the true patriot, the guy/lady who helps the invading conqueror or the guy / lady who infiltrates and provides help to his / her colleagues to rid them of the infidel ?
We are of course waiting for further news of the Farsi interpreter for Gnl Richards in Afghanistan who is in the slammer on remand for OS Act breaches.
In defense of the city, why
In defense of the city, why we're fighting. New theme tune for this site ;)
The Petro Dollar,Iraq,Oil
The Petro Dollar,Iraq,Oil and Bush...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uljOLFyCjjc
 2007 tio Thought I would
2007 tio
Thought I would put your great link above on with the title,everybody should see it.
Thanks George, IMHO it is
Thanks George,
IMHO it is the unifying theory to explaining US policy and the more you look into it the more interesting it gets. I had been irritated by my failure to comprehend what the US & UK have been doing in the ME and now I do, its like scratching a five year old itch.
tio
Thanks for your reply tio.
Thanks for your reply tio. Of course there is a lot more to it all then that alone. Everybody should read ALL of this it is just one more part of the jigsaw...
http://tinyurl.com/j3p0
Hi George Couldn't agree
Hi George
Couldn't agree more, there are a lot of agendas that tie up nicely with the macro ecomonic imperatives established by the petrodollar ME crisis. Funny how these agendas came to coincide...
tio
This is just too disturbing.
This is just too disturbing. DoublePUG should have valium on stand by.
The West (i.e US led NATO)
The West (i.e US led NATO) is on course for war against China and Russia. No one I speak to has even heard of the Shanghai Cooperation Organistation (SCO), why has the media been so quiet about this formidable alliance that has aligned itself against a US imperial unipolar world?
The media is content to push propaganda about Russia and particularly Putin (the most popular Russian leader ever) as being too authoritarian and China as the chief polluter of the planet. But where is the intelligent analysis of the geopolitcal games being played out in the Middle East and Central Asia? The media appears to be conditioning the western population rather than informing them.
The impending attack by the US on Iran has every potential of becoming a great military conflagration in the region that could soon quickly get out of hand.
The US stance both domestically (police state) and internationally (wars of aggression) is a signal to it's enemies that it stop at nothing in order to dominate the planets entire energy and mineral resources (full spectrum dominance), Will Russian and China submit to this? China is going to become the number one economy in the next 30 years - will the US just sit by and watch it happen? Why else have 'they' put proper Nazis in power in the US if not to wage this war?
Here's a good article for those less well informed that puts into context the bad relations between the NATO and SCO countries.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6862
Anon, many thanks for that
Anon, many thanks for that post I learnt a lot.
I just find it interesting that the same group of people who got the US so addicted to the petrodollar have the most to gain by the US's response to its failure ;) Right I'm off to make a tin foil hat.
Further to anons SCO
Further to anons SCO revelation, it seems it's not a pact of equals. I understand Vladimir sleeps with his tin foil hat on, I must admit I have felt better since I have made mine. oh and btw I liked ming because age=wisdom but McPolitics seems to have caught me out. Now I am at a complete loss I realise that I must now twiddle with my antenna.
'Tin foil hats' do not have
'Tin foil hats' do not have antenna - they are used to shield your brain from radio frequencies in the 14 - 40 Hertz range. Also tin foil doesn't work anyway. I've made mine out of chicken wire and baked bean cans (a large biscuit tin might work) which I simply earth using a 3-pin plug, it works a treat. Although you should be careful how you wire yours up to the mains as mistakes are often fatal. Of course, people often laugh at me but I know that's only because they are being programmed to do that by 'them'.
Before I made my hat I used to think that we lived in a free and just society with representational government, that the mainstream media reported facts rather than condition my views, that Osama Bin Laden did bring down the World Trade Center, the Liberals might one day wield power in a hung parliament, the Iraq war was about freedom and democracy for the Iraqis and Great Britain was the greatest nation the Earth had ever seen. Funny how wrong one can be.
I have turned my house into
I have turned my house into a faraday cage, it's where I retreat to rail against a fascist empire that just doesn't do subtle. No, the foil hat is what I use to contact the mothership when I step out of the house to buy starbucks and munch on bigmacs. Oh and btw the antenna thing was just a euphemism :)
DoublePUG should have valium
DoublePUG should have valium on stand by.
Thanks TIO, a very interesting read. I would not mind getting in touch with Mr. Boyle and the other lawyers in the US who are on this track.
I have the documentary evidence to prove that NAZISM is accepted within the EU. This goes all the way to Barroso, who is too cowardly to challenge a report published by Hurriyet in Turkey. The German media refuses to act to defend Democracy, instead preferring to side with the German regime against its own people.
It is a fact that the British, American & French government's are aware of the Law on Legal Advice 13th December 1935 because they were the ones who allowed it to remain in existence after the war. I have all the evidence required to prove this, all of which comes from the German government, judiciary and legal profession.
I openly challenge any of these regimes to contest my statement of facts in an open discussion, in public.
I have already suffered, unknowingly at the time, being tried in a NAZI SPECIAL COURT when I took action in what I thought was an Employment Tribunal. I was not aware that it is not allowed in Germany to challenge the government, if it does not want to lose. They and the MoD(UK) did not want to lose, which was inevitable, given the facts and the relevant law, hence, the need to RIG the court NAZI style, oh and the small matter of around €30 million if they lost.
I just hope that the next
I just hope that the next time we embark on some foreign adventure, the MOD will find it impossible to get anyone to translate...
Hi DoubleP, my limited
Hi DoubleP,
my limited understanding of the EU is that was created because the French are afraid of the Germans and that the Germans are even more afraid of the Germans than the French. My understanding (albeit extremely limited) is that the allies were more interested in providing a bulwark against the drawing iron curtain than in engaging in retro engineering ten years of nazism. If you pick up a German dictionary and look up denial you'll find 'an egyptian river', the German solution was not introspection but to embrace a supranational destiny that is the EU, anything infact rather than engaging with history. So I am not suprised to find that nazi law is still intact and operating in present day Germany not even remotely. IMHO irrespective of the system of governance you find yourself in you get the justice you can afford and if you go up against the state you are pretty much fucked right then and there. In the land of the free it was only because of the courts ineptitude that Bush failed to railroad Lt Watada. So its all bollocks, democracy is now an illusion. If I sound bitter it is because I am. I am now putting on my foil hat and going for a walk.
"Former UN Official: US
"Former UN Official: US blocked certification that Iraq had no WMDs in 1990s"...
http://tinyurl.com/2utzhh
Ron Paul
Scroll down to see video...
http://www.nationalexpositor.com/News/524.html
http://tinyurl.com/ysk8tr
Hi TIO, the Germans were
Hi TIO, the Germans were handed back to the NAZI'S after the war because the West knew that a Democratic government would be weak with the massive problems that Germany faced and of course if the then West Germany had fallen to communism it would have had a domino effect across the whole of Western Europe. The only stipulation that was given was that no silly flags were to be paraded, and no funny ways of marching either.
This is why the German Government likes to try to prove it is not NAZI, by trying to get insignia such as the Swastika banned throughout the EU. They, on the other hand, do not have any problems using this vile law, which totally overrides the Constitution, when required. I have enough information that I found on the internet to more than prove this is the case, and as I have written previously, I openly challenge any politician to challenge me.
The simple truth of equality before the law is now that the only thing that can be said in court is the names of those present, nothing more. That is all that my side said, due to the fact I had a NAZI lawyer sat beside me, who striclty adhered to Hitler's legislation. I was barred from speaking by the NAZI judge specially thrown into the case called Barth
I hope no one thinks I am anti-German, as I have said before, I am fighting this for them as well.
The German Ministry of Justice had the gaul to lie to a citizen in a reply to a petition question re: this law, which I found on the internet. This reply did not tie in with my experience of legal advice in Germany. As you can guess this law is still used today, exactly as it was originally intended. Hitler did not allow laws that protected people, which is what the Ministry of Justice claims.
This also goes into this piece of SHIT called an EU Treaty, which was gladly accepted by the Merkel Regime, because she is aware it means sod all to ordinary Germans, because they would never be allowed passage through the domestic legal system, due to this law, to invoke their rights at EU level.
"Secrets of the
"Secrets of the CIA"...
http://tinyurl.com/ywq2rp
Hillary's Bush.....
Hillary's Bush..... connection, or how the petrodollar bought her ass. I was beemed aboard the mothership last night and appart from the usual probing 'they' said I didn't need my foil hat anymore as they now have this. oh and ouch!
tio thanks for the first
tio thanks for the first link. Got you beaten on the second link...
http://tinyurl.com/yqwdst
Horowitz says "hug a hoodie"
Horowitz says "hug a hoodie"