The release of the two brothers in east London who were raided, "on good intelligence", arrested and shot for a suspected chemical terrorist plot confirms that the intelligence services were fooled. Since the arrestees were in fact distinctly moderate Muslims, and since another moderate mullah was also fingered as being a terrorist, there is a lesson to be drawn. It seem that our "intelligence" services are being targeted by Islamists who are systematically feeding them with disinformation aimed at discomfiting moderate Muslims who have displeased them.
This raised the need for the Green Party to develop policy on our "intelligence" services. Their status is intrinsically problematical, since they are non-transparent and therefore un-green. How are they to be better structured, funded, monitored and controlled? What are their positives and their negatives? How would a Green Government manage them? To what extent do they infringe on our democratic assemblies? Which organisations would we wish them to infiltrate, and which organisations would we wish them not to infiltrate? What legal action should we take if it turns out that we ourselves have been infiltrated?
Friday, June 09, 2006
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Abu Musaq al-Zarqawi taken out...
...of this blog.
About 2 years ago, I did a blog on the British Government's tardiness on freezing the assets of Abu Musab al-Zaqarwi has inexplicably become unobtainable, I will to recap the story (again) here.
Months before the Ken Bigley case (Kidnapped and beheaded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi), I wrote to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to ask how the financial prosecution of the "war on terror" was going.
They wrote back, fine thanks, no problem, on top of the case.
Then when Ken was kidnapped, it was reported that the Government was taking action to freeze the assets of Abu Musab al-Zaqarwi, Ken Bigley's killer.
So the Government officers had not previously taken action against al-Zaqari's group. Now this was either because either (a) they were ignorant of his existence, or (b) they knew of his existence, but did not see fit to freeze his accounts. I wrote via my MP 12 months ago to ask which was the case.
Baroness Symonds at the FCO replied.
The Baroness writes, "The Government always takes action to freeze the assets of any terrorist or terrorist group, whenever it is apparent that there are clear grounds on which to do so".
This is a clear indication that Government knew of the Musab al-Zaqarwi's group's existence, but did not see fit to freeze its assets.
The question I next put to the Baroness is,
"How many other terrorist groups of Musab al-Zaqarwi's calibre is the Government aware of, but does not see clear grounds to freeze their assets?"
A related question is this: "How does the funding of the officials charged with the identification and asset freezing of terrorist groups, compare with the military expenditure on the Iraq invasion?"
A further question, which has just popped into my head, is this: "If Al-Zarqarwi was the last terrorist to be spared having his asset's frozen, why was this, given that he has a long history of terrorist activity predating the Ken Bigley murder?".
I have not yet had an answer to these questions.
You can ask them too, if you like. The address is
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
King Charles Street
LONDON SW1A 2AH
PS Bush passed up the chance to kill Zarqawi twice, before the invasion. It is thought that if he had killed him, he would have had even less pretext to invade Iraq.Avoiding attacking suspected terrorist mastermind - Nightly News with Brian Williams - MSNBC.com
About 2 years ago, I did a blog on the British Government's tardiness on freezing the assets of Abu Musab al-Zaqarwi has inexplicably become unobtainable, I will to recap the story (again) here.
Months before the Ken Bigley case (Kidnapped and beheaded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi), I wrote to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to ask how the financial prosecution of the "war on terror" was going.
They wrote back, fine thanks, no problem, on top of the case.
Then when Ken was kidnapped, it was reported that the Government was taking action to freeze the assets of Abu Musab al-Zaqarwi, Ken Bigley's killer.
So the Government officers had not previously taken action against al-Zaqari's group. Now this was either because either (a) they were ignorant of his existence, or (b) they knew of his existence, but did not see fit to freeze his accounts. I wrote via my MP 12 months ago to ask which was the case.
Baroness Symonds at the FCO replied.
The Baroness writes, "The Government always takes action to freeze the assets of any terrorist or terrorist group, whenever it is apparent that there are clear grounds on which to do so".
This is a clear indication that Government knew of the Musab al-Zaqarwi's group's existence, but did not see fit to freeze its assets.
The question I next put to the Baroness is,
"How many other terrorist groups of Musab al-Zaqarwi's calibre is the Government aware of, but does not see clear grounds to freeze their assets?"
A related question is this: "How does the funding of the officials charged with the identification and asset freezing of terrorist groups, compare with the military expenditure on the Iraq invasion?"
A further question, which has just popped into my head, is this: "If Al-Zarqarwi was the last terrorist to be spared having his asset's frozen, why was this, given that he has a long history of terrorist activity predating the Ken Bigley murder?".
I have not yet had an answer to these questions.
You can ask them too, if you like. The address is
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
King Charles Street
LONDON SW1A 2AH
PS Bush passed up the chance to kill Zarqawi twice, before the invasion. It is thought that if he had killed him, he would have had even less pretext to invade Iraq.Avoiding attacking suspected terrorist mastermind - Nightly News with Brian Williams - MSNBC.com
Company Law Reform Bill and Simultaneous Policy
Today's letter to MP.
Feel free to copy and paste.
Dear John
As you know, the Company Law Reform Bill is going through the House at the moment, and the trade justice movement is pressing for reforms designed to balance the statutory rights of corporations with some equally binding responsibilities. They are calling for amendments to the Bill so that companies:
1. must be made accountable not just to shareholders but also to stakeholders
- that is, all those persons that are affected by their operations.
2. must report on, and be legally accountable for, the environmental and social impacts of their operations.
3. are liable to be sued in the UK by people that they have harmed by their operations in a foreign country.
However, the Government is bound to turn these amendments down on the ground that if the UK brought those rules in, multinational corporations (and probably many home grown ones) would simply threaten to take their business elsewhere. These reforms need to be implemented on an international basis, and to do this the Government should employ Simultaneous Policy - the tactic of laying down a pledge to act when a set number of other governments have also laid down a similar pledge (I know that you know that, but the Minister may not).
So I would be very grateful if you would ask Margaret Hodge the Industry Minister why she will not pledge to apply the above reforms when a majority of other comparable trading nations (the size of the majority being up to her) have also made the same pledge.
Feel free to copy and paste.
Dear John
As you know, the Company Law Reform Bill is going through the House at the moment, and the trade justice movement is pressing for reforms designed to balance the statutory rights of corporations with some equally binding responsibilities. They are calling for amendments to the Bill so that companies:
1. must be made accountable not just to shareholders but also to stakeholders
- that is, all those persons that are affected by their operations.
2. must report on, and be legally accountable for, the environmental and social impacts of their operations.
3. are liable to be sued in the UK by people that they have harmed by their operations in a foreign country.
However, the Government is bound to turn these amendments down on the ground that if the UK brought those rules in, multinational corporations (and probably many home grown ones) would simply threaten to take their business elsewhere. These reforms need to be implemented on an international basis, and to do this the Government should employ Simultaneous Policy - the tactic of laying down a pledge to act when a set number of other governments have also laid down a similar pledge (I know that you know that, but the Minister may not).
So I would be very grateful if you would ask Margaret Hodge the Industry Minister why she will not pledge to apply the above reforms when a majority of other comparable trading nations (the size of the majority being up to her) have also made the same pledge.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Genocide - and absolute dilemma?
Perhaps at the point in time that genocide is taking place (as now, in Darfur, or a few years ago in Rwanda) the dilemma between doing nothing, and removing the oppressive government by military means, is insoluble; even the best-planned, best-targeted, best implemented sanctions against the Sudanese regime will not stop the slaughter taking place today. On the other hand, if the USAF bombed the Sudanese government into nothingness today, that would also not stop today's slaughter, and although it might (or might not) stop the activities of the Janjaweed sooner than non-violent international pressure, it and arguably would not lessen the total sum of violence, given the capacity of violence to generate an echo.
The only other practical responses are to go to Darfur with bandages (the humanitarian response) or as mediators (the diplomatic response) - neither of which would prevent the atrocities being carried out.
I must acknowledge that my own personal response is simply this: a feeling of total failure with respect to Darfur, a sense of having done nothing. To my shame, I cannot even recall having written a letter to anyone in power.
In this sense then, today's genocide is always insoluble. The only meningful answer to the question "How do we get away from genocide?" has to be "I wouldn't start from here".
I am all ears to learn if there is anything we can do in the present situation, but for me the absolute dilemma of the present must be dissolved in future time. Our scope for action in Darfur is horribly limited, but the possibility of our preventing future acts of genocide is promising. We cannot prevent them all, as perfection is not on the agenda, and climate change is going to make wars over scarce resources (including productive land) more and more likely, but what we can do is affect the ethical framework in which governments function in the future.
For me, the Human Rights Index in the UN is the instrument that I focus my efforts on. It will not bring about a perfect world, but it is an instrument (as opposed to a declaration or aspiration) which is calculated to bring ethical considerations into play in real international politics, as governments consider their standing among their peers. It also opens up a way to bring real non-violent pressure on potentially geoncidal governments before the genocide actually begins, and so offers a way of avoiding the dilemma that genocide presents to us all.
The only other practical responses are to go to Darfur with bandages (the humanitarian response) or as mediators (the diplomatic response) - neither of which would prevent the atrocities being carried out.
I must acknowledge that my own personal response is simply this: a feeling of total failure with respect to Darfur, a sense of having done nothing. To my shame, I cannot even recall having written a letter to anyone in power.
In this sense then, today's genocide is always insoluble. The only meningful answer to the question "How do we get away from genocide?" has to be "I wouldn't start from here".
I am all ears to learn if there is anything we can do in the present situation, but for me the absolute dilemma of the present must be dissolved in future time. Our scope for action in Darfur is horribly limited, but the possibility of our preventing future acts of genocide is promising. We cannot prevent them all, as perfection is not on the agenda, and climate change is going to make wars over scarce resources (including productive land) more and more likely, but what we can do is affect the ethical framework in which governments function in the future.
For me, the Human Rights Index in the UN is the instrument that I focus my efforts on. It will not bring about a perfect world, but it is an instrument (as opposed to a declaration or aspiration) which is calculated to bring ethical considerations into play in real international politics, as governments consider their standing among their peers. It also opens up a way to bring real non-violent pressure on potentially geoncidal governments before the genocide actually begins, and so offers a way of avoiding the dilemma that genocide presents to us all.
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