From a British diplomatic source I learn that Britain has lobbied the United States against the publication of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on torture and extraordinary rendition. The lobbying has been carried out “at all levels” – White House, State Department and CIA. The British have argued that at the very least the report must be emasculated before publication.
The British argument is that in a number of court cases including the Belhadj case, the British government has successfully blocked legal action by victims on the grounds that this would weaken the US/UK intelligence relationship and thus vitally damage national security, by revealing facts the American intelligence service wish hidden. [We will leave aside for the moment the utter shame of our servile groveling judges accepting such an argument]. The British Government are now pointing out to the Americans that this argument could be fatally weakened if major detail of the full horror and scope of torture and extraordinary rendition is revealed by the Senate Intelligence Committee. The argument runs that this could in turn lead to further revelations in the courts and block the major defence against prosecutions of Blair, Straw and Dearlove, among others, potentially unleashing a transatlantic wave of judicial activism.
The unabashed collusion of two torturing security states in concealing the truth of their despicable acts – including complicity in the torture of women and minors – and blocking criminal prosecution of the guilty is a sign of how low public ethics have sunk. Fortunately there are still a few people in the British Foreign Office disgusted enough to leak it.
Any takers? Surely the work has already been done and this course is redundant.
Mar 30 2014
University of Haifa’s ‘Cyber Warriors’ will help fight the delegitimization of Israel using new media
http://newmedia-eng.haifa.ac.il/?p=6614
“Do you believe that Putin is the world’s richest leader?”
I don’t have any reasons not to. The people he hangs out with seem to be immensely wealthy it seems reasonable to assume he is as well.
But I don’t intend to spend time on google to try and prove the unprovable, if it contradicts what you want to believe then just don’t believe it.
Interesting read Brian at 17 Apr, 2014 – 3:30 am
Paul Craig Roberts kinda merges our posts in that this reckless folly of their efforts at forcing regime change across Ukraine can drive the path to war.
The CIA director instructed Washington’s hand-picked stooge government in Kiev to apply to the United Nations for help in repelling “terrorists” who with alleged Russian help are allegedly attacking Ukraine. In Washington’s vocabulary, self-determination is a sign of Russian interference. As the UN is essentially a Washington-financed organization, Washington will get what it wants.
The Russian government has already made it completely clear some weeks ago that the use of violence against protesters in eastern and southern Ukraine would compel the Russian government to send in the Russian army to protect Russians, just as Russia had to do in South Ossetia when Washington instructed its Georgian puppet ruler to attack Russian peacekeeping troops and Russian residents of South Ossetia.
Washington knows that the Russian government cannot stand aside while one of Washington’s puppet states attacks Russians. Yet, Washington is pushing the crisis to war.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38236.htm
I should hazard a guess that rasPutin has a lot more money tucked away somewhere than Yeltsin ever had.
Ni selling himself cheap for our Vlad!
Fred,
“I don’t have any reasons not to [believe Putin is the world’s richest leader].”
You don’t have any credible reason to believe it either.
re Paul Craig Roberts, lovingly cited by Mark “Wait” Golding:
Apart from having been, for 10 months, 3O years ago, one of 11 US Assistant Treasury Secretaries, what qualifications does this chap have to pontificate on anything?
He always reminds me of one of those guys one sees wandering around wearing a sandwich board on which is written “The end is nigh”. They’re still wandering around and the end still hasn’t arrived.
You have been hearing of Mr Hunt’s plan to have virtual GP consultations by phone, email or Skype. Wonder how physical examinations would be achieved!
Well this is what one doctor has to say on the current situation. Chapter and verse.
GPs braced for shutdown after ‘toxic mix’ of loss of funds and high demand
At one of 98 GP surgeries in England under threat of closure there is despair that NHS reforms could kill off good care
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/apr/16/gps-surgeries-shutdown-loss-funds-high-demand-nhs
16 April 2014
It seems that Mr Hunt’s wheeze of issuing QOF points does not mean prizes.
Lose the NHS and lose it forever.
The ex UK Ambassador to Russia Sir Tony Brenton has been speaking on Sky News. He is saying that the West have got it all wrong with their plan to increase sanctions. No link.
Residents of the United States and Russia, two nations currently engaged in an international brawl, might be particularly interested in the fact that their countries possess over 16,000 nuclear weapons. About 2,000 of them on hair-trigger alert, ready for use within minutes. According to the ICAN report, if only 500 of these weapons were to hit major U.S. and Russian cities, “100 million people would die in the first half an hour, and tens of millions would be fatally injured. Huge swaths of both countries would be blanketed by radioactive fallout.” Furthermore, “most Americans and Russians would die in the following months from radiation sickness and disease epidemics.”
http://original.antiwar.com/lawrence-wittner/2014/04/14/your-doctors-are-worried/
“You don’t have any credible reason to believe it either.”
I don’t think Huffington Post would have printed it if they didn’t believe it and I don’t think Tom Watson would have linked to it if he didn’t believe it.
So it all comes down to who you believe, I believe them, not you.
I forgot to add – “Life is beautiful” remembering the ‘Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal’ was described as ‘so mind-bogglingly stupid that it assumes that if you can’t see it, then it can’t see you.’
It’s so surreal you wonder if it’s true. He is threatening war with Russia yet takes time for a selfie with the war monger Biden yesterday.
Barack Obama and Joe Biden took a selfie today. Yes, for real.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/04/16/barack-obama-and-joe-biden-took-a-selfie-today-yes-for-real/
Obama Raises Spectre Of War With Russia
Sky News
As tensions mount in Ukraine, for the first time in decades an American president has raised the prospect of war with Russia.
by Sunita.Patel 2:36 PM
The press conference is two and a half hours overdue.
The question of Putin’s wealth is a total irrelevance btw.
The Day Today: War
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IEwBrJzhlg
NB It’s a spoof
Fred
“I don’t think Huffington Post would have printed it if they didn’t believe it”
OK, you win, I can’t top that. Over and out.
Mary
“The ex UK Ambassador to Russia Sir Tony Brenton has been speaking on Sky News. He is saying that the West have got it all wrong with their plan to increase sanctions. No link.”
________________
And on a Radio 4 programme this morning, another former and even more distinguished UK Ambassador to Russia – Sir Roderick Lyne – appeared to be saying the opposite.
Oh that establishment stooge from the Chilcot School of Theatrics.
Sir Roderic Lyne is now Vice-Chairman at Chatham House where, from 1986 to 1987, he was a Visiting Research Fellow. He is an advisor to JPMorgan Chase ,[1] who have been chosen to operate the Trade Bank of Iraq , which will give banks access to the financial system of Iraq [6] He was a special adviser to BP , which currently has major interests in Iraq.[7] He is a non-executive director of Petropavlovsk plc (formerly Peter Hambro Mining). He is a member of the Board of the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce; the Board of Governors of Kingston University ; and is a Governor of the Ditchley Foundation .[5] From 2005-7 he was a member of the Task Force of the Trilateral Commission on Russia.[5] He was a member of the Chilcot inquiry into circumstances leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq ,[8] having been appointed to the Privy Council in 2009.[9] Several people have commented that he is the toughest inquisitor on the committee.[2] He currently sits on the Advisory Council of the Front Row Group of Companies Ltd.
Ditchley, Chatham House, JP Morgan…. Shall I continue?
PS BLiar is a paid adviser/operative for JP Morgan Chase but I expect everybody knows that.
If it is available on I-player, Mary, I should listen to Sir Roderick on the balanced broadcasting corporation’s radio 4 this morning. He was interviewed by an increasingly fawning John Humphries, and giving “both sides”. The Russian side was given as “trying to destabilise the Ukraine”. I used to really think the BBC made an effort to be balanced.
Lyne contd.
Nice little earner here.
http://www.frontrowgroup.co.uk/about-us.htm
I felt sick when a photo of Bono popped up on the Hospitality section.
http://www.frontrowhospitality.co.uk/
There’s Lifestyle, Luxury, Property, Leadership, Education…. all bases covered.
The founder http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/richard-wallace/48/796/209 Interesting that there is a Russian connection there.
Mary
“Oh that establishment stooge from the Chilcot School of Theatrics.
Sir Roderic Lyne is now Vice-Chairman at Chatham House..etc, etc..”
__________________
What, in that litany about what retired Ambassador Sir Roderick Lyne is doing at present, makes his opinions on Ukraine and Russia less valid than those of retired Ambassador Sir Tony Brenton?
In what way is he a “stooge”?
Peacewisher
“If it is available on I-player, Mary, I should listen to Sir Roderick on the balanced broadcasting corporation’s radio 4 this morning. He was interviewed by an increasingly fawning John Humphries, and giving “both sides”. The Russian side was given as “trying to destabilise the Ukraine”. I used to really think the BBC made an effort to be balanced.”
____________________
A comment typical for those posters who, when airtime is given to someone whose views they don’t like, call the BBC “biased” and the interviewer “fawning”.
Thanks Peacewisher. I will have to steel myself to listen to it.
Just to GIVE THE LIE to the assertion frequently made by MARY and other ISRAEL DENIERS that the UK govt is biased in favour of Israel and against the Palestinians, here is the text of statement issued by Foreign Secretary WILLIAM HAGUE thid very day, 17 April 2014:
“The UK condemns the decisions taken by the Israeli authorities to change the status of a significant amount of land around the illegal settler outpost of Netiv Ha’avot and to create a new settlement in Hebron. Settlements are illegal and an obstacle to peace, and these decisions detract from on-going efforts to deliver a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The only path to peace is through negotiations.”.
Source: FCO website.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
There you go, Mary and other Israel deniers, put that in your pipe and smoke it! 🙂
Mary
After you’ve steeled yourself and listened, perhaps you will then tell us why you rushed in to call Sir Roderic Lyne an “establishment stooge”?
I notice you are quick with the insults and accusations, but somewhat slower to justify or back them up. Cowardly or ignorant?
Craig
Mary thinks that Sir Roderic Lyne is rather too close to “Da Management”.
She further thinks that Sir Tony Brenton is of rather more independent mind.
I’d say that their careers after FCO are rather divergent.
Sir Roderic seems to have plumped for, shall we say Atlanticist employ, whilst Sir Tony seems more content in academic pursuits and advising a large British mutual.
Have you a view?
Sir Roderic was an Eton chappie, and a rather poor scholar, if that helps.
Again though I think we see that recurring divide between those who favour a unipolar world against those who’d prefer a multipolar arrangement.
Funny the way this fundamental dispute isn’t made much of in media.
Herbie
What would you see as the benefits and advantages – for the UK and its citizens (as yourself)- of a “multipolar” world as opposed to a “unipolar” one?
Herbie
“Sir Roderic was.. a rather poor scholar, if that helps.”
____________________
Where do you get that one from? According to Wikipedia, he got poor A level results but was a good student at university. Leeds University, by the way, not Oxbridge – a fact that I should have thought would endear him to you.
All should read his entire page on Wikipedia: dishonest as so often, Mary carefully selected only those bits which she thought would most discredit him in the eyes of the other Eminences. He’s a good guy.
Yes Mary, I also heard the plummy Lyne pontificating about Russia. We told them what to do, join the status quo of the international community, and they didn’t listen.
Alhamdulillah I am not part of the status quo, whoever they are and whatever they own. They don’t own me. even if they do pay the mosque to bug my mobile phone.
No not cowardly or ignorant. Possessor of the characteristics of a lion and very well informed. 🙂
This will shock the t—-ls. Something good being said about President Assad and in the Torygraph. Zut alors!.
Syria: As the bombs fall, the people of Damascus rally round Bashar al-Assad
The West may oppose Assad’s regime, but on the streets of the capital the people fear a greater evil
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10770311/Syria-As-the-bombs-fall-the-people-of-Damascus-rally-round-Bashar-al-Assad.html
“Zut alors!.”
______________________
No one says that in France these days. You’ve been watching too many repeats of ‘Allo ‘allo.