The Guardian’s Michael White is a revolting liar. He writes today in The Guardian:
Why so few “no thanks” posters or union flags? “Because we don’t want our windows smashed or tyres slashed,” some no voters reply.
That is a plain lie, Michael White. No “No voters” said that to you. You made it up. Nor has there been a single instance reported of any No voter having their windows or car trashed.
White also retails a story that a woman allegedly told him on hearsay about somebody else who was “seized by the throat” on canvassing because of their English accent. Well I have lived more than eight years of my adult life in Scotland and never once had any adverse reaction of any kind to my very English accent, including while canvassing in some very deprived areas. This incident is also an invention.
White has always been revolting, his constant snide support for Tony Blair and his wars, covered by that horrible false bonhommie, is repulsive. But the move into straightforward lies disguised as reportage to please his New Labour masters (and their creature Rusbridger) cannot be allowed to pass. Michael White is a disgrace to the profession of journalism.
Call me Cringe
5 Sep, 2014 – 8:28 am
“Also, you can’t stop British citizens joining the Israeli military because there is not a UK law that makes it illegal for a citizen of this country to enlist in the military of a foreign state.”
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Quite true Cringe but perhaps legislation should be brought in.
The lack of any ban on foreign enlistment leads to the slightly odd situation where a Briton can travel to Syria to fight FOR the Assad regime with impunity, but if he sides with enemies of the regime he could face prosecution as a terrorist back in Britain.
This is because of the broad scope of anti-terror legislation. The government set out new laws which mean Brits who travel overseas to train for acts of terrorism AGAINST ANY GOVERNMENT will be prosecuted as if their actions had taken place in the UK.
But the case could be made that laws banning British citizens from enlisting in a country’s military, which is engaged in suspected war crimes, illegal occupation and human rights abuses, should be enacted.
That would include a few nasty countries but we are talking Israel here and we know that such a law would not be allowed to pass.
Mr Scorgie
““Also, you can’t stop British citizens joining the Israeli military because there is not a UK law that makes it illegal for a citizen of this country to enlist in the military of a foreign state.”
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Quite true Cringe but perhaps legislation should be brought in.”
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I don’t think so, Doug. For starters, it would be in contradiction with that part of UK law which allows for dual citizenship. In practical terms it would put dual nationals in an impossible situation : UK law would forbid a person to do his national service in another state in which national service might be compulsory.
Look, let’s not be hypocritical about this – if it were not for the case of dual UK/Israeli citizens, you Eminences and other useful idiots would not have uttered a peep about this.
The South Africans do http://mercury.ethz.ch/serviceengine/Files/ISN/116054/ichaptersection_singledocument/1d71f82c-121a-4d80-881d-a1bb2a28a6c4/en/9.pdf
The big bad US does not like it either:
“Military service by U.S. nationals may cause problems in the conduct of our foreign relations since such service may involve U.S. nationals in hostilities against countries with which we are at peace. For this reason, U.S. nationals facing the possibility of foreign military service should do what is legally possible to avoid such service.” http://travel.state.gov/content/travel/english/legal-considerations/us-citizenship-laws-policies/citizenship-and-dual-nationality/citizenship-and-foreign-military-service.html
It would indeed demand that the UK relax its very lax rules on multiple nationality, but that might be no bad thing if it gets people thinking about the obligations of citizenship as well as the plus points.
a Briton can travel to Syria to fight FOR the Assad regime with impunity, but if he sides with enemies of the regime he could face prosecution as a terrorist back in Britain.
But if he travels to Syria to fight FOR the Assad regime WITH Hizb’ullah he’s back in terrorist country. A further wrinkle…
Well well well..
We’ve hardly seen HabbaClown these last few weeks on here.
Until the Ukrainian ceasefire-yet now again the post frequency is again marked,ubiquitous.
We see right through your pandry missions Habba.
As a troll you’re really rather poor Habba,failed even.
Mmmm.
Heard Patrick Stewart on R4 this morning. Described Hizb’ullah as being the only group bravely and successfully fighting ISIS.
Best potential allies in the region, it seems to me.
“Best potential allies in the region, it seems to me.”
Isn’t one of the reasons why this whole mess started was because we allied ourselves with the mujaheddin – and now you are advocating that we ally ourselves with a group that sees suicide bombing and such like as legitimate techniques of war to say nothing of political and religious views. I few should ally ourselves with anyone in the Middle East it should be with those with more liberal and (relatively) more secular views – and yes they do exist, despite the racist views that they are all either despots or religious fundamentalists in that part of the world.
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1409995714.html
Amena Saleem’s neat account of Hamas facts
Posted by John Hilley on September 6, 2014, 10:28 am
(via fb)
The BBC, in its reporting on Gaza, only ever describes Hamas as a ‘militant organisation’ which ‘seized control of Gaza’. However, the reality, which this deliberately inaccurate BBC phrasing hides, is that Hamas is a political party which the Palestinian people elected to represent them. By positioning Hamas as violent militants who seized power, the BBC attempts to strip all legitimacy from a political party which was given a mandate to govern. The inaccurate BBC phrasing also gives credence, in the minds of an uninformed news audience, to Israel’s claim that it is fighting against militants who imposed themselves on Gaza. It is phrasing which denies the facts in order to privilege a false Israeli narrative and disadvantage the Palestinians.
Here are the facts:
Followed by 21 bullet points.
@Mary 7:47
Mary this will sort them out.A night for Gaza……http://stopwar.org.uk/events/london-a-night-for-gaza-16-september-with-jeremy-hardy-and-robb-johnson#.VAtdbf7XaD7
RD – I am assuming, (intentionally provocatively) that we actually want to defeat ISIS. In which case the obvious strategy is to mend “our” fences with Assad, Iran (which has indicated its conditional willingness to play), Syria (which despite its possible comtinuing use of chlorine gas, which is easily made from common bleach, has honoured its commitment to give up its serious war gases) and Hizb’ullah, which, as Stewart says, has performed notably better than the Kurds against ISIS. This would also be attractive to the Shi’a majority in Iraq, ie the section of Iraqi society least likely to join ISIS and fight for a Wahabi caliphate.
This would make rather better sense than allying ourselves with Israel, which sees ISIS as the enemy of its enemy Assad, and is probably helping to train it*, not to mention Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which are certainly financing and arming it.
The rejection of this strategic option, which would crush for once and for all ISIS’ ambitions in the region, at least until the next mad mahdi got his shit together, strongly supports the hypothesis that we don’t want to inconvenience ISIS at all.
*Anyone else noticed that Israel and ISIS seem to be operating a nice little nonaggression pact east of Golan? THat Israel only shells Assad’s positions? That the bloodthirsty defenders of the New Caliphate, in their eagerness to destroy the Jewish heretics occupying Palestine, er, leave them completely alone?
Charles Crawford @CharlesCrawford · Sep 4
Off to #Gdańsk from #Vienna via #Berlin
Stay there, Charlie.
Your countryA Ukrainian oligarch needs you.Charles Crawford is yet another ultra-cynical/strategic blowhard PaedoMinster slave that’ll say anything to protect his expenses,and kind.
Allegedly.
I have had a Yes voter decline Yes posters on the grounds of a fear the windaes will be put in. This was on the doorstep during a canvass here in Dundee. A middle class area as it happens.
Another Yes person (elderly woman, lots of elderly people are voting Yes) asked if I knew why there were so few No posters or stickers. I reckon it is because they are feart. To be No you must be feart generally. The only No signs I have seen are on farmland facing roads. Apparently it isn’t the farmers doing it, it’s the landowners.
I agree that the fear is groundless. I too have not heard of a single incident of windows being put in because of election material in them.
Similarly I had absolutely no aggro wandering the streets and travelling on buses in full Yes regalia, fully badged up. Instead I have been sought out for advice and discussion by the unsure and before Tuesday last week for registration advice. Mind you that is still happening. I was asked for advice from someone who will be away on the 18th but did not get a postal vote request in in time. There is still time to arrange a proxy vote though. In person at a registration office.
People are hungry for information, for facts, for Wee Blue Books, for reassurance the scare stories are just that. That rUK’s current account deficit is so big they will do anything to keep our oil in the Sterling zone so there will be a CU. Stuff like that.
My dearest friend, Craig,
Yesterday, a 20 year old girl in Perth was reduced to tears by the thuggish behaviour of a “Yes” Campaigner. All she was doing was handing out leaflets. If this was a one-off heat of the moment event, then not much to worry about, but it wasn’t. In Kinross, yesterday, an SNP councillor was given an on-the-spot fine for breach of the Peace. There have been many other cases of overt racist aggression – I, myself, was called a traitor last saturday. Obviously, this bullying reflects more on the bully than on the victim, but it DOES have an impact. People ARE afraid of putting up posters or revealing publicly their opinions. The Yes “campaign” like to talk about project Fear whenever an uncomfortable truth is mentioned, but what about the blatant intimidation by deluded bully boys, They talk about freedom but they don’t like free speech or a free press. I fear for democracy in an independent Scotland.