Sim-O

It’s been a while, but another tosser bites the dust. As I’m in the middle of something in the ‘real world’, a Dead Tosser obituary will have to wait. I’m sure Bin Laden can wait a couple of weeks.

Someone give me a nudge if it doesn’t appear in about three weeks, eh?

As an Editor of the Sun Lies blog I get to bask in the reflected glory of this post from Scepticisle…

it [The Sun] seems a little hazy on history as well, as this passage from the editorial makes plain:

Mr Brown has taken the country to war but is ducking responsibility for the conduct of it. The tradition of our country is that in wartime, the Prime Minister takes charge.

Lloyd George led us in World War One and Winston Churchill in World War Two.

Margaret Thatcher led from the front in the triumphant Falklands War in 1982.

John Major took charge in the first Gulf War of 1991. Tony Blair assumed full responsibility when we invaded Iraq to topple Saddam. And he did the same over the liberation of Kosovo.

Except Gordon Brown hasn’t taken the country in Afghanistan; Tony Blair did, in 2001. We’ve been there ever since. Brown as chancellor provided the funds for the war, it’s quite true, but was not personally responsible for taking us there. He also wasn’t prime minister when we entered Helmand in 2006: the defence secretary then was John Reid, who famously said he hoped that we would leave without firing a single shot. Then there’s the fact that we’re there in the country, not just on our own, but as part of the ISAF NATO coalition. Additionally, if we’re going to split hairs, Winston Churchill didn’t lead us into WW2; Neville Chamberlain did. The war in Afghanistan is also not, in any meaningful sense, a war with specific aims like all of those the Sun lists. It’s far more comparable to what we were doing in Iraq from the fall of Saddam up until our exit this year: peacekeeping, reconstruction and providing security. Missions, like Operation Panther’s Claw, which had the specific aim of clearing out Taliban so that people could vote in the presidential election, have been few and far between. As also argued above, we are quite clearly not in “wartime”.

I would like to post the lot, but that would be a little too much, I think. So, go and read the rest

So, the British are officially out of Iraq.

It’s a pity we just gave the base back to the wrong country.

Craig Murray…

This is the most important blog post I have ever made. I would be grateful if you could do everything in your power to disseminate a link to anyone you know who has the remotest interest in human rights – or should have. This blog will be silent for a few days now.

Tucked away at Page 15 of its annual Human Rights report, the FCO has finally made a public admission of its use of intelligence from torture. Despite the Orwellian doublespeak about “unreserved condemnation of torture”, this is the clearest statement the government has ever made that it, as a policy, employs intelligence from torture.

Read the rest.

Via D-Notice

Timothy Garton Ash (CiF) [my emphasis]…

So, here’s the charge sheet in shorthand summary: American-authorised torture; British complicity; an American-British attempt to withhold evidence; and now the predictable temptation to cover up.
…
Last October, all the papers from the court hearings, open and closed, were given by the home secretary to the attorney general. If she thinks there might be a case for criminal prosecution against Witness B, or anyone else, she must either start a criminal investigation herself or hand it over to the director of public prosecutions. More than four months later, nothing has happened. Why? Well, perhaps she has just been busy. But there remains, in the British system, this latent conflict of interest which the high court summarises thus: “the Attorney General is a Minister of the Crown and thus a member of the Executive branch of the state whose officials are alleged to have facilitated cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or torture“.

A comment of Justins’ applies equally well here, I think…

They’re going to get away with this, aren’t they?

Who is this twat Richard Beeston? Should I know him from anywhere?

He sound like a bit of a git to me. Get this…

Of all the parochial, navel-gazing, non-issues surrounding the Iraq war, the endless debate about the lead-up to it has wasted more time and energy than any other.

Some key participants are out of power and writing their memoirs (George Bush, Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schröder). Some have died (Saddam Hussein, Robin Cook). The only man left standing is the improbable figure of Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister. Dozens of books have been written and films made on the subject. At least one public inquiry has been held. It is tempting to think that anyone left in any doubt about what transpired is not really trying very hard. Jack Straw’s decision to keep pre-invasion Cabinet minutes secret is of little consequence to anyone outside Westminster. All this happened six years ago. Get over it.

‘Get over it’?

What has happened since the invasion, the way troops have been equiped, the planning of the whole post invasion thing, the, basically, slaughter of Iraqi civlians and the behaviour of the troops, when under orders and when using their own initiative, does need debating and investigating. I don’t deny that at all.

But to dismiss the whole reason why we’re there with a ‘get over it’ when the architects of the illegal invasion have not been, at least, brought to trial is, just, well, shit. He should be ashamed of himself.

Just because the key warmongers are out of power, doesn’t mean they can’t be tried.

I do not have time to look up this turds views on the war during the build up, but it’s fairly obvious that he was in favour of it and now instead of admitting he was wrong or anything like that, he just wants to sweep it under the carpet.

Just to dismiss the reasons for the war are a smack in the mouth for everyone.

Dr David Kelly. British soldiers that have died or been injured, the thousands of Iraqis that have died needlesly (pdf), and to a lesser extent the country as a whole in our reputation.

To put this chicken-shits argument in a way that is easily understood, what he is saying is, if the police doesn’t catch a rapist in 6 years, or the victim cannot report it in that time for whatever reason then, tough. Get over it.

If you’ve got a mate that tells you secrets, then it’s right and propor that you don’t blab. After all, they’re not your secrets. It’s not your place to put his information into the public realm, is it.
Especially if that information was helping you. After all, he might stop telling you all the things that he found out.

But what if your mate was getting that information by, lets say, less that honourable means?
Would you still want the information? Would you try and stop you buddy being bad? Would your mate still be your mate or would you start distancing yourself, in case people started to think you were up to no good?

It must be torture having to make a decision like that.

Via

BBC:

US President Barack Obama has ordered the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp as well as all overseas CIA detention centres for terror suspects.

Signing the orders, Mr Obama said the US would continue to fight terror, but maintain “our values and our ideals”.

Nothing like setting off on the right foot, eh?

teh Guardian:

The US president, Barack Obama, looked set to suspend the controversial Guantánamo Bay military tribunals, in one of his first actions after being sworn in yesterday.

Within hours of taking office, Obama’s administration filed a motion to halt the war crimes trials for 120 days, until his new administration completes a review of the much-criticised system for trying suspected terrorists.
…
The halt to the tribunals was sought “in the interests of justice,” the official request to the judges said.

An excellent first move, I must say. Especially if he’s going to hit them targets.

The Guardian:

The foreign secretary, David Miliband, today declared that the use of the phrase “war on terror” as a western rallying cry since the September 11 attacks had been a mistake that may have caused “more harm than good”.
…
Edward Davey, the Liberal Democrats’ foreign affairs spokesman, said today: “If the British foreign secretary had said this to President Bush many months, if not years ago, then it would have deserved some credit. Mimicking President-elect Obama’s lines days before his inauguration does not show leadership.”

It’s just like sticking your fingers up at the school bully when he’s left the room.