I don’t think any single person who has considered the matter seriously, has any real doubt that Jack Straw was complicit in torture in an active and involved way, and has lied about it continually. There are some who would argue he was ethically justified, but that is a different argument. It is not worth engaging in ethical argument with anybody who maintains that the facts which are the basis of the argument, should not be known.
The Gibson Inquiry was set up by the Government precisely to get to the truth of these matters. It was then cancelled precisely in order to hide the truth of these matters, which is one Hell of a U-Turn. The real reason for the cancellation of the Gibson Inquiry was that it became evident from its initial inquiries, firstly that Gibson was not a vicious calculating placeman like Hutton, and secondly that the number of very senior ministers, diplomats, security service agents and civil servants who were directly implicated in criminal activity was very large.
I confess that the cancellation of the Gibson Inquiry, at which I was determined to give evidence, came as a staggering blow to me. The official excuse for its cancellation was that there are a number of law cases pending over torture of individuals. This was very strange as public inquiries are generally into incidents likely to result in law cases, and the notion that the inquiry cannot run in parallel with law cases is a novel one.
Anyway, I collected myself and I quietly after several police interviews gave my formal, sworn, eye-witness evidence to the Metropolitan Police to assist the police investigation against Jack Straw, Mark Allen and others in the kidnap and torture of Abdel Belhaj and others. That was some years ago, and it is now absolutely plain to me that the very decent and genuine policemen whom I met are being blocked from ever going anywhere with that case.
Now we have the news that the new Justice and Security Act is to be used by the government to ensure that the facts of Belhaj’ civil case against Straw and Allen are forever hidden from the public. It is quite extraordinarily Orwellian that the systematic and deliberate denial of justice is through something called the “Justice and Security Act”.
What an appalling country.
Jack Straw confirmed the ‘conspiracy theory’ as ‘conspiracy fact’ that there exists a “secret state… in league with some dark forces in the United States” and that officials lied & that he lied…..
The British entry at the Venice Biennale. Good for Mr Deller.
‘His opening piece, entitled ‘A Good Day for Cyclists’, depicts a giant hen harrier clutching a blood-red Range Rover. Deller says his piece was inspired by the alleged illegal shooting of two hen harriers on the Queen’s Sandringham Estate in 2007 – an incident for which Prince Harry was subjected to police questioning but no charges were ever brought against anybody.’
http://raptorpersecutionscotland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/deller3_2575036b.jpg?w=945
http://raptorpersecutionscotland.wordpress.com/2013/05/29/hen-harrier-persecution-highlighted-at-international-art-show/
‘Turner Prize-winner Jeremy Deller has created an “aggressive” anti-establishment exhibition to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale.
It features attacks on the Royal Family, former Prime Minister Tony Blair and the artist’s pet hate: Range Rovers.
“Every room has a scene of destruction in it,” the artist told the BBC.’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22689637
This one was good too.
One room of the pavilion is devoted to the Victorian Arts & Crafts pioneer William Morris. A wall is given over to a lurid, deliberately amateurish painting of a wild-haired, giant-sized Morris throwing a miniaturised luxury yacht into the Venetian lagoon. The yacht is named Luna; it belongs to the Russian super-rich art collector Roman Abramovich.
http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article8634938.ece/ALTERNATES/w620/AN21884258Jeremy+Deller+Eng.jpg
Why do some posters always try to derail the thread?
It’s important to note that Belhaj offered to settle his UK lawsuit against the British government, Sir Mark and Jack Straw for £3 and an apology
Yes, what an appalling country indeed. But for whom do I vote to change it? The stuffed shirts between which I am required to choose on polling day are already pre-selected by their respective local constituency committees which, these days, are usually strictly controlled from the centre. I don’t suppose any of them got on the podium in the first place by expressing doubts about torture, war, imprisonment without trial, the near abolition of habeas corpus, the actual abolition of the double jeopardy rule and so on and so forth and I wouldn’t trust any of ’em as far as I can spit. Being somewhat conservative I also have a grave distrust of street demos – not to mention the violence which often ensues. Sites such as this demonstrate that there are a large number of Britons from all political backgrounds and none who loathe what the country has become and what is being done in our name. So this is a serious question now: how do we mobilise ourselves to take our country back? I’m a practical man, a small-holder and I am truly open to practical, peaceful suggestions.
Can you not get it? Can you not see Tony Blair’s name there? Blair…Straw… Then there’s a yacht which belongs to a Russian oligarch who resides in the UK. Craig said ‘What an appalling country.’ It is now.
Now the Royal Mail is being privatised and these banks are being used in the flotation. Thatcher lives.
‘Royal Mail banks in spotlight over Libor-rigging
The government is facing questions over its decision to hand the potentially lucrative mandate to float the Royal Mail to banks involved in the manipulation of Libor.’
‘UBS and Barclays have been appointed as senior advisers on the stock market listing of Royal Mail, which could earn the scandal-hit lenders millions of pounds in fees, less than a year after they were fined nearly £1.3bn for attempting to rig global borrowing rates.’
‘Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Merrill Lynch are also working on the Royal Mail IPO.’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/10087380/Royal-Mail-banks-in-spotlight-over-Libor-rigging.html
I vividly recall ‘Orwellian’ being my reaction to the announcement of a shiny, brand new ‘Ministry of Justice’ by – you guessed it – Jack Straw back in 2007. I was even naive enough to believe there would be extensive comment and objections to the name on precisely those grounds. In the event I don’t recall seeing anything along those lines at all – not even in Private Eye as I recall.
The problem is that, in spite of everything, the mass of the population still have a quaint belief (probably a visceral NEED to believe actually) in ‘British Justice’ when, at the level of ANY proceedings impinging or real power a mythical ‘national security, defined on a whim by you-know-who, the tern really is an oxymoron
In cases sensitive to the government i.e. when they and their agencies acted illegally, a judge is usually wheeled out to produce a judgment in the government’s favour. It can happen too and often does that the defence legal team work more for the government than their client. Even though in Belhaj’s case there is very strong incriminating evidence, in a secret court the reasons why the judge came to such a decision will remain concealed.
If the intelligence services can get away with torture, rendition etc then their role is comparable to the Gestapo
Theresa May: “We need to see if there are additional steps we should be taking to prevent radicalisation”
STEPS:
1. Arrest those persons with charges of criminal violation of the laws and customs of war and related principles of international law including torture and treason.
2. Stop the illegal supply of arms and war equipment to terrorists.
3. Release prisoners held without charge in death/black/detention camps.
4. Abandon remote killing from British shores by drones/UAV/Murdering Airborne Machines
5. Respect the human right to life.
6. Consider so many children in war who never had the chance to share love.
It is clear to me that the political class does not believe in the rule of law.
There is evidence from the invasion of Iraq, to actions to allow Israeli war criminals to enter the country, to recent retrospective law changes to deny the unemployed benefits. And on and on.
It is an appalling clique that governs. In the interest of themselves and of their own bigotries and prejudices. The people do not rule. For that to be the case requires that the whole political class can be replaced. Not one party exchanged for another. They think they can do whatever they want and there will no consequences, legal or otherwise.
Haemoglobin,
It’s on BBC2 Scotland later at 11:20pm after Newsnight.
Also on BBC2 HD in Scotland at 9pm
Britain has never been a democracy; even the 1931 election when a partei formed a government with 55% of the votes cast, didn’t manage a majority of the electorate. With an electoral system that resembles Mussolini’s Acerbo Law, the people have been dispensed with.
I feel sick having just seen the first episode of The Iraq War on BBC2. All those ghastly faces and names being regurgitated. What horrible memories. Mr Jack Strauss Straw featured many times, the last time being shown roaring approval for Tone’s speech before the final vote and patting him on the back as he sat down. Two thirds of the then Labour party voted for war. Shame on all of them and may they and all the warmongers rot in hell.
Have just watched the first programme on the Iraq war on BBC2.
Perhaps I wasn’t giving it my full attention at all times (to tend to still be reduced to incoherent rage when confronted with self-justifying lies from Straw and Blair) but didn’t notice any mention of the legal/illegal argument with Goldsmith forced to acquiesce at the end.
If there was no mention of it how many other holes did others notice?
I haven’t watched it. I saw the description on iplayer, “How did the US and Britain become convinced that Saddam possessed WMDs? ” and decided it wasn’t worth it.
They knew damn well there were no WMD, everybody knew, the UN knew because they had had weapons inspectors in there for years. It was an excuse, a lame excuse, everybody knew it then and everybody knows it now so why the hell are they still keeping up the pretence.
It is revising history 101. The thrust of the story was; it was not our fault, it was intelligence wot done it. Further, the figure of 12000 pages report mentioned, was in fact 17000 pages and not mentioned was the heist of the report by the US state department; to photocopy the report, cuz UN did not have photocopiers capable of such a task.
After the state department photocopiers had redacted 14000 pages the subsequent 3000 pages report was submitted to UNSC. This effectively covered up the US et al involvement in supply of technology and material for the WMD program of Saddam.
Cheney the Duracell man (he has had more heart attacks than many who managed to have hot dinners, yet the criminal bastard looks younger than he used to be. This draft dodging murdering chicken hawk gets to live his opulent life while poor; dead Iraqis, maimed Iraqis, orphaned Iraqis, and those Iraqis suffering the after effects from the weapons of fire and kill for many years cancers and as yet unknown skin diseases.
As ever the victors write the history (my arse), the narrative in anticipation of the next war they intend to fight.
“Cities Where Suburban Poverty Is Skyrocketing”
http://247wallst.com/2013/05/28/cities-where-suburban-poverty-is-skyrocketing/#ixzz2UfQamgyt
@Fred
“They knew damn well there were no WMD, everybody knew, the UN knew because they had had weapons inspectors in there for years. It was an excuse, a lame excuse, everybody knew it then and everybody knows it now so why the hell are they still keeping up the pretence”.
I’ve no idea … I especially have no idea why the BBC continues to back their pretence with programmes such as this. I thought their just might be a modicum of criticism or argument raised but, should have known it, my hopes were in vain. It was a straightforward presentation – without questioning – of their publically stated reasons for going to war.
Unashamedly government approved.
“How did the US and Britain become convinced that Saddam possessed WMDs? ”
With a subtitle like that, the programme is clearly a con job.
… and we’re on here once again asking ourselves why we’re forced to accept the actions of those we elect to represent our wishes … to represent us and our will … when they do nothing of the fucking kind.
Thanks Anon
Don’t think I’ll bother though. I’ve heard the lies more than often enough.
The biggest lie of the program was to show the clip of Sheriff Dubya Bu$h giving Saddam 48 to get out of
IraqDodge!Saddam was ready to leave Iraq, and he was in negotiations with the US so he thought. Saddam had proposed to leave to Russia and wanted a guarantee that he will not be prosecuted, and his ill gotten gains will be safe.
Saddam’s go between was in Jordan awaiting to be flown to Oman on a Jordanian air force aircraft to talk terms of the surrender, with the relevant US personnel. This arrangement strangely goes wrong, the aircraft leaves without the go-between half of an hour earlier, than the appointed time. The go-between jumps into a car and drives to Oman only to arrive there after his contacts have left the place.
Meanwhile in the same time frame the Sun and the rest of the rags, carry; “Will the real Saddam stand up please”. This story is about Saddam and his eleven “Doubles”! The story is designed to pre-empt any possibility of Saddam’s proposed deal that could be made known/public by the French, Russians, or Chinese.
The disinformation that surrounds the Iraq war lies, also extended to stories about the weapons that were being used to destroy Iraq. These were based on; the weapons used are obsolete, passed their “use by dates”, decommissioning these would be more expensive than firing these!
The war criminals are trying to cover up their tracks, don’t let the bastards succeed.
“The war criminals are trying to cover up their tracks, don’t let the bastards succeed.”
The war criminals are our politicians who started a war of aggression, but more so the corporations who told them to do it and have done very nicely out of it and of course the media, Murdoch was right there behind it, wars sell papers.
Nobody has a hope in hell of going against that lot and they know it.
One of the Iraqi military sources interviewed in that BBC history-rewrite has previously spoken about some America “Special Weapons” used during that war. The BBC will never report what he has to say on that subject.
What happened near Baghdad that was transmitted live at the time and is now hidden? The BBC was one of the last news organizations to stop retransmitting the footage. They even put up a caption “US Military Requests BBC Stop Retransmitting Iraq Incident”. Then even that disappeared.
Yet nobody pays any attention to that…
The total time the above “incident” was broadcast by the BBC – about 2 hours in the middle of the night. then never again.
By the way does anyone remember the US army officer who said that the selling of drinking water provided by the coalition was a sign that the Iraqis were embarrassing capitalism? That was widely rebroadcast.
He was involved with the above “incident” which doesn’t get mentioned. BBC got quite an honest interview with him which sadly will also never be rebroadcast. He isn’t the idiot he appeared to be.
embarrassing capitalism = embracing capitalism
Craig, the system protects its own participants, which gives them good reason to think they can act with importunity. I was sent to a posh school and I rejected the system as soon as I saw it at the age of 10. You did not reject the system until much later. Why? Thank goodness you eventually realised where the deal was going to take you. And you resigned -ish, or at least did the right thing.
What is more, now that the system has taken Al Qaida under its wing, in the same manner as it has always used Muslims to cause havoc for Islam, it will give confidence to Al Qaida, including the said Mr Belhadj, they will receive similar protection from the Zio-UK government as its other protege and his policy of rendition, Mr Straw, when they conduct their proxy war in Syria.
For the UK to add fuel to the fire and arm Al Qaida in Syria, as well as giving it control of US flour and Syrian oil, means that Hague and Cameron are busy building one of the biggest Muslim minced meat pasties, or should that be patsy, in the history of Islam. Why do the Muslims always blame the West for the crimes of their own self-serving political community? Answer: because the stupid UK population is always ready to take the blame for the criminals like Straw playing their double-dealing games.