I learn the interesting news that David Aaronovitch tweeted to Joan Smith and Jenny Jones that I am:
“an angry and dangerous man who could as easily be on the far right as the far left”.
I had no idea I was on the far left, though I suppose it is a matter of perspective, and from where Mr Aaronovitch stands I, and a great many others, look awfully far away to the left. I don’t believe you should bomb people for their own good, I don’t believe the people of Palestine should be crushed, I don’t believe the profit motive should dominate the NHS, I think utilities and railways were better in public ownership, I think education should be free. I guess that makes me Joseph Stalin.
But actually I am very flattered. Apparently I am not just angry – since the invasion of Iraq and the banker bailouts everybody should be angry – but “dangerous”. If I can be a danger to the interests represented by a Rupert Murdoch employee like Aaronovitch, I must have done something right in my life. I fear he sadly overrates me; but it does make me feel a little bit warmer, and hold my head that little bit higher.
@Vronsky @5:29 re handkerchief dance. Tears.
You know Missing, the Duchesnay’s 1990 free dance program in ice dancing? I’ve watched a ton of ice skating over the years but that’s one of a handful I’ll never forget: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnUMc0VnB-c
Wow, for the blog of a so called human rights activist some of the anti-jewish stuff on here is almost as disturbing as it is nonsensical.
Ron- Get out into the real world sometimes, not many people even now what zionism is, let alone care about it.
Some people just don’t like anyone, even the almighty JA, to be above the law. That is all. Not everything you don’t agree with is a US\Israeli\imperialist\blairite (delete as appropriate) plot.
Hot gossip by water-cooler: http://bit.ly/PQKSjI
@Mary – re Craig’s Thursday “Statement on U.K. intentions and pressures prior to Ecuadorian embassy siege” posted on Wikileaks — it’s quoted and featured front page right now (‘Illegal Decision’) with other story links at michaelmoore.com. (Is Jives here?)
(Reuters) – Britain has withdrawn a threat to enter Ecuador’s embassy in London to arrest WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange who has taken refuge there, President Rafael Correa said on Saturday, taking the heat out of the diplomatic standoff.
“We consider this unfortunate incident over, after a grave diplomatic error by the British in which they said they would enter our embassy,” Correa said in a weekly media address.
In a statement, Ecuador’s government said it had received “a communication from the British Foreign Office which said that there was no threat to enter the embassy.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/25/us-wikileaks-assange-ecuador-idUSBRE87O0EX20120825
What a blithering idiot Hague has made of himself.
@CE:
Disappointed that although you’ve had the time to post reactionary nonsense like your last contribution*, you’ve not had time to get back to my reasonable questions on two past threads.
* Confusing the opinions of a single commenter with the views of the blog owner (or with the views of most commenters) is a tiresome troll tactic. I think it is within your intellect to argue using better logic and some good faith in your opponents.
On that basis, you should be unafraid of where your logic leads. So for example if your research suggests that Assange is at risk of deportation from Sweden, then you could forward a plan to have him face questioning without actually going to Sweden. In so doing – as many here have done also – you would be balancing the need for alleged sexual assault victims to see justice done, whilst seeing alleged victims of politically-motivated prosecution have their rights respected.
Put another way, your perspective on the Assange case is one sided, and your opponents here are showing you how you might achieve some balance. I wonder whether you have the same problem when assessing Israel/Palestine?
In the intriguing story of AAs accusations against JA, some facts concerning the ‘torn condom’ are rarely mentioned.
The Swedish justice system is great in one respect – virtually all relevant police documents – including lab reports and witness statements – are available online.
We know:
AA worked as his press officer during his stay in Sweden
She re-arranged JA’s planned accomodation so that he would then stay at her flat whilst in Sweden
She accused him of deliberately breaking a condom (whilst wearing it)during consensual sex and ejaculating inside her
She allowed him to stay at her flat for several days following this
She went to a party him him after this
She sent complimentary tweets about him after this event
She then contacted the police and was interviewed by telephone
She then erased these tweets
She then erased the tweets copied to her blog
She then had her name removed from the Pirate Party (she attended with JA) press release
The case was dismissed by the initial Prosecuter
AA then found the torn condom – just happened to be lying around her flat for 7 days.
The used condom was analysed by the State Crimminal Laboratory (SKA). They concurred that this was indeed a ripped condom. However they also performed a DNA test on it – it contained no detectable DNA and only very small amounts of unidentified RNA- thus almost certainly was a condom that had never been used.
http://samtycke.nu/eng/2012/03/the-assange-case-the-condom-speaks-out/
http://www.samtycke.nu/doc/ass/police_condom.pdf
As we also know that the initial police interrogator was a friend of AA; AA accompanied SW to make her complaint. SW’s statement never alleged threats, force or coercion and she became upset when asked to sign a statement suggesting rape. AA was at the time fighting for a political post(a seat in Stockholm’s City Council) but has now apparently disappeared somewhere in Palestine.
Well, Anna Ardin’s story sounds perfectly believable to me – no set up here.
I remember this song from folk sessions in the pub many years back, courtesy of the irrepressible Paul Brown:
Victor Jara
words by Adrian Mitchell, music by Arlo Guthrie
Victor Jara of Chile
Lived like a shooting star
He fought for the people of Chile
With his songs and his guitar
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong
Victor Jara was a peasant
He worked from a few years old
He sat upon his father’s plough
And watched the earth unfold
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong
Now when the neighbors had a wedding
Or one of their children died
His mother sang all night for them
With Victor by her side
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong
He grew up to be a fighter
Against the people’s wrongs
He listened to their grief and joy
And turned them into songs
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong
He sang about the copper miners
And those who worked the land
He sang about the factory workers
And they knew he was their man
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong
He campaigned for Allende
Working night and day
He sang “Take hold of your brother’s hand
You know the future begins today”
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong
Then the generals seized Chile
They arrested Victor then
They caged him in a stadium
With five-thousand frightened men
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong
Victor stood in the stadium
His voice was brave and strong
And he sang for his fellow prisoners
Till the guards cut short his song
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong
They broke the bones in both his hands
They beat him on the head
They tore him with electric shocks
And then they shot him dead
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong
Repeat first verse
©1977, 1990 by by Adrian Mitchell & Arlo Guthrie
All Rights Reserved.
CE,
You’re in a long list of many who have tried, and failed, to disrupt this blog with studied ignorance.
You’ve shown your real albeit predictable hand tonight.
You know sometimes, i swear, you’re all the same droid.
Can that be right??
No matter, at least you’re getting paid for it eh?
Err.. or are you? ..perhaps you’re simply under orders-for fear of… well, who knows?
@CE
Last week a US marine was arrested by police and taken to a mental hospital. He had not committed a crime. He had posted anti US government opinions on his PRIVATE Facebook.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/08/24/secret-psyc-ward-renditions-usmc-sgt-brandon-raub-was-just-one-of-many/
The USA has changed in recent years – ask Bradley Manning, Brendan Raub and thousands of others.
You don’t defy the Empire – they don’t like it.
Are you really so naive?
[Mod/Jon: off-topic, stick to discussion please]
Did anyone else think ‘US dirty tricks’ when they heard of the massive explosion at the Venezuela oil refinery causing 39 deaths?
Like the BBC report, this one implies that there is a history of lack of maintenance at the refinery although the PA report only reports the details of the explosion.
http://www.firstpost.com/world/oil-refinery-explosion-kills-39-in-venezuela-430711.html
O/T Do you remember the previous Welcome to Palestine campaign when many arriving at Tel Aviv (al-Ludd*) airport were arrested and harrassed? Today there is another attempt to visit Palestine via the Al Awda Bridge from Jordan. We will see how they are treated.
http://www.paltelegraph.com/palestine/west-bank/10596-welcome-to-palestine-delegates-to-arrive-in-west-bank-on-sunday-26-august-.html
*
PS
When al-Ludd, as it was known by its Arab inhabitants was captured by Israel, the Arab inhabitants fled or were expelled and the city was settled by Jewish immigrants, most of them refugees from Arab countries. Of the former Arab population, only 1,056 inhabitants remained.
Israel’s main international airport, Ben Gurion International Airport (previously known as Lydda Airport, RAF Lydda, and Lod Airport) is located on the outskirts of the city.
All people tell lies there fore Im a dishonest person.
Todat I will search for honesty would i be advised to avoid the Guardian newspaper, how will i find its content.
Honest, dishonest, or simply biased; What will the bases be.
Lets not continue in this vain for to long.
And start asking the right questions.
What is it you want?
A fairly Assange friendly piece in the Mail with photo! I assume the pixellated face is Anna A’s.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2193641/Is-photo-clear-Assange-Grinning-meal-meatballs-schnapps-WikiLeaks-boss-woman-says-sexually-assaulted-48-hours-earlier.html
Not exactly surprising. I think most of this has been posted here already.
Covert police unit with links to armed ops to infiltrate supporters outside Ecuador Embassy
http://darkernet.wordpress.com/2012/08/25/covert-police-unit-with-links-to-armed-ops-to-infiltrate-supporters-outside-ecuador-embassy/
Darker Net can confirm that officers specialising in infiltration and undercover operations and who liaise with armed units, may already be amongst those policing the Ecuador Embassy in London. A press photographer captured notes (see photo) held by a uniformed police officer on duty outside the embassy, revealing that SS10, otherwise known as Specialist Crime Directorate 10 and formerly SO10, are being deployed. The notes ominously refer to possible “risk of life”. The role of SS10 is Intelligence-gathering. SS10 were involved in the events that led to the murder of Brazilian national, Jean de Menezes, in south London and who had been wrongly identified as a terrorist. SS10 are also the branch that employed Mark Kennedy (aka Stone) who infiltrated several protest groups and who is now working for Densus, a private surveillance company in the USA. Below, we present some more background on these two infamous SS10-led operations.
First… The notes carried by the police officer outside the embassy said that Julian Assange should be taken even if he emerges in a vehicle, under diplomatic immunity or in a diplomatic bag, which may involve “risk to life”. They add that there had been speculation that Mr. Assange could be smuggled out of the building in a parcel or given a post in the United Nations by Ecuador in an attempt to evade arrest. The operational guidance, marked “restricted”, also warned of the “possibility of distraction”, suggesting that Scotland Yard feared Mr Assange’s supporters could try to create a commotion outside the embassy, providing cover under which he could flee. Further details of the notes, which were obscured by the officer holding them, appeared to relate to the “everyday business” of the embassy and the possible need for “additional support” from SS10. Scotland Yard later said it did not know what this referred to. It’s interesting to note, too, S020, the Met’s counter-terrorism protective security command, is written near the bottom right-hand corner of the document.
Another possible reason for the persecution of Julian Assange: The Wikileaks exposure of US collusion with a Mexican drugs cartel
http://www.narconews.com/Issue67/article4621.html
@Mary “Did anyone else think ‘US dirty tricks’ when they heard of the massive explosion at the Venezuela oil refinery causing 39 deaths?”
I certainly did!
MI6 piece in today’s Torygraph, wrapped in some hasbara.
Ooh Ecuador, they’re in it with Iran: and just in case you don’t get what the aim of our glorious piece is, here it is in the first two words of the headline:
Julian Assange case: Ecuador accused of allowing Iran to evade sanctions…
…and in the picture: a photo of Correa and Ahmadinjead waving from a balcony Get it? How clever the I/OPS boys must think they are!
And the embassy on Grosvenor Square will dole out at least a medium-sixed brownie point, for the line that
“for Mr Correa, it is simply another chance to poke Uncle Sam and its loyal ally, Britain, in the eye.”
And there’s more:
“In the view of Jay Bergman, the US Drugs Enforcement Agency director for the Andes, the country has become a “United Nations” for organised crime, thanks partly to be its location sandwiched between the world’s top two cocaine producers, Colombia and Peru. However, drug traffickers from as far away as Albania and China are using it as a staging ground to strike deals with cocaine cartels, he alleged.”
As if the DEA isn’t up to its neck in the drug trade.
“If Mr Chavez succumbs to cancer, despite the attention of his Cuban doctors, that could open the way for Mr Correa to assume the role of US tormentor-in-chief. ”
blah blah
Critics might respond that Sweden will have to do a lot more to come anywhere near Britain as the US government’s biggest brown-noser.
Never mind the flagrant contradiction between the following two sentences:
“(Rafael Correa) has brought rare political stability to the country and won support among the country’s poor for a battery of social programmes funded by booming oil revenues and his unilateral decision to renounce the country’s international debts after he won office the first time in 2006.”
and…a quote from his opponent and older brother Fabricio Correa:
“Today, drugs are rampant (…) Crime has doubled. There is no investment. There are no jobs. The number of poor people has increased 50%.”
So we have a high level of support for Correa from the poor, because of loads of social programmes, and we also have no investment, no jobs, and more poverty.
Shurely shome mishtake?
The MI6 piece is bylined “by Philip Sherwell in Quito”.
Time for Mr Sherwell to be given safe passage to the airport?
Postcards to Bradley Manning (let’s not forget him):
1) http://nationaltheatrewales.org/whatson/performance/ntw18#theradicalisationofbradleymanning
2) http://standard.co.uk/news/london/protests-in-london-over-bradley-manning-incarceration-8081196.html
3) http://twitter.com/wikileaks/statuses/239394614543527936
I note that the article is not open for comment and cannot therefore be challenged.
It is a common feature of our free press that we are
reliant on them to determine that about which we are allowed to ‘have our say’.
Can I just venture to suggest…
What on earth do the details of Palestine-Israel have to do with the Assange/Wikileaks narrative? It might have been one of the countless topics released by Wikileaks and of course it’s an important part of the Middle East political picture. But some posters seem to want to shoot themselves in the foot by attributing everything – absolutely everything in the world that’s ever happened or ever will happen – to the Palestine-Israel dynamic. It just facilitates other people to claim that anyone who supports Wikileaks/justice for Assange must be ‘anti-Semitic’ (as well as a ‘rape apologist’) and makes the blog look irrational and obsessed.
@Bert
So now in DEA-Telegraph-I/OPS-land, we have a map of the world as follows:
1) the United States, the font of all good, helping Israel – wholly by its own choice – against the wicked threat to the planet, called Iran
2) the loyal “allies” of the United States
3) the United Nations of organised crime and terror
I think we may hear that “UN” phrase, or similar, a lot more.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/9499603/Julian-Assange-case-Ecuador-accused-of-allowing-Iran-to-evade-sanctions.html
Will this crap ever end?
Establishment – v – Wikileaks Round 947. Establishment – v – Iran Round 2092. Now the Telegraph has come up with a way to combine both, aren’t they clever. I suppose they believe that if they throw enough brown stuff at the wall some of it has to stick.
Pathetic.
Suhayl This post of Craig’s was about Aaronovitch’s slurs. I see a connection. Aa is after all a supporter of the terror state.
‘Presumably Aaronovitch thought he would get a round of applause for his support of Israel’s barbaric attack on Gaza, which killed over 1,400 civilians.’ Not far from Trevino there is he?
http://azvsas.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/humiliation-of-david-aaronovitch.html
😉
@Suhayl Saadi:
Completely agree Suhayl
Indeed, if I were being particularly cynical, I might suspect that these anti Semitic posts that I am seeing popping up all over the place in the last few days in several forums, comments sections and blogs are the work of agent provocateurs whose job is is to pollute the debate and, as ever, take people’s eye off the ball of what this is actually all about; which is the crimes against humanity of the USA and Wikileaks’ part in exposing them.
Tony Greenstein should apologise for what he has said about Gilad Atzmon. GA is quite right in what he says about those who organise as ‘anti-Zionist Jews’.
I don’t want people to misinderstand my last post. I am most assuredly against the crimes that Isreal has perpetrated on the Palestinians. The virutal open prison in their own land that they have had to endure for decades is an evil stain on the world.
However, it is a related but secondary issue with regards to what is happening right now with Assange and its growing inclusion in the debate is only serving the interests of those who would seek to distract from the crimes of the USA and their attempt to silence whistelblowers and those who would pubish the information they provide.
I agree there Harriet. I have no time for Greenstein but was merely using that article of his to illustrate Aaronovitch’s views.
Steve Cook. It is not ‘anti Semitic’ to criticize a cruel Occupier. The very strong Israel lobby in this country and in the US have been clever in getting that label across.
I think Steve Cook made his point very clearly and it is one with which I agree. It’s not a question of ‘what do we think of Israel/Palestine?’ It’s a question of avoiding the temptation to bring that one political subject – a very important and emotive subject, granted, and one about which we often are rightly very angry – into every single discourse, regardless.
Where it’s directly relevant, fine, but otherwise it can give the impression of people (I’m not meaning you, Mary, I’m just talking in general here) who are pathologically obsessed with it to the extent that they think everything that happens in the world revolves around it in a kind of arachnoid fashion. This can play into the mechanics of both the Far Right and those who wish to discredit (the supporters of) whistleblowers like Assange, Murray, etc. (as well as to discredit the whistleblowers themselves).