I am delighted that Shaker Aamer is finally to be released from Guantanamo. This is something I have worked, campaigned and spoken for, along with groups including Cage, which I am proud to support and which the government is attempting to ban.
We cannot give back to Shaker the thirteen years of imprisonment without charge, let alone trial. We cannot undo the physical and mental damage of all the torture. We can see him reunited with his family and demonstrate our support and affection.
Just as nobody has been charged over the illegal waging of a war of aggression against Iraq, nobody faces prosecution over the equally illegal policy of complicity in torture, to which policy I personally was an eye-witness.
The reason Shaker has been detained longer than any other British resident is that he was tortured with MI6 personnel directly in the room, as opposed to waiting outside. If the British establishment were not totally corrupt, his return to the UK would finally make it impossible to avoid prosecutions over torture, up to and including Dearlove, Straw and Blair.
The one thing we know for certain about the stinking cesspit of the British political system, is that justice is not possible.
I can see where you are going with this question so perhaps the best way to answer is to tell you I am expecting a new scene for my window in the next few days I am really quite excited I have kitted the shed out inside to resemble an enclosed moon rover. The new scene is a clip of the mars explore traversing the Martian landscape.
Its going to help me contemplate why Craig’s knees are so cute.
From the Guardian:
“He moved to Afghanistan in 2001 with his wife, who was pregnant, and three children to experience an “Islamic atmosphere”, his father-in-law has said.”
Not very convincing; for a man born and brought up in the “Islamic atmosphere” of Saudi Arabia. Why did he prefer to move to Afghanistan of all places? Presumably he didn’t speak the local lingo.
And then:
“What do Aamer, his family, and supporters say?
They say the family quickly realised their mistake in moving to Afghanistan and, as war was waged around them, decided to return to Britain via Pakistan. They also say that some Northern Alliance soldiers, who believed the US would pay well for valuable al-Qaida prisoners, just captured any man they found who could be made to look the part. His supporters say this is what happened to Aamer after he sent his family ahead to keep them out of harm’s way.”
Why did he have to send his family, including young children, separately? Why didn’t he do the normal thing and leave together with them through the front door of Kabul airport?
The torture is unforgivable and inhuman and so is the lack of a trial. But is it that the evidence against him was simply inadmissible, yet he just possibly unto no good in picturesque Afghanistan? Will we ever know the whole truth?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/25/shaker-aamer-guantanamo-key-questions-answered
Any answers from looking out at Besprick’s Window?
I have a kidney stone. This was not a good thing for my wife and I to suddenly discover at 3:00 am 🙁
Apparently I have to wait till it pees out. My poor wife, instead of spending all of today at scout camp with our girls, spent a great deal of it in casualty with me. What would I do without her.
I will probably be minding my own business for some considerable time, but will keep an eye on the blog.
“The reason Shaker has been detained longer than any other British resident is that he was tortured with MI6 personnel directly in the room, as opposed to waiting outside. If the British establishment were not totally corrupt, his return to the UK would finally make it impossible to avoid prosecutions over torture, up to and including Dearlove, Straw and Blair.”
My heart fails me at the thought of the battle Mr Aamer and his family will face if this is something that they wish to pursue. He has just experienced 13 years of confinement – he is presumably in no fit state to embark upon further years of knocking legal heads with the state. Indeed, that is likely the point of most of what has happened to him.
I don’t know if Mr Aamer and his family will have a lot of people ready to crusade on their behalf, but I hope that gentle consideration will be shown to them, so that he is not turned into some kind of cause célèbre beyond his present capacity to cope with. I should think a period of quiet adjustment will be needed so that he can regroup and decide what to do for himself regarding this prolonged and shocking ill-treatment.
Kind regards,
John
Trowbridge
“Pope John Paul II was assassinated”
______________
I’ll give you this, Trowbridge – you make your fellow conspiracy theorist (the Transatlantic Friend aka Lysias aka …what?…) sound almost sane.
“Peter Beswick”
I see you would prefer not to tell us whether you have written on here claiming to have been molested by the UK security services.
Fair enough, I’ll just have to review your posts and find out for myself.
You’ll find out where I’m “going with this question” (to use your words) in due course, “Peter”.
++++++++++++++++
BTW, as a token of goodwill I should like to buy you a pair of nice, woolly ankle socks. I suggest you wear them as a winter overcoat with the closed end over your head (preferably).
Just let me know where to post them to! 🙂
“Mr Goss can’t seem to mention me any longer without calling me a racist. I said that Mr Aamer is not a British citizen and that your comparison with Mr Mann’s release was therefore not valid.”
It’s all your continual babble about keeping refugees and asylum-seekers out as well as the implied he’s been cleared for release to Saudi Arabia, which of course is so much of a nonsense it is not worthy of debate. Perhaps if you did not always appear to be opposing people of a different kith and kin to born-and-bred British people I might stop thinking of you as a racist.
The comparison with Simon Mann’s release was totally valid. But you missed the point in pointing out that Simon Mann was British-born and Shaker Aamer was born in Saudi Arabia, which as MerkinonParis and Peter Beswick have informed you is irrelevant. The argument was that Simon Mann was a pillar of the establishment, but had been imprisoned for trying to overthrow Equatorial Guinea. You see Mann was a criminal, Aamer is not. Get it? But you chose to try and find something in the differences of their births to score a racist goal. It was an own goal! 😀
Alcyone
Not being fully cognisant with all the detail of the Shaker Aamer case, I found the bits of info you posted very interesting.
On the assumption that your info is correct, would you happen to know what his responses to those various rather puzzling questions have been?
Presumably he – or those fighting for his release – have been asked those questions in the past and I just wonder what his (or their) answers were.
Thanks.
Alycone is there any significant difference between your conclusions and those of MI6?
All of the gossip that you repeat, maliciously, is worthless until tested in a proper court. What you are engaged in is a cheap libel of a man who could not possibly take action against you-if only because it would take centuries for this innocent victim of racism to get down to your case on the list.
No doubt you will tell us that you have your doubts and are doing nothing more than expressing them- that they are shared by others goes without saying, because you wouldn’t have them unless someone else had passed them on to you-but you are doing more than that, you are ensuring that the next time the system feels like committing this crime it will be even easier for it and that, therefore, it is more likely to commit more of them.
There is nothing wrong with ignorance-until it makes an exhibition of itself.
Mr Goss
You’re at it again, calling people “racists”.
Please refer to my earlier post, which read as follows (extracts):
“I should think that “racist” or “racialist” refers to a person who believes in the innate superiority one race over another (or the innate inferiority of one race to another).
If you accept that, then it seems simplistic to dismiss people who, for example, complain about too many immigrants as “racists” : to complain about the economic, social an cultural effects of large-scale immigration is not of itself racist – which is of course not to say that some (perhaps few, perhaps many) of those complainers are not “racists” within the definition I’ve offered.”
++++++++++++++++
Do you agree with that definition? If so, why are you calling Anon a racist?
You will recall that Stalin and his Useful Idiots were experts in the big lie, frequently repeated. I should not like to think you have not shed your former habits and ways of thinking. A to-the-point answer would be a good start to convince me.
Mr Goss
BTW, you re the poster who has most frequently referred to Shaker Aamer on this blog.
Indeed, you sought every opportunity to refer to it – relying, in most cases, on the most tenuous of links with the topic actually being discussed.
I hope, therefore, that you’ll understand my astonishment that you felt unable (or perhaps unwilling) to answer the questions of fact I posed regarding Shaker’s citizenship (and related questions).
You lay low and left it to Craig to (kindly) answer – that’s the same Craig who mentioned Shaker about one tenth as often as you did.
Why is that?
Bevin
Do drop the spurious indignation posing as a rebuttal to Alcyone, please.
The questions he referred to are legitimate in my opinion. They are the same sort of questions as you and your like habitually raise when it comes to other contentious matters (eg, the death of Dr Kelly).
Gamma double minus for you, my boy. Must try (much) harder!
John Spencer-Davis. “I have a kidney stone”.
Move onto an “alkaline diet” move away from acid forming foods.
Google, alkaline foods and acid foods, then compare them with what you eat now.
Alkalized and ionized water should also help.
The machines to do the job are quite expensive about £1500-£2500.
There is a new filter system for the water supply from America, but it is a Japanese invention. I have not tried that one yet. However, the water alkalizer and ionizers are good.
Very painful things kidney stones!
Sorry to hear that John. We are all in the wars lately. Have any other forms of treatment such as lithotripsy been suggested?
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Kidney-stones/Pages/Treatment.aspx
All the best anyway and hope that you are spared pain.
~~~~
I feel lousy today and was having a lie down. Happened to see an episode of Pointless! I was cheered by the winning celebrity, Patrick Baladi, an actor in The Office, donating his winnings to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund.
That leads me back to the topic and to say that the Israelis torture their Palestinian prisoners. I don’t know if this cruel ‘banana’ procedure is still used but it is brutal.
The Shin Bet Must Stop Torturing Palestinian Detainees
Israel’s internal security agency must comply fully with 1999 High Court ruling outlawing use of physical force in interrogations.
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.645789
Mar 08, 2015
Image http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.645793.1425776175!/image/3085437217.jpg_gen/derivatives/headline_857x482/3085437217.jpg
Torture of Palestinian detainees by Israel soared in 2014 – report
8 Mar, 2015
http://www.rt.com/news/238769-palestine-detainees-torture-israel/
~~~~
Patrick Baladi’s father was a gynae/obstetrician in Libya.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Baladi
PS To all. Don’t feed the trolls.
Mary
Well, most people don’t “feed” me, do they (assuming you’re referring to me, of course).
Like you, Mary, they tend to duck out of sight when they get questioned. Or divert – a little like you’ve just done by talking about Israel/Palestine again.
Which of course is fair enough if they are unable to answer.
Sorry to hear about your kidney stone John SD. I believe they can be very painful. Hope you’re soon fighting fit again.
If Mary had not advised “Don’t feed the trolls” I might have been inclined to mention that I did not leave anything for Craig to answer when I was pumping up my thigh muscles over Frankley Beeches, Old Hill and some of the other testing climbs in the Black Country, but instead I’m going to take Mary’s advice. 😀
John Goss
26 Sep, 2015 – 11:01 am
“Perhaps Obama, despite his minders, wants to try and keep his promise about closing Guantanamo.”
……………………………
Now John; don’t be silly.
Anon1
26 Sep, 2015 – 11:21 am
“I did not say I would “like” to see him released to Saudi Arabia, but that that option had been open to him since 2007.
……………………………..
An option Anon1?
The detention system established by the Bush admin in 2002 at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station is classed as the “ideal” interrogation chamber.
Most prisoners are held without charge, even though the US government has acknowledged that many of them have been cleared for release.
Some are not even alleged to have committed a hostile act against the US, or its allies.
Guantanamo prison, is just one of many US detention stations that have become “prisons beyond the law.” The Geneva Conventions do not exist within these facilities set up under the guise of protecting citizens around the world from terrorists activities.
These incommunicado prisons are to all purposes an assault on human rights.
To be assassinated, all one has to suffer is wounds, not death, which change people’s behavior.
Pope John Paul II behaved far differently after he was assassinated.
Governor George Wallace was also assassinated by Arthur Bremer.
Fwl
26 Sep, 2015 – 11:47 am
“It will be interesting to hear his story when he is ready to give it and too see how it is reported.”
………………………………………………………………………………………….
Will he be allowed to tell his story?
He hasn’t been released yet: another month at least while the authorities fill in the paperwork.
Whilst we’re on the subject of Saudi Arabia. This young man’s future doesn’t look to bright.
Saudi Arabia, which was chosen last week to head the UN Human Rights Council, is preparing to behead and crucify a young protester who was only 17 years old when he was arrested in 2011.
Ali Mohammed Baqir al-Nimr, a member of Saudi Arabia’s Shi’ite minority, was convicted on charges including taking part in anti-government protests and attacking security patrols. UN human rights experts have said that he was tortured and did not receive a fair trial.
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/saudi.arabia.prepares.to.behead.and.crucify.young.protester/65695.htm
Meanwhile the country where the UN has its headquarters (why not Europe I ask) the USA, has said this on the matter;
Spokesman, Mark Toner , said the U.S. government “welcome[s]” the recent selection of Saudi Arabia for a leadership role on the U.N. Human Rights Council. “We’re close allies.”
Habbbabkuk (scourge of the Original Trolls)
26 Sep, 2015 – 1:22 pm
“(I put these questions without prejudice to the other questions which are raised by his arrest, alleged torture and imprisonment), etc.”
……………………………………………………………………………………….
“Alleged” torture Habbabkuk?
By the way his wife is British as are his children but I’m sure you know that already.
Doug Scorgie at 7.03 pm. I did ponder long and hard over that sentence. And the one about Cameron. 😀
It was Jean-Paul I who died suddenly in unexplained circumstances, probably assassinated.
Right, Laguerre, just after he had proposed earlier in the day a root-and-branch reform of the Papacty.
Mr Scorgie
“By the way his wife is British as are his children but I’m sure you know that already.”
_________________
Yes, Mr Scorgie I know that thanks to Craig earlier on today (but no thanks to two of your gang who commented but avoided answering).
As so often, your comments com so late as to be of little help.
Wakey=wakey!! (NB- the double hyhen is just for you)
“I have a kidney stone. This was not a good thing for my wife and I to suddenly discover at 3:00 am”
Sorry to hear about that, JSD. Always happens in the middle of the night, for me 6.am. The pop version is that it is the only pain a man can suffer which is as bad as that of child-birth.
I think it normally comes from long-term dehydration, when you’ve been drinking hard water. It happened to me after a lengthy stay in Jordan, where the water percolates through limestone.
The cure was drinking a gallon a day.
Laguerre
“It was Jean-Paul I who died suddenly in unexplained circumstances, probably assassinated”
________________________
Ah ha, another conspiracy!
Fascinated and shocked to the core, I turned to Wikipedia for further enlightenment but all I could find was something along the lines of “His unexpected death has given rise to a number of conspiracy theories”.
So, Mr Laguerre, the field is yours – off you go to explain your theory of assassination. Pay special attention to the “why”, won’t you.
Or perhaps you’ll wish to communicate with our Transatlantic Friend before taking up your pen again? Feel free.
His Holiness Pope John Paul I was 66.
OT, but listening to Radio 4, as I do, I’m irritated to hear yet another programme about the Kindertransport. There have been a lot these last few months. OK, it was a terrible experience, but it was not the only case. Why does it have to be repeated time after time? Why do we not have a few investigatory studies about the sufferings of the Syrian refugees?
Well, I suppose the Israeli embassy is supplying these programmes ready-made.