Corruption

Ah, the reliable old African Union. Is there anyone out there who is surprised by their support for Mugabe and his election? The AU is the successor to the infamous Organisation of African Unity and that must have been in the running for the most odious organisation on the planet.

No matter how disgusting you are, the OAU will open its arms to you. Members have included mass murderers, genocidists, cannibals, child rapists, the completely insane and the nastiest despots.

Their annual conference was marked by two events every year:

1. A punchup on the conference floor
2. Armed guards patrolling the hotel and conference floors to stop the delegates from killing each other.

The thuggish behaviour of Mugabe's goons at the conference shows that a mere change of name hasn't really altered the brutal culture that the organisation either finds acceptable or is too supine to do anything about.

One only has to look at Mbeki, the Neville Chamberlin of the continent, to see the continent wide failure of leadership the organisation represents, a failure his predecessor accused Mugabe of. It that all, Nelson? Is that all you noticed about Mugabe? Is that all you have to say?

Still at least Mbeki was able to swap tips on curing AIDS with President Jammeh, who had a cure revealed to him in a dream and now treats people himself, but only on Thursdays.

Now for some light relief.  The Metropolitan Police clearly concluded long ago that their job was to enforce the law, but not to follow it.  What other construction can we put on this?

Gordon Brown was drawn into a dispute yesterday over a claim that police secretly bugged one of his MPs during meetings with a man suspected of links to terror groups.

An inquiry was ordered into the allegation that Sadiq Khan, now a government whip, was covertly recorded during two visits he made to Babar Ahmad in the prison where he is being held. The Conservatives said that they had given warning to Mr Brown six weeks ago that an MP had been subjected to surveillance, in breach of a convention against bugging MPs, and accused him of doing nothing.

Now, I'm not sure what's the more laughable suggestion here, that Sadiq Khan is a prominent campaigner for civil liberties (he *was*, but his voting record since being elected to Parliament hardly does him credit on this, backing ID cards, anti-terror laws and Trident but opposing investigating Iraq), that the Met decide who to bug without asking anyone or that Gordon Brown's administration apparently lose letters from senior opposition politicians (hint: try asking top government couriers TNT).  Possibly none of them are quite as laughable as the case against Mr. Ahmad, a beneficiary of David Blunkett's enlightened attitude to justice and democracy as demonstrated by the 2003 Extradition Act.  In case anyone's not following the Register coverage of the associated trial in the USA, here's a taster:

Abu-jihaad has been charged with e-mailing information on the transit of his naval battle group through the Straits of Hormuz to Babar Ahmad and Azzam Publications in London in 2001. At the time he was serving on the destroyer Benfold. For the purpose of the case, Babar Ahmad - now awaiting a court decision in February on whether or not he is to be extradited to the States - is considered by the US government to be a terrorist. The government alleges Abu-jihaad's communications with Ahmad and the purchase of Chechen resistance videotapes from the Azzam website to be aiding terror, with the defendant an agent of a foreign power.

A glaring problem with the government's case against Abu-jihaad is that the evidence against him is thin. Although the US has submitted e-mails to Azzam which they have claimed are from Abu-jihaad, prosecutors admitted in pre-trial filings this month that "the Government had no recorded statements or testimony personally linking Abu-jihaad to the e-mail account from which [the communications to Azzam in question] were sent."

Of course, SpyBlog have been on the case from the start, in usual exhaustive detail, plus the bugging story.  Useful to correct some bias and poor details in the original Sunday Times story.  Also, remember the old rule, the Sunday Times is MI5's paper, the Sunday Telegraph is MI6's.

The Peter Hain saga grinds on, showing us that Gordon's 'Age of Change' hasn't actually resulted in any change at all. Once again we see that New New Labour continue to tell us that they can continue to manage the nation but not a simple election expenses account.

The usual excuses have been trotted out, an oversight, not important and so on. But it is important. How politicians raise and manage their own financial affairs are very important indeed, especially as UK policitians are trending towards heroic levels of corruption and incompetence.

The Tories have been quiet, a sure sign that some of their skeletons are close to being unearthed.

What's the answer? There is a simple punishment that would concentrate people's minds. Any failure to register or any breach of ethical codes means instant resignation and the MP would be ineligible to stand for office for 7 years.

Andy Hayman, who put his imprimatur on the 7 page document that didn't really prove the case for 90 days detention, has resigned, ostensibly for the usual personal reasons, but I suspect for the usual reasons anyone in high office resigns - the feeling of immunity led him to take more and more cavalier risks - misleading the press post-Stockwell, running up expenses and taking a female officer on foreign trips.  It's never for the actual crimes and misdemeanors, of course.

Onions all round.  It's usually the case that someone higher up than the resignee is actually behind such sudden departures (particularly given leaks - notice the marvellous irony that a senior Met officer complains about such tactics), and I do suspect that this might be the price of Killer of the Yard staying on - a scapegoat had to be found.  It's been fairly proven by Alex Harrowell that the MPA is a useless bunch of rubber stampers, which leaves Blair as the only suspect.  Perhaps we should send CO19 out to haul him in for questioning.  On second thoughts, maybe not.

And so we find ourselves listening to the drip, drip of revelations about New Labour's inability  to refuse dodgy donations. It should be obvious that the party is institutionally  corrupt.

There is the promised 'review' of party funding, the inquiry into changing the rules, but the important thing to remember is that the rules aren't the problem.

The problem is that so many of Labour's top echelon simply don't give a damn about the rules. Arrogance? Yes, but after the 'Cash for Honours' scandal, it is sheer hubris - and hubris has been the underlying tone of the party since that nice Mr. Blair took over.

The self pitying claims of 'I didn't know', 'I was unaware' and so on are just a smokescreen. What they're really saying is 'I didn't care'.

As this descends into farce, the venality of New Labour comes blinking into the light.

The problem with New Labour isn't Blair, it's the entire dysfunctional leadership of the party.

You also might like the final paragraph of the story linked to above

Beyond satire. Beyond a joke.

Could it be that Kim Howells actually got something right when he spoke of the UK's and Saudi Arabia's "shared values"? No, I don't think so either but bear with me.

On the face of it, it would seem not, and this is yet another asinine statement from the Foreign Office minister who has few equals when it comes to talking utter crap. What could we possibly have in common with a despotic regime like Saudi Arabia that beheads its subjects and even forbids women from driving? But when you add New Labour into the equation, one can't help wondering if he doesn't have a point. With New Labour in power there are indeed some values that are shared by the two kingdoms. State corruption is one; unaccountable government is another and supporting America's wars is yet another. And let's not forget the shared enthusiasm for torture and the erosion of civil liberties (not that Saudi Arabia has any civil liberties to erode). So perhaps Howells' statement would have been more accurate if he had emphasised the shared values of New Labour and the House of Saud because I doubt that the people of the UK really do have the same values as that despotic regime.

There's another part of Howells' statement that doesn't stand up to scrutiny and that's the bit about "The case for working together to safeguard our security". We were told that the reason why the police investigation into BAE corruption with Saudi Arabia had to be halted was because of the co-operation and intelligence we were getting from the regime in The War Against Terror (TWAT).

Now we are hearing that the Saudi government did indeed supply the UK with information which might have prevented the attacks of July 7 2005.

Well, until we get a proper inquiry into 7/7, we won't know if that's true. Britain is of course denying that any such information was received (in which case we may as well re open the BAE corruption investigation) and the ill-advised state visit is now looking like a bit of a shambles with even David Miliband finding he has more pressing engagements than talking to the Saudis. King Abdullah has now hilariously accused Britain of not taking the War on Terror seriously, this from the country that spawned Bin Laden and 15 of the 9/11 hijackers.

So in the light of all this, it would seem then that Kim Howells is yet again talking crap.

It looks like the former Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, who showed himself to be such a disgrace to his profession by changing his advice on the legality of the Iraq war at the behest of the White House and by halting the SFO investigation into BAE, has landed himself a cushy job with an American law firm.

Right!

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy could it? From England Expects:

I think I can hear the sound of toys being thrown out of prams.

Rich, fat slimeball (and friend of dissident-boiling Uzbek dictator) Alisher Usmanov, who's trying to take control of the finest football club in the country, is behind the removal of the web presence of those fine defenders of freedom of speech, Tim Ireland, Craig Murray, Bob Piper and, er, Boris Johnson.  Sledgehammer, meet nut.  Usmanov, meet internet opprobrium.  What with Bob being the Oldest of Old Labour, Craig's links to the Daily Mail, Boris' links to the Telegraph, Spectator and any right-wing Tory going  (not to mention being generally well-liked on all sides)and Tim's knack for getting up the nose of anyone, I sincerely hope the bastard quickly finds out what happens when you poke a wasp's nest with a stick.  Please spread the word if you have a blog or anyone's email address who can get this publicised.

[via Chicken Yoghurt]

No one has accurate figures, but there are estimated to be around 180,000 'private contractors' in Iraq. Other sources put the figure at around 200,000. If those figures are anywhere near correct, that's more than the regular US forces in Iraq (currently numbered at around 160,000). The occupying powers don't like to use the word 'mercenaries' but that is exactly what these people are and changing the terminology to 'private contractors', 'civilian contractors' or, even more bizarrely 'security contractors' makes no difference at all. It's a lucrative business.

These mercenaries are involved with more than just security duties, they are often involved in intelligence gathering too and are heavily armed. Of course it's dangerous work but there are obvious advantages to using mercenaries instead of regular forces. When they get killed or injured there is less media coverage and they are not included in coalition forces casualty figures. Also, up until now, there has been little scrutiny of their behaviour which has often been as atrocious as that of the regular army.

The occupation forces depend heavily on the mercenaries so it's quite a big deal for the puppet government in Iraq to boot out Blackwater, the largest of the mercenary outfits in the country after yet another grisly incident in which eight civilians were murdered. Or at least try to boot it out. This latest incident seems to have the Bush administration a tad rattled. A full investigation has been promised and no doubt 'a few bad apples' will be chastised and America will use all its power to persuade the 'sovereign' Iraqi government of the need to keep these hired killers in the country. The threat of withholding aid money can be used to blackmail Iraq into making the 'right' decision.

The Iraqi government also wants to review the status of all private security companies [sic] operating in the country which could affect Blackwater's British counterpart, Aegis, which shares Blackwater's cavalier attitude towards Iraqi lives. Unsurprisingly, Blackwater has close links to the Bush administration. Erik Prince, the multi-millionaire founder and CEO of Blackwater is an ultra right-wing homophobic Christian fundamentalist who has contributed millions of dollars to the Republican cause. In return his company has been given no-bid contracts for 'diplomatic security' worldwide and a $73 million contract from FEMA in the wake of hurricane Katrina. In Iraq the unauthorised and over-priced contracts come straight from Halliburton.

In other words we can expect the Iraqi government to tone down its rhetoric. Meanwhile, Blackwater has other projects in the pipeline. One of them is beyond satire:

A couple of clichés spring to mind. Is this fighting fire with fire, i.e. getting a bunch of trigger-happy lunatics to teach police officers to defend students from trigger-happy lunatics, or is it putting the fox in charge of the hen house? Which ever it is, one can't help but question the wisdom of putting these people, or anyone trained by them, anywhere near a school, especially one which has already experienced one massacre.

Further Bloggage:

• Agitprop
• Chicken Yoghurt
• Craig Murray
• Bloggerheads

Excellent news from across the pond - Bush's personal smokescreen, Alberto Gonzales, a man for whom the list of offences to be taken into consideration extends into treble figures, has resigned.  It seems that the old rule about the cover up being more damaging than the crime still holds true.  You'd think an Administration that started on its life of crime at the knee of Tricky Dicky would know that, but apparently not.  Trebles all round!  Personally, I think this is more significant than Rove, as Gonzales was effectively
stuffed by the Senate justice committee and Patrick Leahy in particular.  Some of the footage of Alberto's performance under examination is quite laughably crass.  The vultures are circling in force.

Once again the news has broken about the excessive number of passes given to BAE to wander the corridors of the Ministry of Defence.

I'm reminded of this quote by Robin Cook in his book Point of Departure

It's being leaked that the CPS will announce tomorrow morning that there will be no charges in the Cash for Honours enquiry.

There are a couple of things to look out for:

1,  If Scotland Yard think this is a whitewash, look out for a very robust defence of the investigation.
2, Tony's going to prepare some resignation honours
3, Cameron, his statement is going to be worth reading carefully as he's no doubt relieved that the Tories are also off the hook.
4, Watch for a Sun/NOTW investigation/smear into Yates of the Yard

The Guardian is reporting that there is a looming diplomatic spat between Britain and the USA over the investigation into BAE corruption in its Saudi Arabian deals.

The timing of this couldn't be better, coming as it did just hours after the Government went into damage limitation mode after the statements made about Britain's future relationship with the USA by the International Development Secretary, Douglas Alexander and also by the recently ennobled Sir Mark Malloch Brown, the Minister for Africa, Asia and UN. Both statements by these ministers have been seen as criticism of US foreign policy forcing Gordon Brown and the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband to insist that there is no change at all in the Britain's relationship with the USA. David Miliband went on air to say that:

While this is unlikely to create a serious rift between Britain and America, it is interesting nonetheless. When Tony Blair was Prime Minister, he insisted that the reason the The Serious Fraud Office investigation into BAE corruption and the payments to the Saudi royal family had to be dropped was for reasons of national security. So, if that was true then we should expect a refusal to co-operate with the American investigation. Refusing to co-operate with an American corruption investigation could have negative consequences for Britain and would cause further worry in Washington about Britain's relationship with the USA. If Britain does decide to co-operate and hand over the evidence collected so far by the SFO then that, presumably, would either create 'national security' issues for Britain or expose Blair and Lord Goldsmith's assertions as a pack of lies.