So the Belhaj family have accepted an apology and half a million pounds of our tax money to drop their legal action against HMG and against Jack Straw personally over their extraordinary rendition to torture in Libya.
The British establishment, whichever party is in power, continues to do everything possible to cover up the shameful history of its complicity in torture and extraordinary rendition, and in particular to hide the authorisation by Jack Straw and Tony Blair and the involvement of senior MI6 officials like Sir Mark Allen and Sir Richard Dearlove.
A judicial inquiry by Judge Gibson into British government complicity i torture was cancelled when he showed signs of being an honest and independent man, and was replaced by an inquiry in secret by the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament. I gave evidence to that inquiry but no report has ever issued.
Most tellingly, a police investigation into the Belhaj case and other cases was dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service ensuring that Jack Straw never stood trial. Senior policemen in the investigation had told me they believed they had sufficient evidence to prosecute. That evidence included my own sworn witness statement, taken by the Metropolitan Police over two days of interviews.
This is the crux of my sworn evidence, where I testify that the decision to use intelligence from torture came from Jack Straw and Richard Dearlove.
You can see my full evidence and an account of the circumstances of the CPS dropping the case here.
On the same issue of complicity in torture, in the US Gina Haspel, like Straw, Dearlove, and Allen here, has got away with her crimes, to the extent she has now been appointed head of the CIA. My good friend Ray McGovern yesterday made a protest over her very close involvement in authorising torture, at her confirmation hearing. As a result Ray, who is 78 years old, was brutally assaulted by six policemen who kept yelling “stop resisting” at this unresisting 78 year old man, as they dragged him around the floor, dislocating his shoulder.
Nobody has gone to jail in the UK for a complicity in torture which everybody knows occurred. Everybody also knows precisely who ought to have gone to jail, including Blair and Straw. The government spent over £4 million in legal battles to try to keep the evidence in the Belhaj case secret, before they settled out of court to avoid a public trial and to save the Establishment being exposed.
Never was there a plainer example of the neo-cons sticking together than the Tory protection of Blair and Straw.
I am personally not happy at this waste of taxpayer resources to keep Jack Straw out of jail. Are you?
Wait, what exactly is the objection? That the crown settled the civil damages? Surely that was the right calculation. If the crown loses a case like this (as you’d imagine they would, given that the actions of Jack Straw et al. were surely not so unusual/out of bounds as to allow the crown to escape respondeat superior), the damages would be much higher. So this seems like a good deal for taxpayers.
Or is the objection that no one was put on trial? If so, I wonder why Straw and not half of the rest of the government. To be clear, I think they should all stand trial. But I’d imagine that a case like this has substantial confidentiality issues that are not within the gift of the CPS to waive. And it would be quite out of character for the Tories to waive confidentiality so that someone can be put on trial for torture. (Scorpion & frog, etc.)
Craig’s argument is simple. If someone has broken the law and as a result people have been tortured they should be prosecuted.
To counter this you invented confidentially issues presented the nature of the Tories as a legal obstacle. You only post on this blog to deliberately obfuscate and should be banned.
Yes, I agree, it’s just trolling.
The confidentiality opt-out is, however, the one most likely to be used to stall further action. I don’t always agree with Martinned (or Craig) but his opinion is as good as anyone else’s on a public blog. And if you think he’s a troll, you’ve never met one.
I think I just met one-and-a-half.
Seriously? Craig proposes putting someone on trial for things done by MI6, and then I’m accused of “inventing” confidentiality issues?
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/6/section/3
I’m not saying these issues can’t be overcome, but it’s hardly “obfuscating” to point them out in the first place. (Nor is pointing out that ultimately the original post is simply complaining about the Tories being Tories.)
I was trying to find this quote from Straw, but Norton-Taylor helpfully got there first in the Groaniad today.
“Unless we all start to believe in conspiracy theories and that the officials are lying, that I am lying, that behind this there is some kind of secret state which is in league with some dark forces in the United States … there simply is no truth in the claims that the United Kingdom has been involved in rendition.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/10/abdel-hakim-belhaj-rendition-who-did-it-mi6-scandal-same-old-excuse
The Strawman fell to pieces under the lies and guilt and put it on the record in parliament in 2005? – about time he does the decent thing and elaborate further
Not happy doesn’t begin to cover it. The terms of the admission made:
“The UK government believes your accounts. Neither of you should have been treated this way. The UK government’s actions contributed to your detention, rendition and suffering. The UK government shared information about you with its international partners.”
should in any society professing the supremacy of the rule of law, lead to proceedings against the perpetrators.
Or at least for the journalists to point how big a scandal this is: UK government admits to be being an accessory to torture and cover up.
«for the journalists to point how big a scandal this is: UK government admits to be being an accessory to torture and cover up.»
Not always “cover up”: our minister of defence has boasted very publicly on the Daily Telegraph that he has sentenced to death hundreds of UK citizens on suspicion of future crimes, and has ordered a network of MoD+MI6 death squads to assassinate them wherever they are. He boastedopen of such schemes because they are *very popular* with his electorate.
But in this case they apologised, implying they knew they were doing something against international law.
But of course it is OK. They probably added the caveat that any harm done was totally unintentional!
Fatima Boudchar’s piece in the NYT was devastating
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/opinion/gina-haspel-questions-cia.html
From The Guardian:
“Boudchar […] would receive compensation of £500,000 for the UK’s role in her treatment.”
UK role. Blink and you’d miss the wording and its import. While one might accept that low-level individuals don’t formulate policy and do as they are bid, if ministers are not responsible for (policy) decisions they make, then who is?
And why was Amber Rudd’s misleading the Houses of Parliament sufficient to require a resignation only yesterday and an admission, grudging, of responsibility, yet Mr Straw’s far more serious transgressions, actual crimes, the state will stand guarantor for?
It’s a disgrace, a travesty. May should have issued two apologies, one to the Belhaj’s and another to the British taxpayer.
Tbf, Jack Straw doesn’t really have any ministerial office that he can resign from anymore, does he?
(And if he did, there are several other recent adventures that would have cost him his job: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Straw#Retirement_from_front-bench_politics_(2010_%E2%80%93_present)
Are you deliberately misunderstanding my point? It’s so simple.
Sopo, it’s quite simple: it’s all a game and there are rules, one of which is that you can do almost anything as a minister and keep your job except upset your PM badly or lie to Parliament. Amber Rudd broke the rule and so had to go. Jack Straw didn’t and didn’t. Another rule of the game is that anything you do in your life outside of being a minister is OK, so long as you don’t end up in prison (and your friends will generally keep you out of that, unless you have broken part one of the previous rule) or misbehave sexually.
Or if you misbehave sexually, you are too big to sack, naming no names.
Well, Craig, Her Majesty is NEVER out of power. Is She?
Assuming that George Bush’s opinion of extraordinary rendition, torture and brainwashing was legal because of the exceptional virtue of the coalition of US, UK and Israel against the innocent Muslims of the world, half a million was a bargain price for a pot of whitewash that covered their continuing crusade against Islam, theft of Libya’s billions, displacement of maybe 60 million Muslims, death of 5 million and the conquest of the oilfields of Iraq through brain-washed demonic terrorist.
And I thought 2 drums of fence paint at Wickes for £10 was a bargain!
If unfortunately the fence paint washed off, as indeed the whitewash will disappear at the Day of Judgement, there’ll be a lot of sticky wickets for all concerned.
Couldn’t agree with you more.
It is impossible to know the true depths of the criminality plumbed by the British state.
Obviously the Belhaj family were treated in an illegal manner, and the people that broke the law should be held accountable before the law. That much is pretty simple.
What is less simple is that Abdul Hakim Belhaj was a former member of the Islamic Fighting Group. Clearly for the British to have been in possession of any information about this man at all they must have had some knowledge of, or relationship with, the Islamic Fighting Group.
Who else was involved with the Islamic Fighting Group? Why say a big hello to Salman Abedi responsible for the Manchester Arena terror atrocity.
The culpability of the British state likely extends way beyond the extraordinary rendition of Belhaj.
This could all be a conspiracy theory, but if so it is backed up by someone called Alistair Burt who in a written parliamentary answer on April 3rd 2018 noted “During the Libyan conflict in 2011 the British government was in contact with a wide range of Libyans involved in the conflict against the Qaddafi regime forces. It is likely that this included former members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group…”
The deep state disgusts all decent people – and yet most decent people oppose the only man in the world willing to try to confront it.
The lack of a public inquiry into last year’s terror attacks and the complete lack of interest from the media in one is a disgrace.
I tell you the depth of criminality extends to not only arming and training and helping Syrian terrorists but , together with the MSM , whitewashing these terrorists. Also arming the Saudi regime in a genocidal war in Yemen.
For the record, this is what the Rome Statute says about complementarity:
Art. 17
1. [A case is inadmissible if] The case has been investigated by a State which has jurisdiction over it and the State has decided not to prosecute the person concerned, unless the decision resulted from the unwillingness or inability of the State genuinely to prosecute;
(…)
2. In order to determine unwillingness in a particular case, the Court shall consider, having regard to the principles of due process recognized by international law, whether one or more of the following exist, as applicable:
(a) The proceedings were or are being undertaken or the national decision was made for the purpose of shielding the person concerned from criminal responsibility for crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court referred to in article 5;
(…)
(c) The proceedings were not or are not being conducted independently or impartially, and they were or are being conducted in a manner which, in the circumstances, is inconsistent with an intent to bring the person concerned to justice.
bj @13.57 I have said that about Martinned several times. Comments are always deleted. He is a troll who comes on here to defend the state apparatus.
PS What has happened to the Reply button?.
From my side, I can tell you that being the odd one out in an ultra-left wing echo chamber isn’t always fun. (Which is why I only comment here when I’m bored at work.)
Let me assure you that you are not the odd one out, Martinned, and further to that I think you come across as quite left wing yourself. I am puzzled as to why they are gunning for you on here when above you said;
“I wonder why Straw and not half of the rest of the government. To be clear, I think they should all stand trial.
As for the core issue here, I think it’s clear that the UK Government was up to its eyeballs in illegal rendition stuff involving torture etc. I can’t get too excited about any of that, though, when in the case of Iraq they took part in one of the biggest crimes of the last 100 years, turning an otherwise vibrant modern country into a charnel house, and killing so many millions in the process.
This as I understand is an issue that is close to Craig’s heart — since he was involved — and I bow to his superior knowledge and personal feelings. I think events since 2003 have entirely vindicated him and he deserves more respect for the position he took and sacrifices he made.
I don’t think “vibrant” is the word any sane person would use to describe Iraq under Saddam Hussein.
:
NO, an at least partly brainwashed ignoramus like you wouldn’t use the word vibrant to describe pre-Western War Crime Iraq.
Those who have kept themselves better informed, including me, WOULD.
.
Your claims about other people being trolls are usually deleted probably because Mr Murray would prefer commenters to address substance rather than to launch personal attacks imputing motivation?
Sharp Ears is correct. Martinned frequently deposits asinine commentary and occasionally redeems himself. That said, peoples motives are often the problem. I suppose you ought to deal with it.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/10/britain-apologises-for-appalling-treatment-of-abdel-hakim-belhaj
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/may/10/uk-aid-syria-white-helmets-trump-pulls-funding
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/10/undercover-policing-inquiry-will-not-deliver-final-report-before-2023
All from just one day’s gleanings of that notorious rag without mention of the clusterfuck that is brexshit.
What a shabby little country GB has become. So very terribly sad.
Have a look at Straw’s dreadful statement. Basically it lays all the blame on the civil service: ‘I assumed what they told me was legal so approved it.’ Also when does the man who organised the kidnapping intend to resign from his comfy life in an Oxbridge college?
Particularly interesting given that Jack Straw is a barrister…
Straw has to live on with himself: his biggest punishment. Even death won’t be a relieve for him…
I believe people like Straw and there are no shortage of them in Westminster would tick most of the boxes in Dr Robert Hare’s test for sociopathy. They are entirely without empathy or conscience and sleep the sleep of the innocent, untroubled by any demons. They simply couldn’t care less what happens to others.
Never, I should imagine. He is doubtless contracted to eavesdrop on students, organise recruitment of immature clever geeks for SIS and probably organise surveillance on academics, particular those not of pretty far right persuasion.
When I was working with, not for, Leeds University, it was absolutely clear that at least two senior Professors in just one faculty were party to surveillance activities. I tested it out by writing dreadful things on a PC without sharing it. They knew all about it by their need to convey things obliquely. So did commercial investors working with the University….
Wellcome Trust now has Eliza Maningham-Buller as head honcho. Quite how being head of domestic spooks makes you a credible champion of promoting human health is beyond me, but I learned nearly 30 years ago that decent logic could never explain Pax Brittanica satisfactorily….
Planting MI6 heads in Oxbridge seems pretty par for the course to me……
” Particularly interesting ”
spot of bother on the western front darling. Would you like a cup of tea , darling [ shag ] ?
Darling , it’s only 14.33
What can I say? I’ve been in England too long. Acquired a taste for understatement…
I think we get the message from all of this that the Tories and the Blairites are all crimson-stained criminals and should resign from politics. The only man of principle left is Jeremy Corbyn and quite frankly I don’t give a damn if he’s a bearded leftie, he’s honest.
It’s easy to have principles if you have no power. The shine is already coming off Corbyn now that he occasionally has to make tough decisions.
As for Corbyn’s principles, I suspect that we’re going to have to agree to disagree on whether supporting various third world dictatorships interferes with someone being a “man of principle”…
“The shine is already coming off Corbyn now that he occasionally has to make tough decisions.”
Yes, but he’s still better than the alternative and that, in our binary political system, is all he needs to be.
Well, sort of. In the next leadership challenge, Corbyn may well end up losing because he ends up splitting the Corbynite vote with someone else on the left side of the party. Leadership challenges are not binary, at least not within the Labour party.
You don’t think that he too would be quickly involved, if not overwhelmed, in and by the day to day operations of the ‘State’ ?
I have little doubt that there’s not a State in the world that is not involved in what could be deemed as criminal actions. The big difference with the whole ‘War on Terror’ events is that they were so badly hidden ?
Yes, and whatever anyone might say about Jeremy Corbyn, his achievement in promising that as prime minister he would not sanction the use of nuclear weapons under any circumstancesand then increasing the Labour voteshare from 30% to 40% was admirable and is without precedent in Labour party history. Let us remember that the son-of-a-bitch faction (worshippers of Trident and the IDF) in the Labour party is stronger now than it was under Michael Foot, albeit less strong than it was under its own war criminal leaders Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
If that’s what you think achievement is, we’re back to the question that everyone’s been asking at least since the local election: Given how much of a mess the Tory party is, how is Labour not kicking their asses all over England?
” understatement ? ”
whiff of death
Was the bombing of Damascus a NATO attack.including UK planes which has been recommended ever since the alleged sarin attack by the regime and the Russians?
No. It was an attack by certain members of NATO. NATO hasn’t been involved in any military operations since Libya 2011.
What NATO does now is decided by what its Council decides at its Wednesday lunches. Looks like only the US, UK France and Germany attended. Worked out while the Europeans attended Washington over its pullout from the Iranian nuclear deal.
Democracy, Be Damned!
Maybe NATO was not directly involved but must have been notified to stand by in case of an justified retaliation on one of its belligerent states as an act of collective thuggery, sorry meant Defense.
John McCain has come out against Haspel’ s confirmation. I think that means she needs Democratic votes in the Senate to be confirmed.
I guess that depends on whether McCain is healthy enough to vote no, or whether he’ll simply end up not voting/abstaining.
McCain’s stance will make it harder for other Republicans like Rand Paul to vote for Haspel, and much harder for Democrats in the Senate to vote for her.
I wouldn’t worry too much about Rand Paul having principles or shame. He’ll vote to confirm in the end.
Considering the renewed attacks on Syria by Israel and the silence by west to condemn Israel, its says it all that these people have no issue with torturing, violations of human rights etcetera. There is a word and that is psychopathy.
Torturing people, I mean really? What kind of sick people are they?
A dying empire puts its survival over any other considerations.
lysias
Not sure what is dying with the empire that is advanced in koreas, syria, now iran.
They must think they are fighting existential wars. Torture always happens in existential wars…..if folks are bombing your wives and children and you need to find out about that, many people would torture if their children could live not die.
Thing is, these bozos live a gilded life in Parliaments, never seen a battle field, the vast majority…..
?
Even in the age of Elizabeth the 1st, torturers knew their methods only produced whatever ‘truth’ would stop the pain. Of course like today that didn’t mean they stopped…
I think one of the first purposes for torture is not to force a confession out but to force a confession in, as so many things have been done under false flags that many of the accused cannot possibly have done it. If they confessed to it they were tortured. The western scum who reinvented torture, and clearly those who perform it, deserve a violent public end. And if they screw-up a war against Russia some of them just might get it.
F off Martinned and your little helpers can dry up.
The subject is very serious. It is not your £half a billion that is being handed away as you are not British. The crimes of Blair, Straw and Dearlove were supreme.
There are millions of families in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya without their dear ones. Many survived with horrific injuries. Children have been shredded and burned.
You’re right, the subject is serious. That’s why it might be better not to spoil serious discussion and debate by immediately calling people you don’t like ‘trolls’. wouldn’t you agree?
And, by the way, I suspect that Martinned is a UK taxpayer, so it is actually some of his taxes which contributed to the half million. So let’s have fewer of those nationalistic, Little England sneers, shall we?
Please note, for the uninformed, there is no such thing as `tax payers money`. All money spent by the government is new, it comes straight from that money tree that May denies exists. The purpose of tax is to control inflation, AFTER, the new money has been spent into the economy.
‘Liked’
Despite having been found to be corrupt by an independent inquiry in 2015 and being disastrously wrong about every major foreign policy issue over the past 15 years, Jack and Sir Malcolm Rifkind continue to be our media’s first ports of call for authoritative opinions on world affairs.
That’s the country we’re living in.
Not authoritative opinions, politically correct ones…..
Back to Salisbury, another of this country’s black ops.
According to Martin Brunt on Sky, the father is still in intensive care. The daughter has been released but, via a Scotland Yard statement, she says that she is far away, location not stated. The Russian Embassy is not satisfied as they have not had sight or sound of her.
What will H.M. Government do next time the U.S. demands collaboration in torture?
Donald Trump stated categorically he believes torture works.
The new Lady Macbeth in Trump’s administration believes torture works, and was in charge of the programme.
It is inevitable that the UK will comply like good little poodles whenever they get the call(s) from Washington, as they did in the Belhaj family’s case. It is also inevitable that they will lie through their teeth for years as they did in the Belhaj family’s case.
Nothing new. UK state wrote the manuals in the Empire. We invented concentration camps. We used chemical weapons. We bombed Dresden to oblivion. We castrated Kenyans. We ran the slave trade. We went to war to continue being drug dealers.
America learned it all from us….then maybe added a few new techniques of their own….
Exactly – we have no right whatsoever to preach morality to others.
“We invented concentration camps.”
That old canard. All we invented was the name. The concept was invented by others and the name was used by the Nazis for something different.
We didn’t invent the name, although there’s little doubt we used the concept to it’s most brutal effect during the Boer War, with 26,000 women and children dying.
The actual term ‘concentration camp’ was invented by the Spanish (as campo de concentración or campo de reconcentración) in 1896. A rebellion had broken out in Cuba, then a Spanish colony, the previous year. The rebels, outnumbered by Spanish government troops, turned to guerilla warfare. In response the Spanish commander Valeriano Weyler ordered the civilians of Cuba to be ‘concentrated’ in concentration camps under guard so they could not provide the rebels with food, supplies or new recruits. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were interned in these camps, and poor sanitation and lack of food led to as many as a quarter of them dying of disease.
Torturers are people who are deranged or can only feel anything under extreme emotions. No answer can be trusted coming out of torture, people will confess to anything suggested or make something up to stop the suffering. Solid government agencies should stay far away from it be cause of the above apart from legal reasons.
Why did the US & co resort to it anyway? To claim (secret) evidence to justify pre-mediated foreign interventions, or against presumed domestic terrorists where real evidence is scarce.
As long as the US/UK use torture they cannot claim moral superiority over China, Russia etc.
It would be nice if it were true that torture did not work, unfortunately it does work. First, as you say, people can be made to confess to anything. As long as you and your designated audience doesn’t care about accuracy, torture works. If you use torture as a means to terrorise ordinary folk who would likely support your opponents into keeping their heads down, torture works. And if you are after intelligence and work at it, using several sources and correlating responses, cross-referencing with what you know to be true as well as what you know not to be true, torture also works, like it or not.
I omitted to say how very sorry I was to hear of the shocking treatment of Craig’s friend, Ray McGovern. I hope that he will recover from the assault and the injury to his shoulder. It’s a wonder he did not have a heart attack.
What has happened to our countries?
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern brutalised by police
Ray McGovern Brutalised By Police At Haspel Confirmation
Off-Guardian — “The 78-year-old Ray McGovern, ex-CIA analyst and respected commentator, was detained, thrown to the ground and handcuffed for protesting the confirmation of Gina Haspel as head of the CIA yesterday.
Haspel previously headed the CIA’s enhanced interrogation program which included several forms of physical and psychological torture.”
https://off-guardian.org/2018/05/10/watch-former-cia-analyst-ray-mcgovern-brutalized-by-police-at-haspel-confirmation/
There is a shorter video on that link. Thuggery.
Haspel resorted to enhanced interrogation technics to get back at Osama bin Laden’s minions for having tricked the Agency about what the alleged 19 hijackers were planning on 9/11, leading to the disastrous consequences we are enduring now.
Osama bin Laden had nothing to do with9/11
Syrian deputy foreign minister Faisal Mekdad says that Zionist forces invaded Syria at dawn today. Presumably he is not talking about the territory they have occupied since 1967.
“Most of the weapons in the hands of Syrian army against Zionists are home-made, he said.”
This report is from IRNA, the Iranian government’s news agency. It is poorly translated, but the implication seems to be that the Kremlin is going to stand by and watch while Zionist forces send Syria further into the muck. The reason I say this is that Hezbollah, Iranian and Syrian government forces in Syria obviously need proper air defences against the Znazis, and Russia could help them in this department, so why the emphasis on Syrian self-defence against the rampaging nuclear-armed state next door?
N.
Indeed looks like Syria attacked itself and no one else, as the Golan Heights are currently occupied Syrian lands.
Of course hypocrisy is a mainstay of Israel, it accuses Iran of having a secret nuclear weapons programme. When Israel has a secret nuclear weapons programme.
Iran complies with all the treaties and inspections. Israel complies with none, so who’s the nuclear outlaw?
Many thanks for that link to the OffGuardian and the short video, Sharp Ears.
I winder if you read through the comments attracted by the OffGuardian article? One of them read in part as follows:
“People need to name and shame those security animals. Put their names and addresses out rhere.
Then people can tell them in appropriate ways what they think of their behaviour….
If Americans think this is OK, you leadership of the world is long finished.
You as a people have to say ‘WE WILL NOT TOLERATE THIS!’
When 10 million of you descend on Capitol Hill to reclaim your nation, you will win.
Until then, the nazis rule and their Jewish brothers do their bidding bombing”
Notice the reference to ‘their Je***h brothers’.
The atavar accompanying that comment is that of a frequent commenter on Mr Murray’s blog – one ‘Rhys Jaggar’.
1) Do you seriously deny that US behaviour is not akin to Nazis, merely not applied to Jews?
2) Do you seriously deny the joined at the hip axis between Jerusalem/Tel Aviv and Washington DC?
3) Do you seriously deny Israel is demanding Lebensraum for a ‘ Greater Israel’?
Come on, show us your true colours…..justify 43 censure motions of Israel at UN, all vetoed by US….
Do you consider what I have written to be factually or historically inaccurate (cf plans to invade Sudetenland), other than the fact that German nazis went on to gas Jews and Americans are joined at the hip with modern Jews?
Do you deny Us Government behaves like Hitler minus concentration camps?
Do you deny Israel is angling at all times for further war in the Middle East?
Well do you??
Many thanks for that link to the OffGuardian and the short video, Sharp Ears.
I winder if you read through the comments attracted by the OffGuardian article? One of them read in part as follows:
“People need to name and shame those security animals. Put their names and addresses out rhere.
Then people can tell them in appropriate ways what they think of their behaviour….
If Americans think this is OK, you leadership of the world is long finished.
You as a people have to say ‘WE WILL NOT TOLERATE THIS!’
When 10 million of you descend on Capitol Hill to reclaim your nation, you will win.
Until then, the nazis rule and their Je***h brothers do their bidding bombing”
Notice the reference to ‘their Je***h brothers’.
The atavar accompanying that comment is that of a frequent commenter on Mr Murray’s blog – one ‘Rhys Jaggar’.
You don’t like written worded links to Zionists who are Jewish and Nazis who are Americans?
Well I do not like Jews ranting that any criticism of Zionist atrocities against Palestinians is antisemitism.
I do not like 43 UN Resolutions Censuring Israel vetoed by US wastrels who suck Israeli cocks ad nauseam. I think the Knesset should be bombed the next time Israel seizes Palestinian land and imposes Jewish settlers. I do not care if you are outraged by that, you Jews need to learn that Israel must repect international law or else…..you Jews need to tell the psychopath Netanyahu that he is a stain and a disgrace to Jews worldwide. But you will not, because you are value-free wastrels. So you take it out on those of us who DO have the balls to hold psychopathic Israelis to account. That is not racist any more than me calling Tony Blair a war criminal is anti-English. It is no more racist rhan mecalling out the Wahhabi nutcases in Riyadh. If you cannot comprehend that, you are mentally subnormal….
Jews call themselves the Chosen People – intrinsic superiority and hence indubitably racist in conception. I have zero tolerance for any Jew who says the term Chosen People is NOT racist, the word goyim is equivalent to the word nigger in my book. It is an extremely offensive disparaging term to the vast majority of non Jews who inhabit this earth, who outnumbers Jews by many to one, and I will not have one Jew tell me that I have to tolerate it.
I really suggest that those Americans who recognise those security guards assuslting Mr McGovern should name and shame them. They have committed a crime, namely wilfully assaulting a peaceful dissident and causing him significant injury. They should lose their jobs and suffer a minimum 90 days incarceration.
If the US Authorities prevaricate, more direct action should be taken. Holding them down and beating them significantly with truncheons. Maybe the odd broken arm, no more than that. It will teach them there are consequences to dereliction of duty……
It is completely unacceptable to treat a 78 year old like that and it says much about US officialdom that they are so incompetent that they need to resort to that…..
Thankfully he was white and in a public place, otherwise I am sure he would have suffered more than a dislocated shoulder.
Yip, I’m surprised they didn’t stun him or shoot him first, then slap on the cuffs, then again too many witnesses to this one.
@ Bunkum May 10, 2018 at 16:35
A dislocated shoulder is extremely painful (as I can testify, as can Craig); if they continued to abuse him after the dislocation (which they almost certainly did) then that constitutes torture.
Deadliest Catch. Get back on deck and stop complaining. Broken finger? Bowl another ball aiming for his gloves. And I haven’t even mentioned football.
@ Rhys Jaggar
I notice that you speak rather differently on here to how you do elsewhere……
Eg, in your comment on OffGuardian, where a comment of yours on the sane subject ends with
“Until then, the nazis rule and their Je***h brothers do their bidding bombing”
Rhys: I fully agree with every word you say. It is indeed gut-wrenching to helplessly watch an elder like Ray, being savagely brutalised, with impunity, for doing and saying what so desperately needs to be said and done.
I must add however, judging from plentiful firsthand experience, the treatment Ray received at the hands of that gang of uniformed thugs is absolutely standard operating procedure for police here in the US, and has been so at least since the early 2000s.
“Stop resisting”. Cops repeat this, by rote, over and over, regardless of one’s own behavior, once they have immobilised a detainee. It is not a felicitous demand with which one can meaningfully comply. Rather, it is simply what cops say once they have laid hands on you, have you immobilised, and are proceeding to perform this particular ritual violence on your person. The chant will continue until they have finished the ritual.
First, they hoist you by the shoulders and hurl you to the ground, face down. (It should be noted that this act tends to inflict cerebral concussion.) Then they pile on top of you, perhaps three or four of them. In case you were fortunate enough to break your fall with your hands, your arms are now pinned beneath not only your own weight, but the weight of several other large men, who continue to chant, to no legitimate purpose, “Stop resisting!”
At this point some of them will attempt to wrest your arms out from under you, and around behind your back, so as to cuff your hands behind your back. Usually while doing this they try, perversely, to force joints to flex in ways they are not meant to bend. (Those cops not already engaged in wrenching the helpless subject’s arms at this point tend to, sadistically, manipulate additional pressure points, such as at the base of the skull.) Not only does one naturally “resist” having one’s shoulder dislocated in any event, but when several men are sitting on top of one’s back one’s arm will, due to the laws of physics, “resist” being dragged out from beneath one’s body. This has nothing to do, of course, with “resistance”, and everything to do with self-preservation.
Nonetheless, the chant continues until, one way or another, one’s hands are tightly cuffed behind the back.
This is the treatment one receives if one does not, in fact, present any actual resistance. (Rougher treatment is in store for those who actually try to flee, or Heaven forbid otherwise attempt to defend themselves.)
I have come to surmise that what is really going on is something slightly less nonsensical than what it appears: The “resistance” one is actually being told to stop is whatever non-conforming behavior one was engaged in immediately prior to arrest. The officers are themselves trained dogs, carefully trained to dish out some Skinnerian negative feedback or, if you like, extrajudicial punishment, pure and simple. The chant is just a suggestive mantra for the victim to dwell on in future, reminding one of what the wages of “resistance” (ie, non-conformity) are. (As well as supplying a bit of tinder to spark off some cognitive dissonance—to infuriate the subject, to baffle any witnesses, and I suppose to bolster the thugs’ own morale, which must surely be pathetic.)
As I say, I have experienced (and witnessed) this exact treatment many times since the early 2000s. It is clearly a program American cops have been trained to execute, and so they do predictably, like the mindless, obedient beasts they are. And they receive their rewards, like good doggies: a flash car to park in the fenced-in parking (& barbed wired) enclosure while on the job (nobody but a cop needs to protect their car with barbed wire while at work, I notice), and a house in the suburbs (because they can’t live in the same neighborhood they terrorise, for obvious reasons). The (uniquely) fenced-in car parks found next to police stations say a lot about just how much contempt common people have for the police.
The cops, and more especially their superiors and trainers, have much to answer for. It is a thoroughly irredeemable, savagely sociopathic institution.
I have heard that US police, as an institution, are descended from literal Slave Patrols, but I cannot say I’ve done the research to verify the extent to which this is factual. Insofar as it is true, however, it would explain a lot.
Mind you, the Labour Party also has a record of attacking elderly peace activists at its conference
The idea that your in government and therefore am the law and above the law ,can be heady medicine,and it can turn(corrupt)an other wise honest politician,this has been known for years.So we have become imbroiled in another countries modus operandi and practices in taking persons somewhere to maltreat for information,because of the way that information is obtained,it’s not reliable anyway,
So our politicians that lie with dogs are covered in fleas,if they didn’t do that there would not be a problem ,the victims should be compensated and our country must not do it again
‘Earlier this year, Senator Ron Wyden, expressed that Haspel had been in charge of the same black site where a man “was waterboarded 83 times; stuffed into a wooden box barely bigger than a coffin; and had his head slammed into walls.”
“If Ms. Haspel seeks to serve at the highest levels of U.S. intelligence, the government can no longer cover up disturbing facts from the past,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), a member of the intelligence committee who opposes her nomination, told The Daily Beast.
Haspel promised not to create another torture program, but she also wouldn’t condemn the torture that took place at a CIA black site under her watch in the years after 9/11. When McGovern spoke up, at least five Capitol Police officers quickly detained him, warned him to stop resisting, and threw him out of the hearing in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. However, Haspel expressed in her hearing that torture doesn’t work and she wouldn’t restart the program.
When asked if she agrees with the president’s assertion that torture works, Haspel said: “I don’t believe that torture works.” She added that she doesn’t think Trump would ask the CIA to resume waterboarding, which simulates drowning.
“I would not allow CIA to undertake activity that I thought was immoral, even if it was technically legal,” Haspel, said. “I would absolutely not permit it.”
McGovern was there representing VIPS (Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity) who previously on March 25, 2018, sent President Trump a Memorandum urging him to withdraw Haspel’s nomination, citing a long list of cogent, compelling reasons to do so. The organization noted that they have had no response from the Trump administration or the president, Consortium News reported.
Further, more than 100 former U.S. ambassadors who served both Republican and Democratic presidents sent the Senate a letter opposing Haspel, saying that despite her credentials, confirming her would give authoritarian leaders around the world the license to say U.S. behavior is “no different from ours,” The Hill reported.’
https://www.activistpost.com/2018/05/former-cia-analyst-turned-activist-ray-mcgovern-escorted-out-of-gina-haspel-cia-confirmation-hearing.html (sorry about the website)
Who commands the Capitol police? A complaint must be made to Matthew Verderosa, Chief of Police.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Capitol_Police
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Hi Sharp Ears, a good comprehensive comment about USA police brutality. Ray McGovern was treated shamefully for telling the truth. However, let’s not also forget the teacher who put her hand up at a meeting and asked a polite, simple question about not having had a pay rise for 10 years whilst the Principle had given himself a significant one and was accused of being disruptive, the police were called, and she was thrown to the ground by them, handcuffed and dragged out of the building. She was going to be charged with something but, as a result of massive public pressure, they did not do this. Now, this is a teacher who asked a simple question – Ray McGovern had a far more damaging political point backed up by significant evidence – I strongly suspect he will be targetted from now on as being a Communist agitator and will be in contact with the police much more frequently. Disgraceful. And the USA has the nerve to call out other countries as not being democracies.
The more ‘they’ get away with murder the more ‘they’ getaway with murder the more ‘they’ get away with murder …. seemingly, on a planet where nobody is accountable for anything anymore maybe the majority should rise up and and use their power to take their own justice … alternatively, ‘they’ will kill us all anyway so let’s just sit down and watch and pass comment and maybe share with a few facebook friends … or even use twitter to state our contempt … the tool of the revolution (sic) …. honestly WHEN IS ENOUGH ENOUGH?
Never. Apparently it goes on and on. The culture is rotten.
Right now Jazza – but how does one mobilise the disenfranchised nation? I would like to see mass protests to the scale of millions of people – with a view to, as the feminist group once did, absail into the House of Commons and that us, the ‘great unwashed’ according to the Tories, come face to face with Treason May and her bunch of thugs and gangsters she calls MPs.
there is something very seriously wrong in a society where policemen forcefully defend criminals involved in torture by brutally assaulting a 78 year old man protesting about their illegal use of torture.
The Labour Party also has a record of assaulting elderly peace activists at its conferences
It was only funny the first time.
You missed out the fact that it was Nulabour.
Reprieve are asking for signatures on this petition.
Ending UK involvement in torture
The government is rewriting our country’s torture rules behind closed doors. We are calling for an open and transparent process to put an end to UK torture complicity.
Today the Government apologised to Abdul-Hakim Belhaj and Fatima Boudchar for the UK’s role in their abduction, torture, and rendition.
We must have proper safeguards to ensure cases like this are never repeated, but the Government is consulting only the very agencies they are meant to regulate.
The most recent report on the Consolidated Guidance – the rules that apply to the security services where there is a risk of torture or inhumane treatment – revealed that in 2016 alone there were:
•921 cases of torture rules being considered – double the previous annual figures
•An unprecedented number of acknowledged failures
•A failure to apply the rules in 35 cases
•8 cases where intelligence was passed on in circumstances prohibited by the rules
Britain’s past role in torture has only been exposed by the hard work of journalists and organisations like Reprieve. We must not allow the torture rules to be rewritten or watered down in secret.
Petition text +–
‘A secret process of review is currently being conducted to amend Britain’s policy on involvement in torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment overseas – otherwise known as the Consolidated Guidance or the Torture Guidance – without input from the public or civil society.
In 2016 the then-Intelligence Services Commissioner recommended that the Government consult on any changes to the Torture Guidance. This is particularly important because in the past Government had denied any involvement in torture or mistreatment, only for journalists and civil society groups to uncover such involvement at a later stage.
At a time when the UK’s allies in the US are reviving the tactics of the war on terror, and the US President is asserting his commitment to use waterboarding and “a hell of a lot worse”, while trying to promote a known torturer, Gina Haspel, to head the CIA, it has never been more important that Britain stand firm against all forms of torture.
Amending the Torture Guidance in secret risks repeating the mistakes of the past. We, the undersigned are calling on the Secretary of State to open a public consultation over the changes needed to the Consolidated Guidance, inviting submissions and taking evidence from the public and civil society.’
https://act.reprieve.org.uk/page/content/uk-torture/?
@ Sharp Ears May 10, 2018 at 17:53
Signed.
The BBC 6 O’clock News has not given any details of Fatima Boudchar’s account in the NYT, has not linked their ordeal to Gina Haspel and ran an entire feature without seeking an interview with Fatima Boudchar or interviewing any human rights groups.
Her NYT article details how while pregnant she was chained to a wall by the CIA and punched repeatedly in the stomach. BBC News reporting is a disgrace these days, apparently they only report on White Helmet verified violence.