jack straw
Oops! We Forgot - Rendition Continues
Posted February 21st, 2008 by quarsanOh dear. After Jack Straw gave us all the details about rendition, it seems Condi has dropeed him and Milliband in it again.
A British overseas base was used for American "torture" flights the Government has been forced to admit, despite categorical denials of British involvement from both Tony Blair and Jack Straw.
More worryingly, the story continues:
Mr Miliband made clear that the Government expected the US to seek permission if it wanted to render terrorist suspects through UK territory and airspace.
He said that permission would only be granted if the Government was satisfied that it was in accord with British law and the UK's international obligations, including those under the United Nations Convention Against Torture.
Translation: Rendition will continue.
Buggers Banquet
Posted February 4th, 2008 by TomJust a quick update to the previous buggers story - Nick Robinson is claiming that it was Thames Valley Plod, not the Met, who bugged Mr. Khan and Mr. Ahmad. Probably reasonable given the location of the prison, so apologies to the incompetent murderous mendacious bastards at the Yard.
However, given that it seems to have been initiated by a TVP copper acting on his own initiative, it's quite possible the Met and indeed every other force in the country is happily reaching for the RIPA 2000 and bugging anyone and everyone without bothering to inform a judge or the Cabinet. This leads to the following bit of speculation:
If you or I went round blabbing details of anti-terror surveillance operations we'd be in Paddington Green trying to remember Gareth Peirce's phone number* before too long. Doesn't seem to apply to the Sunday Times and the Tories, however, who evidently both received this information, so who leaked it? Whose noses would be put out of joint by a lot of ordinary coppers getting in on the domestic surveillance game? Whose paper is the Sunday Times? Answers on a postcard (left in a dead letter drop in the Brompton Road) and addressed to 'MI5, Thames House, London'.
OK, so what would the spooky calculation be? Let slip that the fuzz are bugging MPs and suddenly Straw and the boys (and the Tories, hence the leak to them) are put on the back foot, realise what a monster they've created in allowing the police unchecked surveillance powers, put uppity Plod and his Acme Listening Kit back in his box and go running back to the professionals. Perhaps. All seems rather neat, really, but there's a plausible case here to say that genuine MI5 anti-terror surveillance operations (which I'm certainly not opposed to, see Shami Chakrabarti's comments) could easily be badly compromised if there's a police operation unknown to them going on. If that's the case, the leaker's done us all a favour.
The only unanswered question is what on earth TVP thought they'd pick up - Sadiq Khan MP isn't a terrorist, he's Jack Straw's PPS FFS. I suggest they did it because they could and because there's no accountability *at all*. Thus are police states run, you don't have to have a reason to be arbitrary.
Talking of which, Olbermann is in fine form (via ChickYog). There's more from SpyBlog too, and Tony Benn makes the obvious, if paranoid, point that the Wilson Doctrine never meant that much anyway.
One Out, All Out
Posted August 29th, 2007 by TomOne of the big predictions of the Right when New Labour came in was that some day the mask of Thatcherite copycatting would slip and the cloven hoof of unburied dead, rubbish in the streets and mass walkouts would return. I don't like to give the bastards too much credit, but New Labour forcing (through indifference, incompetence and Gordon Brown's meanness when it comes to public sector pay) the prison officers out on strike does fit the pattern rather. The slight difference is that the strike is illegal and the reason that it's illegal is that the Conservatives banned prison officers from striking, a position confirmed by that leading light of Socialism and defender of liberty David Blunkett (although of course he
spun it as giving them back their right to strike).
"Colin Moses has made it clear that he wants an entirely different relationship, both with the management in the prison service and with the government," he told BBC Radio 4's the World at One.
"There's been a realisation that knocking bells out of each other really doesn't help."
Mr Blunkett admitted the new "partnership approach" would look "very odd" from the outside, but it was "actually for the best of outcomes".
It really is outstanding how Blunkett's legacy is the opposite of what he intended.
Incidentally, since this is important, the course of events seems to be this (derived from Hansard):
* 1994 - Conservatives outlaw industrial action in prisons in Section 127 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. Labour's shadow Home Secretary, one T. Blair, writes to complain.
* 1997 - Labour elected on manifesto including a promise to repeal Section 127
* 2001 - a voluntary agreement is signed where the POA promise not to strike
* 2003 - Blunkett gets a lot of credit for his announcement, thought to take about 9 months to implement
* 2004 - the voluntary agreement is ended in anticipation
* 2005 - a Regulatory Reform Order is made to suspend Section 127
However, there's a gotcha in here (isn't there always?). The suspension is only conditional on the POA and Government having a legally-enforceable voluntary agreement. Here's the money quote:
In other words, the prison officers have full union rights on condition that they don't use them! How wonderfully New Labour. It's not the 70s coming back after all, it's business as usual, screwing the workers. Further evidence for this comes in the revelation that after representations from private prison operators, Section 127 was kept in force for their benefit.
Inquiry Into Iraq 'in due course'
Posted February 22nd, 2007 by TomJack 'Man of' Straw has apparently announced that there'll be an inquiry into the Iraq War 'at the appropriate time'. Blair is on board with this, although he wasn't last week and the wrong time to have an inquiry is 'while the troops are out there' as it will 'send the wrong message'. Judging by ARRSE, the message the troops have got - 'we expect you to fight for a lie without adequate equipment' - hasn't exactly done wonders for their view of Mr. Blair. I'm sure big, tough, cynical British squaddies aren't squeamish about Parliament having an inquiry into what they know is a crock of shit. Mr. Straw must have rather a low opinion of them, which is just one reason I have rather a low opinion of Mr. Straw.
Of course, the right time for an inquiry, from Tony Blair's point of view, is about a nano-second after his private jet leaves UK airspace, heading west.
Time to GO - See you in Manchester Tomorrow.
Posted September 22nd, 2006 by ringverse
See you tomorrow...
Jack Straw puts the boot in
Posted July 29th, 2006 by Davide SimonettiTony Blair's sycophantic fawning over George Bush and his policy of putting a torch to the Middle East is causing more repercussions in the Labour party. That Blair doesn't seem to think that Israel's response to Hezbollah is disproportionate is unsurprising. What is surprising is that no one has put the question to Blair that directly and so allowing him to avoid this aspect of the issue. This might be about to change. It is not just the usual suspects on the backbenches who are expressing alarm at Blair's stance.
Cabinet members feel the tone of government pronouncements is making it look indifferent to the suffering of Lebanese civilians, and senior backbenchers are openly critical of Tony Blair's stance. "We could do with sounding a little bit more like Kim [Howells] and a little less like Condi [Rice]," said one minister.
Foreign office minister Mr Howells has repeatedly called for Israel to show "proportionality and restraint", while the foreign secretary and prime minister have refused to condemn its actions.
Greg Pope, a Blairite and member of the Commons foreign affairs committee, told the Guardian that there was widespread dismay that the government had not called for an immediate ceasefire.
"Tony has misjudged [this issue], and is leaving us isolated among European countries and at home," he said.
This is bad enough for Blair but now the former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, another loyal Blairite, has weighed into the argument and criticised the Prime Minister.
As Tony Blair flew out to Washington for talks with George Bush, the Commons Leader became the first UK Cabinet Minister to label the Israeli military action as "disproportionate".
He made clear the continuing assault risked destroying the Lebanese government and opening up the Middle East to further terrorism.
Of course the fact that he lost his job in May on the orders of Bush in a cabinet reshuffle shortly after making comments about an attack on Iran being "inconceivable" and "completely nuts" might have some bearing on the matter. Another reason for him to break ranks with Blair might be the large Muslim population in his constituency of Blackburn and some opportunistic repositioning in anticipation of Blair's departure. As the conflict continues to escalate an attack on Iran is less inconceivable than previously thought.
I wonder who will be next to abandon Blair's sinking ship.
Craig Murray Interview
Posted July 17th, 2006 by Davide SimonettiLenin's Tomb has an interview with Craig Murray in which he dicusses his book and experiences in Uzbekistan.
Well: "It started with me in first three weeks of arriving going to witness a dissident trial, and it was absolutely terrifying. It was like a Nazi show trial, they had dissidents signing confessions saying not only that they had been to Afghanistan, but that they actually met bin Laden – it was that obvious. And the prisoners were looking dishevelled and beaten, and they were surrounded by armed guards and the judge was screaming at them. It was an extraordinary, terrifying experience. Within a few days of that, I received photographs of one prisoner who had been boiled to death at the notorious Jaslyk prison complex. He later turned out to have been a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir. But word got around – the attendance at a dissident trial created a ripple effect because in general no one showed any interest. Very soon, people were beating a path to my door, relatives of those who had been imprisoned, tortured, disappeared, murdered. And over time I started to get a picture of torture at an industrial level, with the common factor that if they were dissidents they were made to sign confessions indicating that they were connected with Al-Qaeda and if they weren’t dissidents, they had to name ten other people as being connected with Al Qaeda – and it was ludicrous, these were people they had never even met!
Read the whole interview here.
Craig Murray: 'Murder in Samarkand' Finally Censored
Posted July 12th, 2006 by ringverseUnder legal advice, Craig Murray has been forced to remove the documents from his own website. However, the threat of an injunction only applies to him. So, untill we receive a letter from the Treasury Solicitors, our mirror is staying up, as is Dahr's, and as are then numerous other mirrors that have sprung up.
Of course, if the FCO pursue all of us who are now hosting the documents, then they have a very long and ultimately futile job ahead of them and will show just how desperate they are to stop you seeing them. If they do not, then their punitive vindictive attempts to make life as difficult as they can for Craig will be seen for what they are.
For the moment, it looks like they are playing the man, rather than the ball.
New Labour are not as stupid as they seem. I have now had a chance to take legal advice, and that advice is as follows. To defend this case would cost the price of a London house. I don't have a house, in London or anywhere else. I am therefore obliged to give in to force majeure and remove some of the documents from my own site. This reeking government is therefore able to mask its stink on this particular miniscule corner of the internet.
Here is another piece of legal advice I received. Copyright cases cover one instance of publication in one place. Anyone else who has published any government documents that might be Crown Copyright, or not, (and I believe there are hundreds of thousands of documents on the web on which the government could, by the argument in Mr Buttrill's letter, claim copyright), is an individual case and can wait to hear from Mr Buttrill.
Force Majeure wields a two-edged sword.
Craig
Meanwhile, the first review of the book has appeared on amazon.com.
[The book is not available from the US site yet, to buy it, go to amazon.co.uk]
Few of us have done battle with a murderous dictator. "Murder in Samarkand" tells how a British Ambassador did so and survived, only to be stabbed in the back by his own Prime Minister. Tony Blair ignored diplomatic advice if it complicated his relations with George W. Bush. How the British Foreign Office tried but failed to dismiss Ambassador Murray for invented disciplinary offences is an individual tale of injustice. However, the gripping core of this story is of a young and studious Ambassador driven to take absurd risks in remote parts of Uzbekistan as he builds up a dossier of incontrovertible brutalities by his host government. Those who try to obstruct him find this experienced and slightly overweight scholar is no patsy. He disputes the lies of petty bureaucrats. He storms into a corrupt procurator's office and dismisses him as a criminal - a risky way to use an Ambassador's "full and plenipotentiary" powers. But it works. The bully is exposed as a coward in front of those he has bullied. There is even a snow-shrouded chase with President Karimov's goons in pursuit - no wonder film rights are under discussion.
The shocking part of this story - narrated with skill and honesty - is that, at heart, much of the British Foreign Office valued Ambassador Murray's reporting from his Embassy in Tashkent. Dealing with human rights abuses is never easy. Murray knew his way around the policy heavyweights at home well enough to make sure that a controversial speech critical of Uzbekistan had support from the human rights desks. But when the White House complained to Tony Blair and he passed this down the line, spines crumpled - from Foreign Secretary Jack Straw down. This book shows how diplomats can bring shame or honor to their country. There is a simple lesson for Tony Blair (and George Bush) to learn. If you ask diplomats who are trained to report truthfully, to tell lies, the lasting problems will come from the ones who obey you, not the ones who stick to their professional calling.
FCO Threaten Legal Action to Supress Craig Murray's Book
Posted July 7th, 2006 by ringverseSo it has started.
As Craig isn't contravening the Official Secret's Act with the documentation he has published in support of his book 'Murder in Samarkand' on his site, here at Blairwatch and Dahr Jamail's site, they are trying to use the Crown Copyright Laws to keep him quiet.
See this letter from the Treasury Solicitors [pdf]:
and further email correspondence on Craig's site Lenin's Tomb.
We await further news...
Dahr Jamail has added a torrent file to share, and a zip to download of all the documents directly.
A Damming COE Report on Extraordinary Rendition, would Mr Blair care to reconsider his position?
Posted June 6th, 2006 by ringverseThe Council of Europe investigation into Extraordinary Rendition is to report tomorrow and according to Newsnight [listen to a 4mb Lo Fi mp3 grab here]. It is a damming indictment of US and European complicity in a spiders web of rendition flights spun across the globe.
It accuses 14 countries of being involved.
It finds evidence that there are indeed 'black sites' or secret prisons in Europe, in Poland and or Romania, and that the British Government have handed people over into the rendition and Black sites process.
So perhaps Mr Blair would like to reconsider his recent protestations of ignorance, made at a press conference last December. Do listen, it's only a 200k mp3 file.
I can't tell you whether such a thing exists - because, er - I don't know.
Now Mr Blair does know, I wonder if he has anything to add to his previous Home Secretary's protestations of ignorance?
Iain Orr on the Fate of The Chagos Islanders
Posted June 6th, 2006 by ringverseA superb article in Open Democracy by Iain Orr, on the opportunity afforded this government to go some way to righting a historic injustice - that perpetrated against the Chagos Islanders by HMG in the 1960s.
In November 2000, the high court in London ruled that the ordinance under which the exile had been carried out was illegal (see here for the full judgment). That was accepted by the ("New") Labour government of Tony Blair. The then foreign secretary Robin Cook, referring to the local designation of the community involved (the Ilois) said:
"I have decided to accept the court's ruling and the government will not be appealing. The work we are doing on the feasibility of resettling the Ilois now takes on a new importance. We started the feasibility work a year ago and are now well underway with phase two of the study.
Furthermore, we will put in place a new immigration ordinance which will allow the Ilois to return to the outer islands while observing our treaty obligations."
However, once Robin Cook was moved from the FCO and became leader of the House of Commons in June 2001, FCO officials plotted to set aside the high-court's judgment. In 2004 a new BIOT order in council made it illegal for Chagossians to return home without prior permission. The resettlement feasibility study was discontinued. The Chagossians challenged this blatant ploy, hoping that the judiciary would be better at delivering justice than Her Majesty's Government (HMG) at providing good governance of its overseas territories.
On 11 May 2006 Lord Justice Hooper delivered the high-court's judgment. The full text is a chilling study of the chicanery used by an overweening executive to ignore inconvenient human rights. Here are three key passages:
Iain Orr can be found at www.biodiplomacy.net
More on the fate of the Chagos Islanders over at the Disillusioned Kid, just click the "chagos" link in the archives on the sidebar.
Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war
Posted June 4th, 2006 by ringverseIt appears Jack Straw is to throw his hat in the ODPM ring - along with Peter Hain, Harriet Harman and Alan Johnson.
The phrase 'like flies round shit' springs to mind...
The First Aniversary of Bobur Square, Andijan - The Massacre the World Forgot.
Posted May 13th, 2006 by ringverseToday is the first aniversary of the Andijan Massacre in Uzbekistan.
The government has either shut or forced the closure of the BBC, Radio Free Europe/Liberty, Deutsche Welle, and many international organisations – the United Nations is the latest to come under attack. Numerous Uzbek journalists and human rights defenders have fled the country. A new media law puts Uzbek citizens who work for foreign news organisations without official accreditation at risk of imprisonment.
A year later the memories of this horrible massacre are still very fresh. It is important that we don't let the world forget Andijan.
Everybody remembers the Tiananmen Square massacre, at the tail end of the cold war when the west held China at arms length.
Estimates of the number of protesters killed range from the hundreds to the thousands.
The execution of peaceful protesters by a brutal authoritarian state was captured on television, most notably with the iconic figure of 'The Tank Man', and resulted in worldwide condemnation.
But do people remember the Bobur Square Massacre, at the height of The War Against Terror when the west was prepared to break bread with any brutal dictator who was prepared to play ball?.
Estimates of the number of protesters killed range from the hundreds to the thousands.
The execution of peaceful protesters by a brutal authoritarian State was not captured on television, and there was no iconic TV figure, and the event resulted in lukewarm condemnation.
For a detailed analysis of what happened in Bobor Square on 13/05/05, This piece by Ed Vullimay is a remarkable dispatch which pieced together for the first time the full story of the Uzbek massacre that the world forgot
There is a protest organised for today [Saturday 13/05/06] 12:30pm - 3pm.
More details via www.freeuzbekistan.com
The following is a re-post of a round up of bloggers writings from last September in support of cotton sanctions against the Uzbek regime.
but only if 20 other people will too."
I got in much later than expected tonight thanks to life and my employers conspiring against me, and read all the other posts before I sat down to write mine.
Which was a mistake, because they are all of such quality, detail and so comprehensive, that I can't come up with anything original after reading them all!
So, in 20ish links, and with a couple of points I don't think made it into today's posts, I am going to try and do a round up of others thoughts and work.
To start, we have a comprehensive primer on the 'Stans' and how the region fits together from Nosemonkey over at The Sharpener. An understanding of the 'Stans', and who is zooming who is essential to understanding the specific issues concerning Uzbekistan, and this post puts it all into context.
Next we go over to the Disillusioned Kid over at The Disillusioned Kid, author of the original pledge. He takes a broad view of the country, it's history, geography and politics and our relationship with Karimov and his Human Rights Abuses..
'Human Rights Abuses' is a phrase we are used to hearing on the news, but torture and repression are so grotesque in Uzbekistan under the Karimov regime that the phrase 'human rights abuses' does not convey the horror. Robin at Perfect does a chilling job of of cataloging some of the regimes excesses, as does Tim at Bloggerheads with his Ballad if Islam Karimov.
Karimov, not the sort of guy to have anything to do with, you would think. But think again, if you have followed the links so far, you will have seen the strategic importance of Uzbekistan. A brutal dictator who didn't play ball got his regime changed by us and the US not so very long ago, but a brutal dictator who sort of plays ball, makes the right noises and is prepared to torture to order, well, he gets propped up by us and the US.
Our complicity in and support for the dispicable Uzbek regime is covered in some detail in the preview chapter of ex Uxbek ambassador Craig Murray's book, by DanR at the Naked Lunch, Justin at Chicken Yoghurt, James K at Blood and Treasure and with a bit of a leftball from The EasyJetSetter.
Amazing the Kudos playing ball with big oil interests and being "an ally in the war on terror" buys.
And so to the point of the pledge.
Cotton.
A call to boycott Uzbekistan cotton was the source of this pledge, based on an article from Craig Murray. It should be read in conjunction with his explanation of why such a sanction would hurt the regime far more than the people.
The history of cotton farming in Uzbekistan, from it's Tsarist origins through the disasterous Soviet collective years, up untill today's catastrophic state controlled monoculture is dealt with in great detail by Otto at Otto's Random Thoughts and Laurence at Registan, and the result wholesale degradation and poisoning of the environment is covered by Galgacus at Mons Graupius.
It is the human and economic consequences of the cotton culture that drive the calls for a boycott, and Timx over at Time the Dreaded Enemy takes us comprehensively through the economics and abuses of a state controlled market run on child slave labour, as do Sepra, Pitch In For Uzbekistan, with more from Mons Graupius and Registan, Luther over at Vivez Sans Temps Mort, alex at Atopian, and friend at The London Friends of Craig Murray.
I think that's everybody that took part, and I hope I have done everybody justice. More than a hat tip, a hat doff should go to the Disillusioned Kid for starting this off and making something happen today. And credit to all those who's work I have linked here.
A Couple of final points:
Extraordinary Rendition. This is our practice of subcontracting torture to countries like Uzbekistan, when our human rights laws prove a little inconvenient. This is one of the most repellent tactics in T.W.A.T, The War Against Terror, and has been widely documented.
The headset of those who seem to think we are absolved of responsibility if we smuggle suspects to brutal regimes like Karimov's so somebody else tortures them on our behalf disgusts and frightens me as much as those who perform the torture.
Some countries, Italy, and most recently Denmark have stood and spoken out against this obscenity. But here in the UK we are shamed by our complicity.
And Landrovers. Not just any old Landrovers but British Army Landrovers. Shipped over to Karimov via a third party of course, and used in the brutal supression of the protests in Andijan. What better example of a New Labour Foreign policy could there be than unquely identifiable British Military vehicles being used to massacre civillians.
The final word has to go to Muzafar Avazov.
We hear the stories about people being boiled alive by our ally Karimov's security services being sideswiped by our politicians as if they are allegations or rumors.
The stories are not propaganda or an urban myth. 'Boiled Alive' has a name.
His name is Muzafar Avazov.
All of the above comes with a Hat Doff to former British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray, who has taken a principled stand over our complicity with the Karimov regime. he was hounded out of his job by our Labour Government for refusing to back down, and they continue to make every effort to thwart his efforts to tell his side of the story. Fortunately he has refused to be cowed.
Jack Straw Vs Truth
Posted April 15th, 2006 by quarsanRemember when Jack, summoning up as much sincerity as he could, declared that military action against Iran was 'inconceivable'?
Oh no it isn't. In 2004 British officers joined the US in a war game that had invading Iran as it's scenario.
So let's change 'inconceivable' to 'something we've rehearsed'. There, much better. We've reunited Jack Straw with the truth.
Jack Straw Says "Be Cool, Relax, Nobody is Going to Nuke Iran"
Posted April 9th, 2006 by ringverseRelax everybody, Jack Straw says everything is going to be OK.
You know all that stuff Seymore Hersh was on about, the bunker busting nuclear option for Iran? Well we don't need to worry, because Jack says it's "completely nuts".
He reassures us that there is no "smoking gun" and therefore "no justification for military action".
Also that "the UK would not launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran, adding that he was as "certain as he could be" that neither would the US."
Oh, and we shouldn't believe what Richard Perle says, because he is an unreliable source.
[Really!]
I wonder where Jack heard those arguments before...?
They may be the right sentiments, they're just a war too late to have any credibility when Jack Straw expresses them.
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