Blogger Edwin Greenwood‘s not just bothered about BBC illiteracy. He’s not sure why the BBC describe the foreign nationals held at Gitmo as ‘UK men’ or ‘Britains’.
And who are these people to deserve the name of Britons anyway? Assorted so-called refugees from the Maghreb and the Middle East with apparent connections to people who want to kill us. Britons? Do me a favour!
Mr Greenwood obviously has access to a better news service than I can find. This new BBC story tells us that Shaker Aamer (who according to his lawyer was dying in January 2006) is a Saudi and that an Abyssinian, one al Habashi, remains banged up in Gitmo. But as I search the BBC stories :
for details of the nationalities of ‘UK men’ Jamil el-Banna, Omar Deghayes and Abdenour Samuer, I learn about their children and how they long to be ‘home’ for Eid, but nothing about their nationality.
In other BBC stories, “Concerns over Sudanese woman“.
Well done for spotting this absurdity. If these are foreign nationals, why are the BBC headlines pretending otherwise? No wonder we have unprecedented levels of illegal immigration. What’s the point of being a British citizen, when any Tom, Dick or Mohammed with a foot in the country can claim the same?
This story certainly doesn’t merit headline treatment for days on end by the BBC website.
Note that there is no BBC coverage of Conservative concerns about the status and ideology of these men:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/08/wguan308.xml
There are large sections of the liberal/Left in Britain which will ONLY protest, denounce and generally fulminate against British and American practice of justice.They do not object to Islamic Sharia law, as it is practised globally. See, e.g. this Saudi Arabia case, on which ‘Liberty’ has nothing to say:-
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/11/28/saudia17433.htm
They believe that Belmarsh and Guantanamo are simply places of injustice and torture; apparently such places must be the worst prisons in the world, because ‘Liberty’ and its director, S. Chakrabarti (a favourite at the BBC) never seem to condemn or mention any other detention centre in the world:
http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/news-and-events/1-press-releases/2004/internment-appeal-july-04.shtml
It is the inherent decency of the United States that caused them in the first instance to break the most important unwritten rule of conflict:Take No Prisoners.
I missed that story, Matthew. Thanks for the link. With regard to Liberty, does anyone else think it’s astounding how high the BBC places them in terms of national importance? It’s not surprising, because they peddle the BBC’s own particular brand of simpering terrorist sympathy and PC nonsense. But I seem to recall reading somewhere that their membership is tiny and that beyond the BBC they actually count for very little.
I see the BBC allows the terrorist apologist of a brother Abubaker Deghayes to lie out of his teeth and promote the image that Omar is a trained lawyer.
“He is a lawyer and he had just graduated. I hope he will continue with that.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7134529.stm
The truth be told he ditched his course when he picked up radical Islam and buggered off to live in Afghanistan. He never qualified. He isn’t a lawyer.
He flunked his course at the University of Wolverhampton.
But hey what’s the truth when it comes to the BBC.
David,
I think that though Liberty (properly the National Council for Civil Liberties) is a tiny organisation in terms of membership, it is the pre-eminent civil liberties body in the UK, and the equivalent of the ACLU in the USA, which probably receives a similarly high level of exposure. It is difficult to align these groups too closely with political parties: there are plenty of libertarians within them who would vote more along Republican/Conservative lines, and plenty on the left who loathe their anti-bureaucratic standpoint.
If we wish to see them receive less publicity, we need to ask ourselves i) whether there are anti-civil liberties groups who ought to be consulted as well ii) whether there are other civil liberties organisations apart from Liberty who ought to be consulted and iii) whether any organisation at all should be consulted by the media when covering stories relating to detention and personal freedoms.
Pounce:
Great research again: crazy that the BBC does not qualify what this Islamic radical is saying. Have they learned nothing from the ‘don’t panic I’m Islamic’ scandal?
Matthew, thanks for your reply. I don’t deny that they are the largest, and I am all for civil liberties and what have you. But I am concerned that as an organisation they have focused less and less on the civil liberties of all of us, and more and more on the civil liberties of those who wish us harm. When the BBC use them as they do, it gives further creedence to this dangerously slanted way of thinking.
David,
But I am concerned that as an organisation they have focused less and less on the civil liberties of all of us, and more and more on the civil liberties of those who wish us harm.
I’m not sure that this is a recent development: if one looks at the activities of the NCCL (‘Liberty’ before it was rebranded) during the First and Second World Wars, their activities were characterised in the same terms.
I think that there are grounds for classing Liberty as a political pressure group, because their remit has been extended to cover just about anything, by slyly rebranding themselves as a ‘human rights’ organisation. What I’m not sure is what alternative groups the BBC ought to be consulting.
And the BBC does need to make sure it is not allowing inconsistencies in Liberty’s campaigning to go unreported: why, for instance, have they been funding a legal campaign against the Blasphemy laws, but not against the Anil Patani of West Midlands Police for trying to censor journalism critical of Islam?
Matthew, saying that Liberty is like the ACLU except for the membership level is a little absurd. It’s like saying that whatever organisation is the largest one defending the right to bear arms under the English 1688 Bill of Rights is the UK equivalent of the NRA.
The fact that Liberty (for whom I have some respect) have a powerful analogue in the US does not make them worth listening to here. Certainly their views on the subject would appear to be less important than those of the Conservative Party, and not just because the Conservative Party’s ideological equivalents in the US (the Democrat Party) is considerably larger than the ACLU.
“whether there are anti-civil liberties groups”
You can start with me, WoAD, which stands for Weapon of A$$ Destruction.
Human Rights are a bad idea because rights require a central, impartial arbiter. And human rights are the worst of all, as they are extended to all human beings on earth, or in the universe, simply by virtue of being human. This would give the central arbiter far too much power, power no man is good enough to have, for power corrupts.
Human rights also necessarily lead to one world world government. See above.
James,
…saying that Liberty is like the ACLU except for the membership level is a little absurd. It’s like saying that whatever organisation is the largest one defending the right to bear arms under the English 1688 Bill of Rights is the UK equivalent of the NRA.
No. You are misusing the term absurd. There’s nothing peculiar about the analogy in this case, nor in the one you mention concerning gun ownership and hunting. Indeed the ACLU and Liberty (the NCCL) have similar structures, comprising a charitable arm which focuses on litigation efforts, and a popular political wing which campaigns on behalf of civil liberties. Both grew out of the campaigns against conscription and militarism during the First World War. The disparity in membership has much to do with different cultures of political activism in the US and UK (you’ll find that party political membership is also far far higher in the US).
The reason why the NCCL and ACLU get such coverage is because they are supposed to be independent organisations, and the leading NGO in each country in the field of civil rights. As I have suggested before, if people wish to set up alternative NGOs to Liberty, they are free to do so, and then can complain that the BBC is not providing fair coverage if they are ignored.
Now, I am only explaining why it is that Chakrabarti enjoys such exposure. I would much rather that the views of the different parties were reported by the BBC than an unaccountable body like Liberty, but we need to have good reasons for saying so – it’s not enough just to claim that the NCCL is a front for the Labour party, as some have done.
PS: I find it bizarre that you equate the Conservative Party in Britain with the Democrats in the US – Cameron must have destroyed the heart of the party even more than I feared.
WoAD,
Human Rights are a bad idea because rights require a central, impartial arbiter.
I think you have a point, and there is plenty of British political philosophy on your side, from Hobbes to Burke. Historically, the Judeo-Christian God provided a role as central arbiter, but without Him we rely on positive human custom for our notion of rights. It is very difficult to prove rights from a natural basis. This means that rights language today is abused and misused to serve political ends. But no-one has yet had the courage to use such a position for the basis of a reputable NGO or pressure group or political party.
I wonder how much money the UK government is giving to ‘Liberty’? We know that they pull in millions from legal aid! The same legal aid that native British subjects find it almost impossible to get access to.
I would describe Liberty as an anti British organisation filled with spivs, leftists, terrorist sympathisers and chancers on the make.
But they have powerful friends in the BBC who will protect them at all costs.
You can bet that anyone who stands up to investigate these snakes in the bed will be smeared by the BBC.
You can find all the information you need about Liberty here, from their last annual report:
http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/publications/annual-review/2006-annual-review.pdf . It is important to distinguish between their two wings: the charitable wing which provides grants for the legal work, and their campaign wing. Most of their funds come from membership subscriptions and grants from leading Law Firms, with some money from the National Lottery. They now have almost ten thousand members.
The organisation is run by a council which appoints a 12 person board of directors. These are made up chiefly of solicitors, barristers (including some Queens Counsel), politicians, and academics. You can see their names on the document above.
The organisation boasts that it was quoted on 760 different occasions by the mainstream national media during 2006.
This is exactly the kind of misrepresentation – never mind outright falsehood – about which I’ve been whining. Just this past Friday, Katty Kay was doing a segment on BBC World Propaganda America with a British Foreign Ministry geezer of some kind (a real official with a real rank, just didn’t catch his name). She kept referring to the prisoners as “Brits”, and eventually the guy had to interrupt her criticisms to correct her and point out that they are not, in fact, even British citizens, just legal residents (or, I think, an asylum seeker in one case). Yet Katty tried to maintain the narrative that the nasty US was holding “Brits”. Not British Citizens, not UK residents, not anything less than “Brits.” Her purpose – and the purpose of all other BBC presenters using similar terminology – was clearly to elevate the status of these prisoners to something other than what they are, and form a specific opinion in the minds of the ignorant viewer.
Deliberate misrepresentation if I’m generous, outright lies if I’m not.
This is not the sloppy journalism of a very, very young person being paid very, very low wages. This is not the result of a wet-behind-ears junior flack fresh from the production course in Bournemouth. This is pure Newspeak.
Just noticed the other ridiculous story on this page (link to the real page below:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/
The first entry of “Today’s Top Stories” on the right asks if an increase in black teachers would improve the academic performance of black pupils.
Yes, let’s give in to racism, BBC. Students can best learn and achieve when taught by their own kind. I’ve seen this sort of Leftoid drivel loads of times, and it’s always the same. The white man can’t relate enough to the culture of blacks (or whomever), which is the underlying cause.
Utter crap. The logical conclusion to this approach (something I’m quite sure the geniuses behind this story never considered) is segregation. No? Does this not equally imply that white students can’t/won’t achieve their best academic results under the tutelage of non-whites? If not, why not?
Jewish students certainly can’t learn from a Muslim teacher, right? North African Muslim children certainly can’t do their best under a Christian of European descent, eh?
Or are blacks some sort of pathetic special case? No, that’s what they intended at all, of course. Still, it’s utter crap.
Naturally, Red Ken and a Labour MP are behind the initiative. “We must have a teaching force that looks like Britain,” the presenter intones. The Labour MP in question, Dianne Abbot, tells us that if teachers are not “culturally literate”, pupils cannot do their best. She does throw in the disclaimer about not meaning that white teachers can’t teach black children. But she quickly adds that, while there are some very good white teachers in Hackney, even they would say that the district needs more black teachers. The district is 90% black, but most of teachers are white. Obviously most of these black students can’t succeed in such an environment.
We next hear from an embarrassingly inarticulate Dr. Platt, who can can barely stammer through something about needing the racial quota of teachers to reflect the racial quota of the students. She also uttered a series of words in an attempt to form a sentence which resembled “Teachers can learn from each other,” whatever that means. Further painful dithering from Dr. Platt includes trying to drill the importance of “Cultural Literacy” into our heads. More Leftoid code words.
As soon as anyone can tell me how “cultural literacy” can help with algebra or chemistry, I’ll stop laughing.
If taken to its logical conclusion, the end result is, at first, quotas, followed by segregation, plain and simple. White teachers cannot teach in District X, Christain teachers cannot teach in District Y. Anyone think these clowns would say that a black or Muslim teacher couldn’t be effective in Notting Hill? On the contrary, I’d bet they’ll tell you that having a favorably cultural (culturally favorable?) teacher would benefit the white kids.
Racial superiority, if I’m honest. I realize that’s not what these dopes would say they intended if pressed, but they obviously can’t see past their sphincters.
Blacks teaching blacks only, whites teaching whites only. Or maybe it’s really just “whites not good enough”. That’s not what they meant when they thought up this garbage, but that’s the inevitable result of such a blinkered, bigoted mindset. What else can “Culturally Sensitive” mean? Would a black teacher in Stoke Newington be required to be equally “sensitive” to the white students? I’ve got a friend on a school board there. Maybe I’ll ask him.
Brilliant, BBC.
On ‘Liberty’ and its finances: in year to December 2006, it received £39,000 from the National Lottery.
David Preiser | 09.12.07 – 8:49 am |
David, this is a farce that has been progressing in the UK for decades. I have never understood why members of certain ethnic groups require role models from the same ethnic group. Beyond the usual side-step that the majority group has different requirements to the rest how come white kids can look up to Thierry Henri but black kids can’t look up to Frank Lampard, to use football as an example?
But of course in the real world, outside of TV land, it is not true. I once knew a black chap who thought Arsene Wenger was a god and that Thierry Henri was lazy. In fact it is rare to meet people who actually fit into the cosy left-wing stereotypes, or the hate-filled ‘right’ wing ones for that matter.
Perhaps I should get out more? 🙂
More on “rights”.
On Radio 3 news this morning, we learn that a Diocese in the US has left the Episcopalian communion because of its “support for gay rights”.
Gosh, the assumptions… that gays don’t have rights, that some people are denying them those rights, that such politics applies at all to the questions facing the CofE.
Can the BBC not be arsed to check its facts and report them properly? Or does it see every news bulletin as an opportunity to proselytise its own agenda?
It was Edwin Greenwood who spotted it, but he didn’t take a screengrab.
Re the ‘black teachers for black pupils’ story, how much coverage do you think the BBC would give to an organisation who argued that white patients needed white doctors and nurses ?
So that’s where the Conservative party has gone wrong – they’re (apparently) ideologically similar to the Democrats rather than the Republicans. Instead of at the last Conservative, where they had John McCain as a guest speaker, they should have had Dennis Kucinich telling everyone about how 7/7 was an inside job by the New York Money Men a.k.a. Zionists a.k.a. The Jews.
Saying that the Conservative party’s nearest ideological equivalent is the US Democrat party is like saying Churchill was a Communist or something.
And yet, their logo is…a tree, and they’ve been making a lot of – what I assumed was just playing political games – the government’s desire to hold suspected Islamic terrorists without charge for longer, so maybe it’s not so ludicrous afterall.
That of course all means there is no small-c conservative party left in British politics, which makes it a lot worse than I’d previously thought, by several orders of magnitude.
“how much coverage do you think the BBC would give to an organisation who argued that white patients needed white doctors and nurses”?
Enormous amounts, but not in quite the same way.
Whichever BBC idiot wrote the headline above, is apparently unaware of key elements of British and U.S. history.
To set him/her right, here are some extracts from Christopher Hitchens’ book reviews, relating to the subject:
“More recent angst between the United States and the Arab and Muslim world has revived interest in the half-forgotten Barbary wars, during which Jefferson and Madison dispatched successful naval expeditions to punish the piratical regimes in Algier,Tripoli, Tunis and Morocco. (The words ‘to the shores of Tripoli’ in the first line of the Marine Corps hymn enshrine the memory of the first conflict in which American troops were deployed overseas.) In ‘The Barbary Wars’, Frank Lambert deals with macro elements of this campaign: the economic imperative underlying it. In ‘White Gold’, Giles Milton takes a more micro approach, generalizing the story of the many victims through the horrific experience of one English captive…
“The Cornishman John Pellow, seized and placed on the auction block in Morocco in 1716, along with his 11-year-old nephew, felt all the pangs of forced labour and sadistic treatment. The fact that he and others were able to read and write, and sometimes to get letters home, is a boon more to historians than it was to themselves. James Thomson’s famous ditty, ‘Rule Britannia’, with its refrain about ‘Britons never will be slaves’, derives from the vast public agitation that developed against the Barbary atrocities.” (Christopher Hitchens.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/books/review/21HITCH.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1
Good post George R, there’s the truth with which we reinvigorate our patria and its traditions. I shall soon by singing “Rule Britannia” very loud at social gatherings.
“And yet, their logo is…a tree, and they’ve been making a lot of – what I assumed was just playing political games – the government’s desire to hold suspected Islamic terrorists without charge for longer, so maybe it’s not so ludicrous afterall.”
David Cameron also promised an end to “Punch and Judy” politics. Which means he seeks to end political opposition. Which also means he has been turned by Common Purpose.
From the linked report in The Daily Telegraph:
“Meanwhile, in an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith said that whether or not the men were dangerous was less important than the rule of law.”
I would have thought that the rule of law would ensure that the danger of these men should be ascertained. Besides, if “rule of law” means anything, then why would they be allowed to come to the UK anyway.
The BBC is the traitors’ mouthpiece.
Besides, if “rule of law” means anything, then why would they be allowed to come to the UK anyway.
“Rule of Law” only means what it means when it supports leftoid political goals. It’s sort of like the Red Queen telling Alice that words mean whatever she (the Red Queen) wants them to mean.
Rob:
“how much coverage do you think the BBC would give to an organisation who argued that white patients needed white doctors and nurses”?
Probably about the same as they give to explaining the necessity of Operation Trident in the British Police force, and of really telling us how much knife crime and shootings are actually carried out by blacks on blacks.
Thanks David P for a great post!
from bbc website -Abdulnour Sameur
“He lived in south Harrow, London. He was given leave to remain in the UK but travelled to Afghanistan because he found it hard to live as a good Muslim in Britain.” (!)
two comments – 1.he’s desperate to come back now! 2. is there some rule that the bbc just cut and paste the family’s press release without critical thought ?
El Banna is an associate of Abu Qutada. Quatada was convicted in jordan of terrorism and conspiracy to bomb.
i heard dhimmi lib dem sarah teather on r5 this weekend. the usual softly softly inetrview from al beeb. lots of background stuff abot how many kids he has etc etc.
dhimmi teather, who relies upon a strong muslim vote to be elected was allowed to spout off the usual guff about these guys.
tourist visit to a war zone, gap years in waziristan, charity work in mazar el sharif, just happened to be with a bunch of saudis with an AK in a pick up when unfairly arrested etc etc.
we had all this with the tipton 3 and they have gone on to make various admissions.
Teather went on to rather rain on Al Beebs parade by saying it was common knwoledge amongst her and the family that el banna would be back soon. she indicated this was not an exclusive scoop at all.
this leads me to think whole story was al beeb pumping out news release for Broon simpy to take the focus off the torrid time the govt has had in recent days…
Come off it. You can’t tell me you’ve never had a few drinks too many and ended up thousands of miles away in a foreign country and in a firefight with Allied troops. It can happen to anyone.
On the subject of the “Guantanamo Five”, did anyone see little Sarah Teather doing the rounds of the studios this morning – gloating about the release of her “constituent” and BBC poster boy Jamil el Banna (otherwise known as Abu Anas). She seems to have spent a huge amount of time on his behalf over the last few years including organising demos with his family and making a movie about him.
http://www.sarahteather.libdems.org.uk/news/000413/justice_for_dad_campaign_is_now_a_film.html
Her bright-eyed, breathless naiveity always reminds me of my own daughter doing school projects, aged around 12.
I had a couple of hours spare today, so I spent it googling the history of Mr El Banna, who seems to be possibly the least sinister of the bunch.
Google comes up with dozens of links to Liberty/Amnesty International/ Reprieve.org/Cageprisoners.com and other campaigning groups, as well as countless Grauniad and Independent articles all giving the impression he was just a simple, devout, refugee car mechanic, living with his wife and kids, until MI5 came along and hassled him before turning him over to be tortured by the evil Bushies.
However probing a bit further into overseas sources and putting everything together, a slightly more puzzling history emerges including:-
1. He was born a Palestinian National in the West Bank and later went, in the early 90’s, to work for a Saudi Funded charity “looking after Afghan refugees in Pakistan”.
2 While living in Pakistan he happened to live next door to, and become a friend of, the notorious Abu Qatada, later to be identified as Al Qaeda’s principal organiser in Europe.(A biography of Abu Qatada describes him as running AQ safe houses in Pakistan at that time).
3. Later he went to Jordan where he was apparently arrested and tortured by the authorities for belonging to “a radical Palestinian support group linked to Iran and Syria”.
4. He was also known to have been in contact with Imad Barakat Yarkas, an al-Qaeda cell leader later jailed in Spain.
4. He then turned up in the UK as an asylum seeker in 1997 and was given leave to stay.
5. He resumed his friendship with Abu Qatada, worshipping at his mosque and later in 2002 secretly taking Qatada’s wife and kids to see him, while he was in hiding in the UK (then described as “Britains most wanted terrorist”).
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/islam/story/0,,710510,00.html
6. By then he was drawing social security payments here to support his family, although he admitted working for cash as a car mechanic and “faith healer” (obviously not paying any tax towards his mentor Ms Teather’s salary and expenses). He also aquired a criminal record for shoplifting.
7. He then became involved in a business venture with the wealthy, UK resident Iraqis, the al Rawi brothers (also good friends of Abu Qatada) who wanted to set up a peanut oil processing plant in Gambia. On their first trip there they we interogated and turned back at Heathrow because Bisher al Rawi was carrying suspicious iems including a battery charger “modified to make it more powerful” (his words).(“Reprieve” lawyer Clive Staford later claimed to have bought an identical one at Argos but this appears to be untrue.)
8. Next El Banna was visited by Special Branch and MI5 who asked him to work for them against Abu Qatada. He refused, but demanded the return of his computer and address books which had been taken on a previous raid – and asked how his application for citizenship was coming along.
9. Finally he succeeded in flying out to Gambia with the al Rawi brothers and two others, where they were all arrested and handed over to the Americans with MI5’s assistance.
Now call me a paranoid old cynic – but, with a backgound story like that, I can just about believe sweet, dim little Sarah could be taken in but how on earth do dozens of professional journalists swallow it?
Lovely person, let’s give him asylum!
John Reith spins in his grave | Homepage | 09.12.07 – 9:45 pm
Good work. Sarah Teather is the worst kind of pseudo-liberal, so naive that she spends most of her time defending decidedly illiberal bigots and people with a fascist ideology. We already knew though that she cares much more about foreign nationals than British citizens. It has been revealed she is using taxpayers money to learn Asian languages, so that her constituents don’t have to speak English:
http://www.asianimage.co.uk/news/latest/display.var.1581722.0.mp_learns_hindi.php
AIUI these Gitmo residents were about to take legal action against the govt – or someone was on their behalf.
Was this to be funded by legal aid? Is so perhaps it explains why relatives of the deceased RAF Hercules crew have been denied it. All gone now?
“4. He then turned up in the UK as an asylum seeker in 1997 and was given leave to stay.”
What a strange coincidence,this funny government turned up at about the same time.
Was this to be funded by legal aid? Is so perhaps it explains why relatives of the deceased RAF Hercules crew have been denied it. All gone now?
bodo | 09.12.07 – 10:23 pm | #
I think several of them, including El Banna, have been represented so far by Clive Stafford of “Reprieve”.
Their funding sources are shown on their website and include (natch!) the good old taxpayer – us, in the shape of the FCO.
I expect they’ll get legal aid as well though.
http://www.reprieve.org.uk/supporters.htm
And guess who was a founder board member of Reprieve – none other than ex BBC Head of Documentaries – Paul Hamman.
http://www.reprieve.org.uk/board_paulhamann.htm
Why am I unsurprised.
“but how on earth do dozens of professional journalists swallow it?”
Because they think he is a freedom fighter.
What happens to e.g. Saudi Arabian jihadists after they return from Guantanamo and go back to Saudi Arabia?:
1.) they are told to only undertake Saudi approved jihadi activities in future;
2.) they are likely to get their old government job back and to be given a Mercedes car.
(This report was not on BBC, it’s a ‘France 24’ exclusive.)
See ‘France 24’ video ( available in English and French)
‘After Guantanamo’
http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/special-reports/FRANCE-24-Reports/20071207-reporters-saudi-arabia-guantanamo-jihadist-rehabilitation
And what is the UK Labour Government policy (‘led’ by Brown and Miliband) towards getting more Islamic countries into the E.U.( and the massive consequences for immigration in UK)? – the more the merrier- Turkey, Kosovo, Albania, Iraq,etc.
‘Turkey investigates reported ties between police, alleged killers of Christians’
( I expect ‘Liberty’ to be on the case.)
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/019074.php#comments
With the closures of Gitmo etc.
We will see a rise in Black operations by western Governments (UK included)
Close Quarter Assinations will be conducted, with no prisoners (or witnesses taken)
These will (have) take(n) place in many countries worldwide and we simply won’t hear about them.
Clearly trying to deal with this threat above the law is not working.
Therefore Black Ops and CQA are the order of the day.
I know this is off topic today. How can the BBC offer up sponsorship of the BBC. Why do the BBC say “supported by Robinsons”. There are articles from the media press clearly stating that Robinsons are “sponsoring” the BBC event.
Graeme
Good point. I think this can happen because the BBC is the worst of all possible worlds – a money-grabbing commercial organisation that can also fleece the public (providing a pisspoor service into the bargain!).
Philip Johnston, unlike ‘Liberty’ and the BBC, asks the question:
“But what obligations does Britain owe these former residents who are about to be freed from Guantanamo? There are no legal duties.”
‘Why should Guantanamo detainees return?’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/12/10/do1003.xml
Rule of Law – should mean a quick military trial and firing squad when they return here. If they are ‘British’ ergo they are traitors.
We should then lobby the US for more Gitmo prisoners to be regarded as British. Watch them scramble to change identity then!
Tim – what you touch is the heart of the problem. Within western countries, they attempt to fight a war as if it were a police matter but the definition is going to blur eg shooting that Brazilian guy on the tube. This would not be an issue of course if we did not insist on inviting the enemy population which hosts the activists to come in live in our countries.
Lurker – Very true, the actions upto shooting the Brazilian on the tube, were all good (sorry the wrong guy got it) and sent out the correct signals to the Jihadi’s.
As well as CQA, which are already being implemented. We do need ligitimate killing fields ie: Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia. These conflict areas attract the Jihadis in where we can kill them.
They would otherwise be heading to the west.
Today’s Islamic jihad atrocities in Algiers, carried out by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb organisation, are relevant to this particular blog.
The Algerian Government pursues a ‘soft’ policy of “reconciliation” towards the Islamic jihadists (or is it appeasement?), much to the consternation of most Algerian people.
The basics of national security are, claim many Algerians, not being given a high enough priority:-
“Surge in Terrorism in Algeria Intensifies Debate Over Government’s National Reconciliation Policy”
http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=countries&Area=northafrica&ID=IA39207
Incidentally, it is interesting to see the comments on the role of AL JAZEERA regarding Algerian Islamic Jihad. Quoting the final paragraph, Allami of Algerian journal ‘Liberte’, on the need to counter jihadist propaganda: “It is inconceivable that we should stand idly by while GSPC (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) propaganda [machine] disseminates misinformation and falsehoods, with the help of Al-Jazeera and other Middle East media [outlets] and websites, and manipulates young Algerians in order to recruit them [for terrorist activites].”
So, to all the ex-BBC staff now working at Al Jazeera, thank you: you know who you are. For those observers who say that Al Jazeera and Al Beeb are like two peas in a pod, I hope not.
Littlejohn: on “so-called ‘British residents'”
“SINCE WHEN WAS THE GAMBIA IN BRENT EAST?”
(scroll down)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/columnists/dailymail.html?in_article_id=501143&in_page_id=1790
George R | 11.12.07 – 6:12 pm |
What’s this? I keep hearing on BBC News that they’re Brits! I’ve been told on more than one occasion that these guys whom my country has been holding in Guantanamo are British Citizens – the word “Brits”, with more indigenous connotations, has been used.
What can be going on?
They are not even British citizens.