It is a strange world where the passage I most agreed with came from the Iranian President:
Iraq, Syria and Yemen are all examples of crises being stoked through terror, extremism, violence, bloodshed, invasion and the indifference of the international community. They are similar examples displaying cases of displacement, homelessness and fleeing from the horrors of war and bombardment. Their problems have persisted because the international community has failed them and because of incorrect actions of newcomers to the region and naive trans-regional actors. Consequently, the wave of destruction has gone beyond the Arab world and reached the gates of Europe and the United States and has resulted in the destruction of the relics of civility and precious works of ancient civilizations and, more broadly, has resulted in the death of humanity.
We must not forget that the roots of today’s wars, destruction and terror, can be found in the occupation, invasion and military intervention of yesterday. If we did not have the US military invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the US’s unwarranted support for the inhumane actions of the Zionist regime against the oppressed nation of Palestine, today the terrorists would not have an excuse for the justification of their crimes.
Now that we know ‘air strikes’ against the phantom MI6/CIA creature ISIS is neo-con and thus Labour and Tory code for ‘air drops’ of supplies, guns ammunition, taxpayers’ cash, sweets, treats and marching powder, the whole question of ‘tackling’ ISIS is turned on its head. What cheek! The Syrian army with Russian ‘cauldron’ tactics should see the ranks of special forces and psycho-for hire mercenaries plus religious nuts severely depleted. And I can’t say that’s a bad thing, I’m sure they’ll be scrupulous too, the Syrians in identifying those caught in their vast impermeable net, with names and nationalites of those mysterious figures clad in black, unmasked, facing Syrian legal process. It’s going to be fun.
The. BBC reports in 2007 that the US had acknowledged that they had no evidence against him http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-14857026. As another contributor has pointed out, maybe they would have had a chance, but they blew it. Who knows?
There are I’m afraid some questions that will never be fully answered. When the answer is irrelevant in any case, what’s the point?
As I suggested before, if you actually want an answer you could write to his lawyer. You should have enough experience of this blog to know that the self appointed know alls here, myself included, can’t be relied on for objective information on anything.
Who is getting way ahead of themselves Republicofscotland? you assumed that I entertained the notion that you “supported capital punishment”.
Precisely the point I was grounding the notion of stopping capital punishment! I am sure you have not seen the symbolic hanging of a young man convicted of murdering another young man, in Iran. The parents of the murdered young man stood by until the convicted murder was hanged (without breaking his neck, as he fell to his death thereafter) and then the young man lowered as the grieving parents of the murdered boy asked the officials to lower him and he was revived soon after as the parent of the murdered boy could not bring themselves to see another set of parents to be grieving the death of there son.
If capital punishment is to be eradicated it has to be a grass roots revulsion of the kind of punishment, and not the top down didactic decree of the relevant political leadership. As the clamor for bring back hanging brigade every so often raise their heads in UK.
Perhaps it is time for you digest my comments before your knee jerk reactions to engage in rebuttals.
Bashing Iran is an all too easy concept, just read the “contributions” of the resident zionist supremacist cretins, about Muslims, and Islam. Furthermore as in evidence the quick fire response of the racist miscreant anon jumping to state;
Clearly disregarding the fact that zionistan is the root cause of the arrest of the progress of the whole of mid east that has been kept in a stasis and and endless state of stagnation for it to be treated as the gas tank of the West. However as ever the zionist supremacist miscreants bent on pushing their falsehoods jump to make hay from any opportunity presented in their customary denunciations of their “enemies” (everyone is their enemy unless proved otherwise).
@Fedup – you may be right about Israel but they’re definately winning so strategically, it’s been rather effective.
Hey Giyane, trust you are well. I don’t really follow the substance of your post above (9:36pm) but I find myself (again) wanting to point out that you often meld your political opinions with religious belief. Perhaps some people here don’t give a thought to the “truth of Islam” because it is not the universal truth for everyone that you want it to be.
Unusually for an atheist, these days I acknowledge that religion can be a source of personal strength and comfort for individuals minded to believe in the supernatural. However, if you make your posts reliant on the “truth” of one religion or another, you are shutting down many avenues for agreement.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think USUKIS gives much of a hoot about religion anyway, except in cases where it can be used to pursue political ends. Global conflict stoked by these players is about money, political power projection, and oil.
John I can assure that would not last, other than the first time perhaps, not many people would like to see the death of another human being.
Their ‘success’ is in genocide, ethnic cleansing and depopulation, hardly something to boast about (but they do, endlessly). Someone sometime is going to have to put a stop to it, contain them, roll them back to 1947, pastoralise the place and de-nazify the remainder.
Jon is this a new Jon or is it a flash in a pan?
Respecting peoples’ religious beliefs is an elegant extension being respectful of their human rights! Their very humanity hinges on their religious beliefs.
Agreed on the point forwarded with winning the hearts and minds of the atheists too!
Churchill took all Iran’s Oil in the 1950’s. When the PM protested M15/CIA cased instability in Iran – labelled the PM and put him in jail. Re- installed the despised Shah. The papers were released last year in US.@’Planet Oil’.
The West encouraged and armed Saddam to attack Iran during the Iran/Iraq War. Now Iran is getting nuclear when there are other fuel sources. Oil, solar.
The Middle East should get the vote and Israel should be sorted. Only then will there be peace. US/UK and France malicious policies are a disgrace. They will not stop meddling. Obama’s statements are extraordinary. A total hypocrite. What an embarrassment. Demanding Assad goes. There will be another vacuum and anarchy. Once Assad and Westminster’s were Allies with reprocial State visits and glossy magazine write ups.
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Fedup
29/09/2015 10:08pm
I am afraid you have considerably more faith in the public conscience about this specific matter than I have.
What do you think people did when there wasn’t any telly?
“Public punishments such as whippings, the stocks, the pillory, but particularly executions, were always very popular with the general public and were normally well attended events. In the days before newspapers and when few of the populace could read, they also served a practical purpose of allowing the inhabitants of a town to see justice done and hopefully be deterred from committing crime. In some cases, judges would order the execution to be carried out at the scene of the crime for this reason. See the case of Sarah Malcolm for an example.
Up to the end of the 18th century, executions were very much a spectator sport for all classes of society, the wealthy as well as the poor. Seats in Mother Procter’s Pews, open galleries like modern grandstands at a football stadium, which gave a good view of the proceedings at London’s Tyburn were much sought after and very expensive. Two shillings (10p) was a lot of money in the 1700’s. There was a house overlooking Tyburn, with iron balconies, from which the Sheriffs of the City of London and Under Sheriff of Middlesex watched the executions with their invited guests. After the move to Newgate at the end of 1783, these events still attracted huge numbers of spectators and the better off would rent roof tops and rooms in houses opposite the Debtor’s Door to get the best view.
Where the criminal was unusual, the execution could be guaranteed to draw huge crowds. Such was the case with 39 year old Henry Fauntleroy who was the managing partner at Marsh, Sibbald & Co, a failing Marylebone bank, who had been convicted at the Old Bailey on the 30th of October 1824 of large scale forgery. Fauntleroy was convicted of trying to defraud the Bank of England of £5000 in 3% annuities, belonging to a Mr. Francis Young. His case got wide coverage in the newspapers of the day due to his social status and his alleged immoral behaviour. Fauntleroy confessed to the crime and claimed his motive was to try to prop up the bank. It was claimed by others that the motive was to support his lavish life style and many girlfriends. It is thought that the crime for which he suffered was just one of many similar offences that had netted him a huge sum of money over several years.
There was considerable effort made to secure a reprieve and unusually further legal argument prior to his execution, but to no avail. This hanging of a “gentleman” at Newgate, just after 8 o’clock on Tuesday, the 30th of November 1824, was a major event to be watched by an estimated 100,000 people.”
http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/endpublic.html
Do you think British people were more barbaric in 1824 than in 2015? Personally I doubt it, having read hundreds upon hundreds of grisly comments online about what individuals would like to do with paedophiles, rapists, etc.
Someone on this very blog just today called for the summary execution of the entire Conservative and Labour leaderships serving at the time of the Iraq war. Do you think whoever it was didn’t mean it, or that they would not watch it and feel satisfied and vindicated?
Kind regards,
John
“If we did not have the US military invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the US’s unwarranted support for the inhumane actions of the Zionist regime against the oppressed nation of Palestine, today the terrorists would not have an excuse for the justification of their crimes. ”
Pathetic – they don’t have any valid excuse for the justification for their crimes full stop.
This is sort of related, what with all the Iran nuclear stuff.
I’m well aware that the Veteran’s Today site publishes lots of conspiracy theory stuff, and for that reason I wouldn’t normally cite them. However, I did back in the summer: one of Bob Nichols’ ‘Your Radiation This Week’ posts, which takes US government Radnet readings for major cities in America. I posted the link because Radnet was starting to show readings in the 600 CPM and above range (5 to 20 CPM is normal; above 50 CPM used to be alert status).
Bob Nichols’ latest report, up to 26th September, is showing Radnet readings way, way higher, with many cities registering between 1000 and more than 2000 CPM, which are totally insane levels (CPM = Counts Per minute, in this instance for beta and gamma radiation). Mr Nichols cites the reason as: “A powerful nuclear pulse was created somewhere in the upper Midwest and spread a radioactive wave front outward hundreds of miles across America’s Heartland. The pulse was recorded with yet another Thousand Point increase at the few active and published radiation stations with an unmistakable signature”.
Whatever Nichols refers to happened about two or three weeks ago (and thus has no direct connection to the uranium fire in Illinois the weekend before last – which, of course, you were all told about). From other sources I can find no mention of the incident that Nichols refers to which has caused this massive increase in radiation levels. Whatever the cause, his radiation readings, via Radnet, are correct.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/09/26/your-radiation-this-week-no-23/
Fedup, heh – no, it is the old Jon! It’s not so much a change of mind as a progression of thinking. I am still a happy atheist, and I expect I will remain so until God decides my time is up.
I think we disagree about the visibility of state-sanctioned murder, though. Public executions were a popular spectacle in the UK – a head-chopping or a hanging – and there is nothing “honest” about their grisly display. I abhor capital punishment in any form, and where it is still practiced in public – say North Korea – it deserves unreserved condemnation.
Are they? Depends on what is the wining criteria based upon?
The zionist society has yielded the total breakdown of all human values.
I recollect an incident in a different forum, in which a zionist parent was boasting about his two year old son, and waxing lyrical about the boys craftiness to avoid brushing his teeth! This facet was obviously an appealing positive attribute worthy of noting it and being proud of it. Upon further comments from others, it transpired that the idiot could not understand that the toddler did not like the stinging of the toothpaste on his tongue and gums. The degeneration of any society starts at the family level first!
Ken2, you have me all curious. In what fashion should Israel be sorted? Personally I think that the two-state solution with a rolling back to either of the old borders is highly unlikely, and so the international community needs to push harder on the one-state solution. It’s going to be a hard sell to both sides, but I wonder if it is actually a more likely outcome.
Then either a war crimes tribunal for both sides, chaired by countries agreeable to both sides, or – perhaps more palatable to both parties – an amnesty and a Truth & Reconciliation Commission. I’m in favour of war crimes prosecutions, but not having them may be the price of peace. Any solution will be messy.
(Yes to genuine democracy across the Middle East – a tall order, but a good one!).
“Clearly disregarding the fact that zionistan is the root cause of the arrest of the progress of the whole of mid east that has been kept in a stasis and and endless state of stagnation for it to be treated as the gas tank of the West. However as ever the zionist supremacist miscreants bent on pushing their falsehoods jump to make hay from any opportunity presented in their customary denunciations of their “enemies” (everyone is their enemy unless proved otherwise).”
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Fedup, countries in the Middle East have been killing their citizens in sometimes grisly fashion, for hundreds of years long before Israel was even a twinkle in Ben Gurions eye. That’s not to say that modern day Israel isn’t destabling the middle East it is.
The West has a huge part to play in the destruction of countries in the region, regrettably Britain’s involvement goes way back long before USA’s intervention.
As far back as 1800 Britain used Tehran as a staging post, to explore routes from Afghanistan, which Russia or France through Napoleon could use to capture British India.
We signed treaties with Iran, through a young capable officer named Captain John Malcolm, to protect Iran and the Shah but when Russia took Georgia in 1801 through Tsar Alexander, which placed Russia too close for the Shah’s liking, Britain did nothing to protect him or Iran.
By then Britain had teamed up with Russia to combat the ever increasing threat of Napoleon.
So you see Fedup, Israel’s threat to other countries in the region is comparatively new compared to Britain’s activities.
I’m in no way defending Israeli actions, you’d thought that the countries populus would’ve learned from their harrowing experience under the Nazi’s, the oppressed have now become the oppressors.
But to say that if Israel didn’t exist the region would be stable is wishful thinking.
I like the ‘naive transnational actors’ description. It has often occurred to me that, basically, we don’t know what we’re doing. First we want to oust Assad. Then we want to defeat ISIS. Then we want to keep Assad for 6 months, whilst we defeat ISIS. Then Putin appears with weapons, and we, if I’m following this, want to keep Assad in place, and defeat ISIS. Of course, ISIS are actually funded by the Saudi’s, and allegedly we are supplying them weapons, so do we even want to defeat ISIS? I’ve no idea. I simply have no clue what the fuck we are actually doing, who we are actually supporting, and what the whole point of it all is. Does anybody? I suppose the neocons do, but most of them are lunatics, so there explanation doesn’t count. Instead of ‘mansplaining’ can we use the term ‘consplaining’ to denote the dismal explanations of neocons?
Really, people in the West have to start going to jail for war-crimes, and then this madness might abate. I’m looking squarely at Blair, no question at all.
Jon I did not entertain that you are no longer an atheist. However I welcome the progressive none militancy of your atheism. Because as you know currently there is the dogmatism of the militant atheists whose proselytism for conversion of the religious people into none religious persons is all the rage! In a fashion of Satanists inversing all the religious concepts and creating their own brand of religion regardless.
Your point about the stories of the convicts being paraded through the streets for gathering audiences before taking the convict to the place of execution with the throngs ogling the grisly spectacle with a mixture of WFW (world federation wrestling) enthusiasm and a day out, is an archaic notion that for some unknown reason seems to have currency.
However let us keep our misanthropy in check, by realising that the above was applicable during the times that the gruesome hanging and drawing and quartering used to be classed as fun to watch!!! As we know these days people don’t have any appetite for any of the above, as the nice man on the telly always starts the broadcast of a gruesome package by the warning; the following will be blah blah!
With respect to the Islamic based justice systems you must take account of the victim centric nature of the justice and not the offender centric system that predominates our justice systems. Hence it should be the people/victims whom abhor the death sentence and not the state! As my earlier anecdote portrays (to be found on youtube). The victim centric Justice does not dish out death sentences automatically!
The Iran basher bunch fail to point out that the victims at any point can rescind the death sentence by a simple waving of the life for a life principles. If you recollect the punishment of a man whom had carried out an acid attack on a girl whom had rebuffed his proposals of marriage! The state had the headache of being portrayed as barbaric, and get a lot of bad publicity. The reality was the blinded girl did want the eye for an eye principle to be up held and this presented the state with the problematic task of devising methods of rendering blind a perfectly healthy pair of eyes without killing or causing further damage to the offenders other organs.
Finally after few years of keeping the offender in the knowledge that he is to be blinded too, the victim rescinded the punishment of the convict and let him keep his vision.
The simplistic arguments surrounding other cultures and their methods of dealing with the day to day problems is a lazy approach that invariably ends in denunciations of other cultures and peoples!
At least Iran still seems to have a functional legal system.
The governments of both the US and UK routinely carry out extrajudicial killings (and torture), and most citizens of the US and UK don’t seem to bat an eyelid about it.
Even despite the fact that they could be next…
I wouldn’t worry about Iran “bashing” here, Fedup, but I fear you bend too much the other way. It is very decent of the woman in your example to have rescinded a medically-sanctioned blinding of a man who assaulted her, but nevertheless the eye for eye principle is barbaric, and I hope it should not be regarded as “culturally disrespectful” to say so. I didn’t have you down for political correctness 😉
I have said many times on this board that there are customs around the world that are dreadful, cruel and medieval, and that an international standard of decency should be the way forward. We are agreed that, for example, Israel or the United States are not keen on the minimum standards of behaviour set out in international law. However that they do not have time for these mechanisms does not mean we should not try to apply them to all countries.
“Islamic State and other Islamic terrorist organizations around the world don’t bother to excuse their crimes. Only the left does that. They are fighting for the purest implementation of Islam…”
They are fighting for nothing of the sort. Most of thesefighters are veterans of earlier NATO inspired al qaeda militias, they are heavily armed, trained in the US fashion (which is why they are incompetent when facing troops) and paid regular wages by a governing structure which is almost certainly subsidised by the Saudi, Qatari, Turkish and NATO governments.
It is true that their leaders affect devotion to wahhabi rites but nobody supposes that this ragbag of mercenaries has any religious ambitions- nobody that is who has observed their behaviour in killing Christians (a most uni-slamic practice), treating prisoners with extreme brutality and raping children.
As to the Shaker Aamer matter the principle in law is that a man is considered innocent until found guilty. I know that this is a principle which offends prurient and malicious gossips, but this man has not even been charged with an offence-merely tortured and detained. One would have thought that would be enough for even the most hardened and racist of sadists.
Here’s Peter Oborne on Shaker Aamer (in the Daily Mail).
Anyone who believes the British public does not contain plenty of atavistic barbarians should go and read the comments on this article forthwith. Might open a few eyes.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3252865/PETER-OBORNE-Torture-man-expose-Britain-s-dirtiest-secrets.html
Kind regards,
John
UN General Assembly fringe meeting:
Between Ahmet Davutoğlu and Tony Blair in the latter’s NY hotel room as far as I can make out. Google Translate is if anything less clear than the original. Reasons given are as usual vague, but Davutoğlu is very strongly anti-Assad, and as is sometimes the case, it looks as if Blair is doing some deniable dirty work for Cameron.
http://www.gazeterize.com/dunya/davutoglu-ingiltere-eski-basbakani-tony-blairi-kabul-etti-h174138.html
Further days in the enchanted life of the Dear Global Leader in the usual place; An Apology.
John you are correct, I have a lot of faith in people. My faith stems from the fact that I am one of the them! Everyone of us is a unit of the multitude of people. Frankly I have seen the compassion of Craig, Robert Crawford, BrainFujisan, Mary, Nevermind,……….. You and I have enjoyed watching all of you in action.
John let’s face it people are wonderful because we are them! Although there exist a minority of deranged psychopaths whom get a lot of publicity and make humanity and people look like shits! But we should not allow these cretins to succeed in giving a bad wrap to people and humanity.
Also John we must understand that each one of us have failings, but fact is we all strive to overcome our failings and make good the bad bits, and that also is part of our humanity. There may have been times that people enjoyed watching others in abject pain, to validate their miserable existence and feel better about themselves. But humanity is general is progressing. These days we let boxers beat the crap out of each other with their covered fists and throngs pay to watch them live, or pay to tune in to watch them. Recollecting that our ancestors watched men fight each other to death or fight wild beasts to avoid being part of the said beasts’ menu for dinner.
It is a great progress John won’t you agree? All we need is faith to progress even further, despite the machinations of the psychopaths to stop that progress.
PS DM commenters come from US, as well as the usual tossers, included the brigade 77 lot and the keyboard warriors. You want to be really shocked check out Liveleak and take note of the comments (BTW Liveleak was originally promoted by beebeecee).
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Republicofscotland you are a knowledgeable man (I hope I have got your gender right), but at times you are too quick to fire without thinking (constructive criticism). As you have pointed out the machination of the British state correctly. Alas you have not extended the same policy into twentieth century and beyond.
Balfour declaration gifting Palestine freely as land without people, was based on the notions of creating a loyal Ulster in the Arab heartland. This was precisely furtherance of the policies of arresting the progress of the area with a view of taking full advantage of the resources of the area in the ownership of the natives whom could not exploit these and needed the beneficence of the British establishment to take any advantage of their god given resources. Ie treating the area as the gas Tank of the West.
Fact that the illegitimate birth of zionistan was followed by the said zionistan growing into a total bastard and beastly entity is the consequence of such machinations.
In simple words the same bunch of carpetbaggers whom exploited the area originally found a different method of continuing to exploit the area. Do you honestly believe that US is supporting the supremacist zionist because of the Jewish Lobby? The same US lot used to support the Chinese Lobby back in 30s. The baton was passed from one bunch of imperialists to another bunch and US continued the same principles of a loyal Ulster in the midst of the Arab heartlands. Post Nasser’s attempt to nationalise Suez Canal.
Without zionistan there would have been no room for the current bunch of corrupt sock puppet dictators strutting as emirs, and kings in the mid east! The political evolution of the area would have followed a different path.
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Jon I am not politically correct, it is a misused phrase to counter the accusation of cup out. I did not condone the eye for an eye principles I only pointed out the mechanisms of the victim centric justice system. You cannot call seventy/eighty million Iranians barbarians and expect them to respect your point of view. The victim needs to feel justice is served, and the only way of avoiding harsh eye for an eye principle would be; there should exist no victims. IE eradicate crime at the source of criminal conduct, simply put enlightened people do not commit crimes.
John Spencer-Davis
I am really glad that the Daily Mail took up the case of Shaker Aamer. Peter Oborne is a great journalist, but I detect in this article the heavy hand of DM editorial input. Most of the piece is sound.
The Mail is a late-comer to the campaign. People like Andy Worthington, Craig Murray, Gareth Pierce, Clive Stafford-Smith and others have long tried to point out the injustice of the undoubted torture of Shaker.
Yes, I suspect the Daily Mail has been involved in the Cameron negotiations that ensure (for a massive amount of compensation) Shaker and his family are going to prefer an easy life, and who can blame them.
The secret services win again. Nevertheless, let’s celebrate Shaker’s homecoming, and leave him to get on with his rehabilitation and family life. There is nothing anybody can do. Bad things happen in life. I hope the person who was present at his torture, who is known about, is brought to justice. But don’t bank on it. (S)he is more likely to be found in a hold-all. More culpable are those higher up the chain who ordered this official’s presence. There is much less chance of those ever facing justice.
Capitalism is the most evil system on earth. If it does not have those involved killed it purchases silences like these. And there is nothing dignified about them.
although…
The terrorists are NOT fighting for the nation of Palestine at all.
And I think we are entitled to draw conclusions from this.
@John Goss
“Capitalism is the most evil system on earth.”
– Personally I’d point that finger to the Zionism that lies beneath it.
p.s. Stunning cheek by Oborne at the start
” the Daily Mail campaign to free Shaker Aamer, the last remaining British resident in Guantanamo Bay, finally bore fruit.”
The DM’s “Lengthy battle” First indication of which is December 11th, 2014. LOL. When signals were that he he was in the process of being released.
What the hell is Oborne doing writing for that utterly crap paper.
Obornes article is beside a “news” item that Kim Kardasian “confessed to eating Cheeto’s when pregnant”. Peter, don’t you have any self-respect?