GCHQ and the NSA between them employ tens of thousands of people. I am bemused by the shock at the “revelation” they have been spying. What on Earth did journalists think that spies do all day? That includes electronics spies.
Since Katherine Gun revealed that we spy on other delegations – and the secretariat – within the UN building, it is hardly a shock that we spy on other governments at summits in the UK. For once, the government cannot pretend that the object is to save us all from terrorism, which is the usual catch all excuse. Nor in the real world is any of the G20 nations a military threat to the UK. The real truth of the matter is that our spies – GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 – are themselves a large and highly influential interest block within the state. Lots of people make a great deal of money out of the security state, and this kind of activity is actually simply an excuse for taking money from taxpayers – which is from everyone who has ever bought anything – and giving that money to the “security industry”.
I do not view spying on other governments as quite as despicable as spying on ordinary citizens, which is an unspeakable betrayal of the purpose of government. Spying on other governments is a game they all play to extort money each to their own security elites. But I will say that spying on the South African government seems pretty low. Why?
Interception of diplomatic communications is plainly a gross breach of the Vienna Conventions, even if the forms of communication have changed since they were drafted. I have never studied the particulars of international law as they relate to spying, but it seems to me an area that in the modern world needs regulation. There must be room here for the UN to be involved in preparing a Convention to outlaw the interception of international communications, with recourse to the International Court of Justice for those victim of it.
There is more work for the UN on Syria. We should all be grateful that Russia is holding out against the very dubious western claims that the Syrian government has deployed chemical weapons. But while Obama can declare all the red lines he wishes, they do not give any country a right to take action on Syrian soil without UN authority. That needs to be restated, strongly. There is no basis at all for the continued and massive Israeli attacks on Syria – they are absolutely illegal. Israeli strikes have definitely killed more people than the alleged deaths from chemical weapons. Can someone explain to me why that is not a red line?
The UN Secretary General should be speaking out, and the UN Security Council should be meeting, to discuss the Israeli attacks on Syria. The system of international law has broken down irretrievably.
@ Dreoilin
Oh, thanks for that! Do you know anything about Robert Conquest, as a matter of interest? Wonderful chap – most of the denizens of this blog would hate him, but I don’t think Craig would.
Actually, he also reworked the Ballad of Eskimo Nell and wrote a sequel called “Mexican Pete”. I’d like to treat readers to a couple of lines but am held back by the fear of being castigated for obscene language by Mary. What to do?
As Peter Fraser -once a bent lawyer, always a bent lawyer is dead, time to consider with no holds barred his baleful legacy of inadequacy, incompetence and service to the UKUSIS’ fascist regimes.
http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=%22fraser+of+carmyllie%22
Essential reading:
http://www.deliberation.info/an-innocent-man-abdelbaset-ali-mohammed-al-megrahi-1952-2012/
The stench continues – http://www.deliberation.info/racism-or-assimilation/
From the horses’s mouth -nothing some PR can’t mend eh:
http://www.deliberation.info/failed-hasbara-insults-just-bounce-off-alice/
“The Israeli hasbara apparatus is large, sophisticated…. It is difficult to find any nation, even those embroiled in long-term conflict situations, that trains civilians to take part in hasbara messaging for its policies while abroad, or that sends groups of young citizens to advocate its position on campuses worldwide.”
Strictly on-topic as the topic is the UN’s failure to enforce international law and protect human rights; its failure as an institution began with blackmail and arm-twisting, threats, resulting in conditional recognition of the Israeli state, which conditions, right of return, relinquishing by Israel of Palestinian land illegally seized, stolen and so on have yet to be met. The Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people beginning with the events of 1948 were the first major incident since ww2 ended and resulted in worldwide revulsion and disbelief, the first major crisis which the UN faced and in which it failed utterly, failed us, failed the Palestinians and failed in the principal purpose justifying its existence.
“Do you know anything about Robert Conquest, as a matter of interest?”
I don’t, I’m afraid. I looked him up here (assuming he’s the right guy)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Conquest
I think people here are adults, Habbabkuk. Quote whatever you like, I’d say. I doubt if you’ll post any ‘obscene language’ that has not been heard or seen before. (The Scots, the Welsh and the Irish are pretty colourful in their own vernacular anyway.)
Someone
21 Jun, 2013 – 10:07 am
“…BBC is fully on board with the D-Notice.”
Yes and the rest of the MSM too.
The most vocal champions of a free press become silent at the drop of a D-notice.
None of them complain of state imposed censorship and I wonder why when the D-notice system is not legally enforceable:
“The system is voluntary, it has no legal authority and the final responsibility for deciding whether or not to publish rests solely with the editor or publisher concerned.”
http://www.dnotice.org.uk/danotices/index.htm
I wonder though, what would happen to editors or publishers if they disregarded the D-notice and continued to publish;
unexplained accidents or suicides?
@ Habbabkuk re bettering Robert
Probably, but I would prefer to quote one passed on to me by a Franciscan Friar, since gone to his own heavenly reward.
There once was a lass from Cape Cod
Who believed in intervention by God.
But twas not the Almighty
Who lifted her nightie
But John, the lodger, the sod.
The United States has been attempting to elbow the UN out of the way for a long time, and has partially or even largely succeeded.
The U.S. Gov’t likes to pretend that international law doesn’t exist, and that statements by the UN are irrelevant because they (the U.S.) can make up the laws as they go along. And to a large extent they are getting away with it.
[I used to say (quite proudly) that the only time Irish soldiers saw real ‘action’ was as UN peacekeepers. Quite a number of them died in Lebanon. But nowadays, UN peacekeepers don’t have the reputation they once had.]
Flaming June
21 Jun, 2013 – 11:13 am
“Are you referring to Welby Nevermind? Will he go to Gaza or to the ‘West Bank’?”
More to the point perhaps. Will he go to Tel-Aviv or Jerusalem?
Oh please all of you go and read Roethke and that old reactionary TS Eliot for a bigger window from which to pontificate
I thought Theodore Roethke wrote poetry, not limericks. And I don’t think anyone is ‘pontificating’, Ruth, just talking.
@Habbabkuk
As Starbuck’s tax arrangements, although deplorable, are perfectly legal within the law as it stands at present, its gesture is to be welcomed. Better than the two fingers it could have (perfectly legally) given, surely?
Do you really think so?
To me the donation is purely an exercise in damage limitation with respect to their tarnished image. Just as these powerful corporations do not come up with their fiendishly complicated tax arrangements by accident, but after much thought and Machiavellian design, so too I don’t think they make moves like this without equally intense calculation. In this case, no doubt, the donation was preceded by numerous high-powered meetings in which it was worked out in meticulous detail how little they could get away with paying while achieving the effect of repairing their image and defraying the cost at the till that the damage had brought about.
But hey, I’m a cynic. Maybe they are all racked with remorse!
@ Polo
wonderful! I’ll store it. (the first comma in the last line is a lovely last touch)
@ Dreoilin
yup, you got the right man. I feel emboldened to give some lines from “Mexican Pete”, courtesy (again) of Kingsley Amis; perhaps the sideswipe at the Holy Father will induce Mary to forgive the rude words contained.
For all those who remember Habbabkuk earlier in the thread mentioning the incident in which Obama called our wonderful Chancellor of the Exchequer ‘Geoffrey’, this Tweet from Max Keiser made me chuckle:
‘George Osborne says he’s happy Obama called him ‘Shithead’
“perhaps the sideswipe at the Holy Father will induce Mary to forgive the rude words contained.”
I’m not sure, Habbabkuk. I’m beginning to think she’s a Catholic. But fire away anyway.
Hey Mary,
‘The Irish are the blacks of Europe. And Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland. And the Northside Dubliners are the blacks of Dublin. So say it once, say it loud: I’m black and I’m proud.’
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101605/quotes
g’night all
@ KingofWelshNoir
No, of course you’re right : it is an exercise in damage limitation and I’m sure they feel no remorse at all.
See my original post – which contained just a touch of levity – as a way of welcoming the fact that the Exchequer has at least got something out of them and stands to get some more.
But I agree that a different, sterner legal framework would be even more welcome.
Happy to cheer up your most pathetic day, Habbabkuk.
Margaret Thatcher died a most natural death back in April, though she certainly deserved to be assassinated herself after she got MI6 to have Captain Simon Hayward, on leave from the 14th Intelligence Company, kill not only Sweden’s statsminister Olof Palme but also young IRA gun runner Francis Bradley, a warm-up for the Stockholm shooting.
Then the big earthquake off Costa Rica last September was as natural as one can be after the USS Jimmy Carter not only kicked off the earthquakes which caused the gigantic tsunamis just after Christmas 2004, and the one which caused the tsunami and Fukashima nuclear disaster a couple of years ago. They have made the Pacific plate so unstable that any earthquake around “the ring of fire` is now a partially man-made one.
A Dhreoilin,
Ní dóigh liom go dtaithneodh an bhreith sin leis, áfach.
@ Habbabkuk
Isn’t that comma a real beauty, and oral too.
Oh go and boil your ‘ead Deirdre – xx
Trenton Oldfield is doubly punished by Theresa May.
Boat Race protester Trenton Oldfield ordered to leave UK
Australian activist, whose wife is expecting a child this week, will appeal against Home Office ruling that he must leave country
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/23/boat-race-protester-trenton-oldfield-ordered-leave-uk
I remember his wife speaking out after he was arrested.
She now appeals for May to reverse her decision.
This Is Not A Gateway (TINAG)
PETITION TO STOP THE DEPORTATION OF TRENTON OLDFIELD – Started by Defend the Right to Protest at People’s Assembly – London, UK – 22 June 2013
http://thisisnotagateway.squarespace.com/petition/
Just got in after a long lazy day under the sky. Swallows wheeling around in high-speed arcs, leaves sighing in the breeze and lazy whirlpools gurgling past in the wier-pool. Aah! Living don’t get any better than this.
But wait.
@Herbie 11 38am
“Cool, Kibo, cool. It was an attempted coup, and poorly executed.”
You bet!
As the old Roman saying goes, “Copy and paste in haste. Look like a right twat at leisure.”
and
@Phil 11 51pm
Thanks. A generous observation.
As my old mum used to say (fondly), “Who’s the dozy one?”
Now I find I’m selected to represent the proud and fiercely bloody-minded folk of Anarchia in the Olympic Monumental Cock-up event. I am truly humbled.
I will serve the team to my utmost.
………………………………..
Meanwhile, the side-story. As our earth slowly wilts, our leaders lie, countless thousands die, and brave men blow the whistle then lead our Lords and Masters in a merry dance across continents.
………………………………..
By the way I’m still awaiting my answer Villager. You owe me big-time. Not only in return for the answers I gave you, but also for making your job so easy today.
And Habba, don’t tempt me with your limericks.
You never know “The Ancient Mariner” might be more than an idle threat!
………………………………..
Thanks people for all the links and food for thought. I’m off to explore them and cover my blushes.
What on earth are some of them here on? They know who I mean!
Hope there is more sanity on this blog tomorrow. Or that Craig returns and posts something new. Hope his heel pain is diminished or cured.
consigning myself to an Elba of lurking, seems to be an option.
Dreoilin, 8.39pm
Yes, a good chuckle but I think Gen. Alexander may be lying (again). Check this out:
NSA Transcribing Voice 17 Years Ago
http://rixstep.com/1/20130614,00.shtml
And, for those who aren’t ungeeks like me, a follow-up article giving the geeky stuff:
On US Patent 5,937,422 & ‘Semantic Forests’
http://rixstep.com/2/20130614,00.shtml
You won’t get this news on the bbc, or any of the other medjia:
A contingent of 57 US military officers arriving in a C130 cargo aricraft, at Hatay province in Turkey along with their communication equipment, after a short R&R have been injected into Syria from Rihanli in the border.
Well so much for non intervention in Syria, this seems to be the first step in Vietnamisation of the Syria.
An alternative viewpoint, new to me. http://www.whale.to/b/lockerbie2.html
Brought to you by Cider-flavoured Trebor Blobs.
On topic x 2 !
http://consortiumnews.com/2013/06/21/bushs-foiled-nsa-blackmail-scheme/
“(I’m not familiar with the website, so if anyone knows anything against it, please let me know)”
They talk a load of rubbish.
There is no law in America regarding cars being hooked to the internet through cellular networks, don’t know where they got that from.
There have been laws regarding obd ports for some time now but only regarding things like oxygen sensors in the exhaust and stuff, it’s basically anti pollution legislation. The bits that you can have fun with are put there by the manufacturers and the more expensive the car the more fun bits they have and the less secure it is.
Off topic;
“The British Police are the best in the world” is probably only rivaled by “Our Brave Boys” as reality inversing jingoistic nonsense; this report invokes the same disgust as when the they tried to put Alfie Meadows away for five years for “violent disorder”, being the poor student who was beaten so badly by police that he had to undergo serious brain surgery :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23022634
Mary is in headmistressy mood (or mode) :
“What on earth are some of them here on? They know who I mean!
Hope there is more sanity on this blog tomorrow”
______________
Lighten up just for once, old thing!
A little light-hearted repartee, some funny limericks, a few good-natured exchanges, a small break from seriousness – what on earth is wrong with that?
These – and other things, like your walk thgrough the meadows the other day – are what make me say that
🙂
Doesn’t wash, Hubbu-Clown, not even close; one difference between you & Blair is that he can fake sincerity, but you can’t.
I notice neither yourself or the Resident Rat have responded to KOWN’s post about “anti-West narrative”, something that the two of you have many times accused people here of.
I’ve seen this happen to blogs. Traffic slows to a walk.