Renowned Peace Envoy & Christian Tony Blair’s Condoning of Torture

I’m sure you’ve all seen it by now and Craig Murray is right to be a bit mystified since he revealed this ages ago, still for those who believe in the good faith of Blair and that Iraq and torture were mistakes or well intentioned differences of opinion…he is a war criminal, take your naivety and…well actually there’s this bridge I have for sale you might be interested in…

Tony Blair was aware of the existence of a secret interrogation policy which ­effectively led to British citizens, and others, being tortured during counter-terrorism investigations, the Guardian can reveal. The policy, devised in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, offered guidance to MI5 and MI6 officers questioning detainees in Afghanistan whom they knew were being mistreated by the US military.

 British intelligence officers were given written instructions that they could not “be seen to condone” torture and that they must not “engage in any activity yourself that involves inhumane or degrading treatment of prisoners”. But they were also told they were not under any obligation to intervene to prevent detainees from being mistreated. ”Given that they are not within our custody or control, the law does not require you to intervene to prevent this,” the policy said.

 The policy almost certainly breaches international human rights law, according to Philippe Sands QC, one of the world’s leading experts in the field, because it takes no account of Britain’s obligations to avoid complicity in torture under the UN convention against torture. Despite this, the secret policy went on to underpin British intelligence’s relationships with a number of foreign intelligence agencies which had become the UK’s allies in the “war against terror”. The policy was set out in written instructions sent to MI5 and MI6 officers in January 2002, which told them they might consider complaining to US officials about the mistreatment of detainees “if circumstances allow”. (ht2 Rafael)

Timeline and Philippe Sands @ CiF

Resistor’s Gulag

The Empire (read Dave Dubya list its many elusive qualities) determines life or death, trial or life imprisonment, not just for those in Gitmo, but you’re only a living saintly troop while you obey mechanically. As the Democrats pass war and neoliberal continuity measures, imperialism the only true value.

Courage To Resist:- At Fort Bragg, North Carolina, AWOL soldiers find themselves detained for months under difficult conditions in an extended legal limbo they cannot escape.

Dustin Stevens is one of about 50 soldiers being held at Fort Bragg awaiting likely AWOL and desertion charges that seem like they will never arrive, he says. A former soldier who refused to continue military service seven years ago because he did not want to fight a war, Stevens says that he and his colleagues are being held in legal limbo – a no man’s land of poor living standards and arbitrary punishments – while awaiting charges and possible court-martial.

Stevens has been in a holdover unit for five months without charges, and he says that others have been held for up to a year in conditions he describes as harrowing.

The unit is overcrowded and filthy, he says, with four people to a room. The command verbally abuses the soldiers, with one commanding officer proclaiming, “We should just shoot you all,” according to Stevens. Troops are not receiving the medical and mental health care they need. “People around me are literally going crazy. I hear people threaten suicide on a daily basis,” says Stevens. “They won’t give us leave passes unless it’s a dire emergency, so we’re just sitting here, day by day.”

The command offered the soldiers a free pass if they agreed to deploy to Afghanistan, according to Stevens. About ten people took up the offer, he says. Those who decline must find a way to endure.

Laser Guided Spin

Gareth Porter’s latest (excerpts)-

(IPS) – At his confirmation hearings two weeks ago, Gen. Stanley McChrystal said reducing civilian deaths from air strikes in Afghanistan was “strategically decisive” and declared his “willingness to operate in ways that minimise casualties or damage, even when it makes our task more difficult.” Some McChrystal supporters hope he will rein in the main source of civilian casualties: Special Operations Forces (SOF) units that carry out targeted strikes against suspected “Taliban” on the basis of doubtful intelligence and raids that require air strikes when they get into trouble.

 But there are growing indications that his command is preparing to deal with the issue primarily by seeking to shift the blame to the Taliban through more and better propaganda operations and by using more high-tech drone intelligence aircraft to increase battlefield surveillance rather than by curbing the main direct cause of civilian casualties. U.S. officials at a NATO conference in Brussels last Friday were telling reporters that “public relations” are now considered “crucial” to “turning the tide” in Afghanistan, according to an AFP story on Jun 12.

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But McChrystal hinted in his confirmation hearing that he hoped to reduce civilian casualties by obtaining more intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft. Petraeus confirmed that approach to the problem in remarks at the CNAS conference last week, announcing that he was planning to shift some high-tech intelligence vehicles from Iraq to Afghanistan.

Petraeus referred to “predators, armed full motion video with Hellfire missiles”, “special intelligence birds”, and unmanned intelligence vehicles called Shadows and Ravens, which fly 24 hours a day.

 Although such intelligence aircraft may make U.S. battlefield targeting more precise, Petraeus’s reference to drones equipped with Hellfire missiles suggests that U.S. forces in Afghanistan may now rely more than previously on drone strikes against suspected Afghan insurgents. Given the chronic lack of accurate intelligence on the identity of insurgent leaders, that would tend to increase civilian casualties.

Worst Pun Ever

Oh BBC, the article is not so bad, (even if it glosses over the violent racist extremism of the settlers and the state’s complicity), but who perpetrated that pun atrocity?

SOAS 9 Cleaners

• Keep checking freesoascleaners.blogspot.com
• The occupiers have scored a victory, but you can still help by writing to the Home Office- sample letter. UKBApublicenquiries at UKBA.gsi.gov.uk (replace at with @)

The BNP/Loyalist Crossover Forces Romanians From Their Homes

The BNP base their ‘call centre’ in Belfast where Jim Dowson — a top BNP fundraiser and a militant anti-abortion campaigner who has a string of criminal convictions and has had links to mass-murderer Michael Stone (the loyalist terrorist)- runs their operations. Nick Griffin visited there secretly just before the European elections-

BNP leader Nick Griffin made a secret trip to the Belfast base less than two weeks ago to film a propaganda video. Our exclusive picture shows Griffin pictured at the Belfast HQ flanked by two members of staff, whose identity we have protected.

However in most reports the origins of these racist crimes are rather vague, they balk at mentioning it is linked to fringe loyalists let alone the relationship between loyalists and the BNP. While the remnant Loyalist leadership condemn the attacks it appears the younger ones are feeling their oats and turning their hatred temporarily from Catholics onto Romanians and Poles, all of course encouraged by the BNP and Combat 18 Nazism who share the bigotry that includes hatred of Catholics (including insane theories such as the Islamic/Catholic/EU/Sinn Fein/IRA plot to destroy the UK with Catholic immigrants!).

Racists who forced Romanians to flee their homes threatened to cut a baby’s throat, it emerged today. Over 100 men, women and children were this morning taken to the Ozone complex in Belfast after they spent the night in a church hall following sustained attacks by a racist mob claiming to be from the fascist group Combat 18.

Thugs who target migrants in Northern Ireland for racist attack are guilty of ethnic cleansing, a community worker said today. Large parts of south Belfast are in danger of becoming no-go areas after 20 Romanian families were forced to spend the night at a church hall, Patrick Yu added. Bricks have been thrown through windows in the Protestant working-class Village area with increasing frequency in recent weeks.

Now the BNP have two MEP’s I think it is incumbent on the media to ask them directly their views on the attacks and to see if they will condemn them and demand all members and associates cease any activity they may be involved in. Will political journalists on TV have the guts to confront fascism on the air? It should also be asked how the police allowed it to get this bad, given their historic ties to loyalists and their paramilitaries should we deduce they ignored the victimisation of Romanians as those doing it had links to Loyalist groups gangs? Is the bias in British media in favour of Loyalism not allowing the true picture of bigotry to emerge? Many in the community though are far more courageous and if their lead had been followed this refugee crisis could perhaps have been averted, if the hardcore violent fascists had been dealt with by the police-

One family fled from their home in Belgravia Avenue. Another family, with a newborn baby, has been left terrified after their home at Wellesley Avenue came under attack just days after they were forced out of another property.

Their south Belfast homes came under sustained attack from Thursday evening, with their windows smashed and doors kicked in by crowds of thugs gathering outside shouting racist slogans. 

A number of local residents last night stood guard outside their new home in a bid to protect them.

One local resident, Paddy Meehan, said: “About 12 of us worked in shifts to defend the house last night. Local residents think these people have to be defended. These thugs have been shouting that they are Combat 18 and they dropped a letter containing text from Hitler’s Mein Kampf through the letterbox of one of the properties.

“This has been going on for several nights. Sometimes there is about 20 of them gathering outside the properties. There is a hardcore of maybe six or seven shouting abuse and kicking doors down.These families are terrified, so are all their young children. They feel very isolated which is why the local community is gathering around them to support them,” he added.

The PSNI said police in south Belfast are investigating a number of racist attacks and criminal damage to properties and a car in Wellesley Avenue and Belgravia Avenue on a number of occasions between June 11 and 14.

A spokeswoman added: “A crowd gathered on each occasion at the properties and a number of windows were smashed. Police have not received reports of any injuries.”

Major hat tip to Lancaster Unity.

The extent to which the true roots of this racist violence are obscured will determine its spread and increase in severity elsewhere. Because of the soft spot for loyalists in the British establishment there is the danger of it not being dealt with and spreading. Or as Dave Osler puts it-

The Six Counties has always been a case apart from the rest of the United Kingdom, if I can be permitted to use the two geographical expressions in the same sentence. Just because something happens in Belfast, that doesn’t mean that it must necessarily happen in Burnley.

But sadly, it does not take too much of a leap of the imagination to see that if bricks can readily fly through immigrant windows in Belfast, the tactic may yet be duplicated in many English towns. If the bricks are one day followed by firebombs, then yes, we will be talking about pogroms.

In Refugee Week Support The SOAS 9

Refugee Week is in part funded by the Home Office/Border Agency. While its Simple Acts are worthy, only one out of twenty suggest joining a ‘campaign in support of refugees‘ and none suggest direct action helping migrants & refugees currently under attack by the government and the racist thugs of the Border Agency. So may I suggest adding the Simple Act of supporting the SOAS cleaners- 3 are currently disappeared, whereabouts unknown and 6 have supposedly been deported by force already, one of whom is six months pregnant. All because they won the fight for fair wages, their employer ISS [contracted by the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS)] responded by arranging an ambush with over 40 immigration officers in full riot gear and had those without proper papers bitte hauled away to the immigration gulag. Clearly their immigration status was only an issue when profits were threatened. It also does not speak well of the values of the SOAS. Maybe they could get someone in to teach fairness and basic common decency to those who run it.

Keep checking freesoascleaners.blogspot.com

Rally Wednesday 12pm outside SOAS

Join occupiers, staff and others for a rally to show SOAS management that the fight for justice for the SOAS 9 continues! Demonstrate the campaign is growing and we won’t give up till management meet our demands!

Sign this petition.

And Facebook.

And some on the spot citizen journalism from HarpyMarx.

Iran Caution

I’m following events with hope and fear, while there have been deaths Ahmadinejad and/or the Guardian council have not resorted to tanks and soldiers yet. With the news they are bussing in Ahmadinejad supporters to match urban protesters who are being contained could go several ways. Pulse has some more coverage here and here, the comments are interesting too. As I said before, I think both interpretations can be right, there was fraud but Ahmadinejad probably won anyway, they just got greedy (authoritarians often get carried away with the breadth of their power). Two things are happening now- power blocs squaring up to each other while the demonstrations have their own integrity and momentum. The framing of Mousavi vs. Ahmadinejad ignores the complexity of both men’s history and the powers vested in the Guardian Council, rather a significant number of Iranians are resisting an oppressive establishment. Something we all can empathise with, and indeed it’s quite a lesson in a young populace engaged with their nation.

However there can be no doubt forces outside of Iran, mostly American and Israeli (and oil theocracy/aristocracy proxies in the ME) are happy to use these events to pursue their own agenda against Iran. The Pentagon have said they consider cyberspace an area they wish to dominate for their advantage and Israeli infiltration is so great it even pisses off the US spooks. So out of all the tweeting, Facebooking, 24 hour news coverage etc. some of that will be done by entities with aims not remotely compatible with the welfare of Iranians.

What is remarkable is the passion and excitement aroused by the election, compare that with the Brooks Brothers ‘riot’ in Florida 2000, a fake event to prevent votes being counted! The Iranian demonstrations have now gained their own validity and momentum, quite apart from the contested result, with a very young demographic and demands for rights and liberties the curmudgeonly establishment disdain even as they fight amongst themselves-

It is important to note that Khamenei’s place at the top of the regime has not always been assured. At the time of his appointment as Supreme Leader following Khomeini’s death, there were many in Iran’s clerical elites who felt that Khamenei did not have the religious qualifications for the post. Rivalries within the regime’s old guard of clerics have been longstanding and while the structure of the Islamic Republic places Khmenei in a dominant position, it also allows for possible confrontations. Rafsanjani, for example, is currently the head of the Assembly of Experts, a body of clerics which is charged with electing, and if need be, removing the Supreme Leader. It is in Khamenei’s interest to weaken those rivals with strong revolutionary and religious credentials, as they could challenge him in the future. Challenge from such rivals would be especially likely and threatening to Khamenei if Iranian society pushes in a more reformist direction, as it seems to have a tendency to do every few years. Khamenei and his allies are wary of other regime rivals outflanking them by riding a wave of reformist sentiment to power.

 In confronting these potential rivals, Khamenei can rely on a new generation of power brokers in the Islamic Republic that have few large personalities from the early days of the revolution and owe their loyalty more directly to the Supreme Leader. Ahmadinejad and his supporters, namely in the Revolutionary Guard and Basij, are the leading members of this new generation. Khamenei has, especially in the last few years with Ahmadinejad’s help, cultivated a strong relationship with these groups by largely aligning with their interests and policy preferences. This has been evident in a whole range of areas. In economic and industrial policy the Revolutionary Guard have played an increasingly significant role in key industrial sectors such as oil and imports. Other core areas of convergence include political and foreign policy issues such as the support of Ahmadinejad in opposition to the reformist movement and the unwavering support of the nuclear program.

While Mousavi may be trying to harness the dissent for his own ends-

But one could more plausibly suggest that if a “coup” is being attempted, it has been mounted by the losers in Friday’s election. It was Mousavi, after all, who declared victory on Friday even before Iran’s polls closed. And three days before the election, Mousavi supporter Rafsanjani published a letter criticizing the leader’s failure to rein in Ahmadinejad’s resort to “such ugly and sin-infected phenomena as insults, lies and false allegations.” Many Iranians took this letter as an indication that the Mousavi camp was concerned their candidate had fallen behind in the campaign’s closing days.

There is a genuine desire for better government among the protesters, hopefully they can find leaders who will represent that and act on it. (Hopefully we can too.)

Also see Iran Media-pendium

Why Even Fucking Bother, Gordon?

And Chilcot, for fuck’s sake. Why not just have it chaired by Whitey McWhitewash. In a concrete box. At the bottom of the ocean. At least it will waste less of our money on further obscuring New Labour’s war crimes that way. Of course I know why you’re bothering, it is to rewrite history, sort of the British equivalent of the GW Bush Presidential library but with less literary merit (Chilcot will find a way to make that possible!). Oh fuck off Gordon, are you actually on the Elect Cameron committee? Go on, you are aren’t you? Can’t wait to see a NL cheerleader gold plate this steaming pile of shite. 

Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, has been accused of staging a cover-up after he ruled that an inquiry into the UK’s involvement in the US-led invasion of Iraq would be held in private. He also said it would would take a year to complete – taking it beyond the date the prime minister must hold a general election.

The investigation will be chaired by Sir John Chilcot, 70, a former permanent under-secretary of state at the Northern Ireland Office. Chilcot has been chairman of Britain’s Police Federation since 2001 and sat on the Butler inquiry, which reported into the intelligence which the UK government had about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction.

Brown, who cited national security issue for not holding the investigation in public, said: “The primary objective of the committee will be to identify lessons learned.

“The committee will not set out to apportion blame or consider issues of civil or criminal liability.

“It [the inquiry] will consider the period from summer 2001 before military operations began in March 2003 and our subsequent involvement in Iraq right until the end of July this year.”

Imperialism is Racist, Who’d A Thunk It?

Salon: Neo-Nazis are in the Army now
Why the U.S. military is ignoring its own regulations and permitting white supremacists to join its ranks.

Matt Kennard [excerpts]:-

For the next six years, Fogarty flitted from landscaping job to construction job, neither of which he’d ever wanted to do. “I was just drinking and fighting,” he says. He started his own Nazi rock group, Attack, and made friends in the National Alliance, at the time the biggest neo-Nazi group in the country. It has called for a “a long-term eugenics program involving at least the entire populations of Europe and America.”

 But the military ran in Fogarty’s family. His grandfather had served during World War II, Korea and Vietnam, and his dad had been a Marine in Vietnam. At 22, Fogarty resolved to follow in their footsteps. “I wanted to serve my country,” he says.

In 2003, Fogarty was sent to Iraq. For two years he served in the military police, escorting officers, including generals, around the hostile country. He says he was granted top-secret clearance and access to battle plans. Fogarty speaks with regret that he “never had any kill counts.” But he says his time in Iraq increased his racist resolve.

 ”I hate Arabs more than anybody, for the simple fact I’ve served over there and seen how they live,” he tells me. “They’re just a backward people. Them and the Jews are just disgusting people as far as I’m concerned. Their customs, everything to do with the Middle East, is just repugnant to me.”

Rooting out extremists is difficult because racism pervades the military, according to soldiers. They say troops throughout the Middle East use derogatory terms like “hajji” or “sand nigger” to define Arab insurgents and often the Arab population itself.

“Racism was rampant,” recalls vet Michael Prysner, who served in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 as part of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. “All of command, everywhere, it was completely ingrained in the consciousness of every soldier. I’ve heard top generals refer to the Iraq people as ‘hajjis.’ The anti-Arab racism came from the brass. It came from the top. And everything was justified because they weren’t considered people.”

 Another vet, Michael Totten, who served in Iraq with the 101st Airborne in 2003 and 2004, says, “It wouldn’t stand out if you said ‘sand niggers,’ even if you aren’t a neo-Nazi.” Totten says his perspective has changed in the intervening years, but “at the time, I used the words ‘sand nigger.’ I didn’t consider ‘hajji’ to be derogatory.”

 Geoffrey Millard, an organizer for Iraq Veterans Against the War, served in Iraq for 13 months, beginning in 2004, as part of the 42nd Infantry Division. He recalls Gen. George Casey, who served as the commander in Iraq from 2004 to 2007, addressing a briefing he attended in the summer of 2005 at Forward Operating Base, outside Tikrit. “As he walked past, he was talking about some incident that had just happened, and he was talking about how ‘these stupid fucking hajjis couldn’t figure shit out.’ And I’m just like, Are you kidding me? This is Gen. Casey, the highest-ranking guy in Iraq, referring to the Iraqi people as ‘fucking hajjis.’” (A spokesperson for Casey, now the Army Chief of Staff, said the general “did not make this statement.”)

 ”The military is attractive to white supremacists,” Millard says, “because the war itself is racist.”

UK Quietly Fiddles Agreement With Cayman Tax Haven

Everyone should read Richard Murphy!

Signed today – and slipped out on HMRC’s web site without a press release (I wonder why?) is a double tax agreement (yes, I mean that – a DTA, not a Tax Information Exchange Agreement) with the Cayman islands.

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The real question is – who asked for the downgrade on this point – the UK or Cayman? The former will have at least as many problems as the latter in complying. Either way this is a massive embarrassment to the UK – and no way for Gordon Brown to pursue his campaign on tax havens.

Against Guidelines, Police Clearly Using Pain Compliance

This was a Tasering sent to Trent FM in Nottingham

(sorry Daily Mail) According to guidelines from the Association of Chief Police Officers, they must not be used indiscriminately. Guidelines issued to forces state: ‘The use of taser is one of a number of tactical options available to an officer who is faced with violence or the threat of violence.

 ’Its purpose is to temporarily incapacitate an individual in order to control the threat that they pose.

‘It must not be used to inflict severe pain or suffering in the performance of official duties.’

So either the cops broke the guidelines or this is a big fib they are being taught to use pain compliance or in other words electro-torture to make people do whatever the officer wants them to do. Oh yeah, they punched him a fair bit too.

Taser- This machine creates fascists.

Iran Media-pendium

Media on the Iranian election-

• A big factor in the argument about Ahmadinejad’s victory is the Terror Free Tomorrow & the New America Foundation poll which was conducted in May and returned results broadly in agreement with the announced results. This is the polling report PDF and a YouTube interview by Steve Clemons with Terror Free Tomorrow President Kenneth Ballen and New America Foundation/Iran Project Director Flynt Leverett.
• This is a couple of the poll’s authors in the Washington Post saying the result was in line with what they found.
• And a summation from Huffington Post.
• Steve Clemons @ The Washington Note reports ‘a well-connected Iranian who knows many of the power figures in the Tehran political order‘ contacted him and he posts their rather violent musings.
• Roger Cohen in the NYT who enraged the Israel lobby by reporting from Iran and not finding it a hotbed of evil (then he wrote about Gaza! The Lobby fair wet themselves) writes about Iran’s Day of Anguish.
• And from last week @ Iranian.com Renewed revolutionary zeal a piece about the political background and the context the election is taking place in.(ht2 Naj & Gene)
• PeoplesGeography @ Pulse asks are we watching destabilisation operations at work?
• Jadi- Everyone is depressed. When leaving house at the morning, I was thinking that I’m going to confront many many Ahmadinejad supporters at the streets but there were none. There were only depressed people who were walking silently to their offices or shops.
• Naj gets the last word- Beware … this is a  nation of brave hearts … hands off Iran … yo … Netanyahu … yo Dick Cheney … yo Al Quaeda … yo Pan-Arabists … I am talking to you! 

Ross Out, Khamenei Orders Investigation

• Ross as Iran envoy out, sez Haaretz, hmmmm good riddance! 
• Khamenei- has ordered officials to look into the election complaints.
• PS. And as for Bibi’s speech, defenceless bantustans ain’t a peace overture.

SOAS Cleaners

A public protest is now scheduled for 4.30, this is great way for Refugee Week to start. Real action to support migrants! 

Speakers to be confirmed.

All media welcome

SOAS steps

4.30pm.

Many staff will also be there.

see freesoascleaners.blogspot.com for more and details of the occupation!

Students and allies at the University of London’s School of School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) have occupied the university today to protest against managers’ attacks on migrant workers.

Nine cleaners from the university were taken into detention after a dawn raid by immigration police on Friday.

Five have already been deported, and the others could face deportation within days. One has had a suspected heart attack and was denied access to medical assistance and even water. One was over 6 months pregnant. Many have families who have no idea of their whereabouts.

The cleaners won the London Living Wage and trade union representation after a successful “Justice for Cleaners” campaign that united workers of all backgrounds and student activists.
Activists believe the raid is managers’ “revenge” for the campaign.