The Nether-World

July 7th 2005 London Bombings: The Government's Response To The Petition For An Inquiry

2008-01-03T21:21:00.000Z

The Government has finally responded to the petition which I set up on the Downing Street website calling for an full inquiry into the London bombings of July 7 2005.

Thank you for signing the e-petition about 7 July bombings.
The Government understands the feelings of the survivors and relatives of those killed in the 7 July bombings. Our aim is to ensure that other families do not suffer the hurt, loss and pain caused by such attacks and that is why the protection of our people against future attack remains our top priority.
The Government remains of the opinion that a public inquiry is not required into the events of the 7 July 2005. There are processes currently underway which will address many aspects of the 7 July attacks:

Criminal proceedings in connection to the bombings have been brought and pursued. Three people have recently been charged with conspiracy to cause explosions and are currently awaiting trial. The police investigation into the 7 July 2005 bombings continues.

The inquests into the deaths of all those who died have yet to take place. Proceedings stand adjourned because of the criminal proceedings outlined above.

At the end of the Crevice trial in April 2007, the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) were asked by the Prime Minister to re-appraise themselves of the information at their disposal - in particular, in relation to new information that emerged during the Crevice trial.
It remains the case that there was no prior intelligence that an attack was to be carried out on 7 July 2005. I can reassure you that the Police and Security Service would have done everything possible to prevent such an attack had any such intelligence been available. As highlighted by the Crevice investigation, the threat we face is complex. The presence of Shehzad Tanweer and Mohammad Siddique Khan in the periphery of the investigation of 2004 shows the scale and complex nature of the real and serious threat we face.

The original petition which I set up in November 2006 said:

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to hold a full public inquiry into the London bombings of July 7 2005."
"More than a year after that terrible atrocity that killed at least 52 people and maimed many more, there still hasn't been a full public inquiry into that event. The "Narrative" and the ISC report we were given are insufficient. We've had public inquiries into far less serious events, why not this? We now know that the attacks did not come "out of the blue" as was asserted by the Home Secretary at the time."

So let's examine this response bit by bit. The first two sentences just don't make sense.

The Government understands the feelings of the survivors and relatives of those killed in the 7 July bombings. Our aim is to ensure that other families do not suffer the hurt, loss and pain caused by such attacks and that is why the protection of our people against future attack remains our top priority.

If the Government really understood the feelings of the survivors and the relatives of the deceased in that atrocity then it would have opened an inquiry according to their wishes. As it is, they are now having to take the Government to court in order to get the inquiry they want. The whole point in having a full inquiry into the awful events of July 7 2005 is to learn the lessons from that atrocity in order to ensure that other families do not suffer the hurt, loss and pain caused by such attacks. If protection against future attacks is a top priority, then surely learning everything possible from the attack that did happen is essential, no?

The Government remains of the opinion that a public inquiry is not required into the events of the 7 July 2005. There are processes currently underway which will address many aspects of the 7 July attacks:

Well, many of the people whom the Government is supposed to represent do feel that a public inquiry is required into the deadliest terrorist attack on the British mainland since the Lockerbie bombing in 1988, and the first suicide bombings in Western Europe, particularly after all the inconsistencies coming from the Government such as the completely untrue "out of the blue" statement from then Home Secretary Charles Clarke.

"This was a vicious and cynical attack out of the blue in a way that there was no knowledge of beforehand in any respect whatsoever."

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis has concluded that:

"It is becoming more and more clear that the story presented to the public and parliament is at odds with the facts."

Well, quite!!

Criminal proceedings in connection to the bombings have been brought and pursued. Three people have recently been charged with conspiracy to cause explosions and are currently awaiting trial. The police investigation into the 7 July 2005 bombings continues.

The fact that there is still an on-going police investigation into 7/7 needn't hinder an inquiry into the attack. There is not even a commitment from the Government to hold an inquiry after the conclusion of the police investigation and criminal proceedings. I'm sure such a commitment would be acceptable to many who want a full inquiry.

The inquests into the deaths of all those who died have yet to take place. Proceedings stand adjourned because of the criminal proceedings outlined above.

It is true that the inquests into the deaths of all those who died have yet to take place. The inquests have been postponed indefinitely causing even more anguish for the relatives of the deceased. Does anyone else get the feeling that the lame excuse of an on-going police investigation is merely a desperate effort to prevent any sort of proper inquiry from taking place? Is protecting the reputations of officials, who may very well be found to have been incompetent, so important that the people they represent are to be prevented from learning as much as possible about what happened? The Government's excuse would be more believable if it was an isolated case but there is a similar reluctance to hold an inquiry into the Iraq war where incompetence is all too apparent. I can't help feeling that the police investigation will conveniently go on for ever. Still, I concede that this is a better excuse than this...

In the Commons yesterday, Tony Blair said an independent inquiry would "undermine support" for the security service.

...which just goes to show how desperately the Government is trying to wriggle out of holding an independent inquiry.

At the end of the Crevice trial in April 2007, the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) were asked by the Prime Minister to re-appraise themselves of the information at their disposal - in particular, in relation to new information that emerged during the Crevice trial.

In other words this is an admission that the original ISC report (.pdf) is a complete pile of crap. The same report that said:

there were no culpable failures by the security and intelligence Agencies.

And let's not forget just how thorough the ISC was in assembling its report:

A committee member, who asked not to be named, admitted that it had not seen transcripts of MI5’s recordings of Khan. Instead, it had taken evidence from senior security officials and accepted their judgment that there was no reason to regard Khan as a serious threat.

And where is this re-appraised report? Did it take testimonies from survivors of the bombings? No, I thought not.

It remains the case that there was no prior intelligence that an attack was to be carried out on 7 July 2005. I can reassure you that the Police and Security Service would have done everything possible to prevent such an attack had any such intelligence been available. As highlighted by the Crevice investigation, the threat we face is complex. The presence of Shehzad Tanweer and Mohammad Siddique Khan in the periphery of the investigation of 2004 shows the scale and complex nature of the real and serious threat we face.

So, there was no prior intelligence that an attack was to be carried out on 7 July 2005 was there? Well perhaps the specific date was unknown, but there were plenty of warnings of an impending attack which the security and intelligence Agencies failed to act upon. The fact that Mohammad Siddique Khan was known to the security services and was under observation is well documented. The Government now admits as much, as it does the knowledge of Shehzad Tanweer "in the periphery". There were other warnings too. It seems likely that Khan was known to both American, French and Pakistani security services and an attack was expected. We were also told recently that Saudi Arabia alerted Britain of the danger of an impending attack and the warning was ignored. Another warning which was ignored came from an IT expert who alerted the police about the activities of Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer while he was working for their Islamic bookshop.

There is enough evidence to suggest that some degree of incompetence from the security services contributed to the events of July 7 2005. A full public, or at least independent inquiry, would help ensure that the oversights which failed to stop the bombers don't happen again. Unfortunately, as we all know, New Labour doesn't do accountability. The party is far more concerned with covering its own arse and sucking up to big business than protecting the people it was elected to represent. I don't know which Government wonk was press ganged into writing this idiotic response to my petition but I doubt that it'll fool anyone and the campaign for a proper inquiry into 7/7 continues.

Last Chance To Sign The Petition For An Inquiry Into 7/7

2007-11-19T06:28:00.000Z

On Tuesday November 20th, the petition that I created on the Downing Street website which calls for a full inquiry into the London bombings of July 7th 2005 will expire. The petition has been up for a year and has only attracted 521 signatures so far. I believe that this is because I have failed to publicise it properly rather than there being little desire among people for a proper investigation into that atrocity. Over the last year there have been numerous developments in the campaign for an independent inquiry into 7/7; the most notable being the legal challenge to the Government's refusal to hold an inquiry by survivors of the bombings and relatives of the deceased. Eventually the Government will have to bow to public pressure for an inquiry, but for the moment it's delaying as much as possible, presumably to protect its members - even the inquest is being held up.

We now know that contrary to what we were told by our leaders, at least one of the bombers were was being tracked by the security services and that there had been several warnings from foreign governments of an imminent attack, warnings that were apparently ignored (as was the warning from an IT expert who worked with the bombers). In order to prevent any possible future atrocity (God forbid) or at least be better prepared for one, a full inquiry into the events of July 7 2005 is essential. Unfortunately the concept of accountability in public office has seriously diminished under New Labour, whether in the Government or, as we have recently seen, in the police force. But asking for an inquiry into 7/7 was never about finding scapegoats, it was about learning the lessons from that event. The petition will shortly expire and I expect there will be some disingenuous message from Number Ten explaining how the fifth largest economy in the world cannot afford the resources to prevent terrorism and investigate its own failings at the same time. Or we will be told yet again that the 'Narrative' (.pdf), ISC report (.pdf) and London Assembly investigation (.pdf) are somehow sufficient substitutes for an impartial investigation. However, the campaign for an inquiry will continue. In the meantime please take a moment to add your name to the petition.

Tags: 7/7, London Bombings, July 7, Terrorism

Legal Challenge To Government As Pressure Grows For Independent 7/7 Inquiry

2007-08-16T06:17:00.000+01:00

For a while now there has been little news of the campaign for an independent inquiry into the bombings of July 7th 2005. Now, via Rachel, we learn that survivors of the attacks and relatives of the deceased are to challenge the government's refusal to hold an inquiry in court. The following is a press release reproduced in full:

Legal Challenge To Government As Pressure Grows For Independent 7/7 Inquiry

Survivors and relatives of the people killed in the July 7 th London bomb attacks have warned the Government that they will seek a Judicial Review into its continued refusal to grant an independent enquiry into the attacks.

They will outline their legal case in a letter, which will be presented to the Home Office at noon on Wednesday 15th August 2007.

Graham Foulkes, whose son David Foulkes, 22, was murdered at Edgware Rd said:

"We were very disappointed that the Government rejected our call for an independent enquiry. We believe that our country can only benefit from an independent investigation into the largest ever terrorist attack on mainland Britain."

He continued:

"There have been reports into the bombings. None of these have been independent. And as time has gone on it has become obvious that much of what we were told was untrue. For instance, we have gone from being told that the bombers were unknown to the authorities ("clean skins", as Charles Clarke, the then Home Secretary said in the wake of the bombings) to finding out through the "Crevice" trial that at least two of the bombers were known prior to July 7 th 2005 and that one of them, Mohammed Siddique Khan (the Edgware Road bomber) had been followed home by the authorities."

This concern has been supported by the Greater London Assembly who, on May 28 th 2007, passed a motion calling for an independent inquiry following the conviction of the Crevice Defendants "given the conflicting accounts of what happened in the months leading up to 7th July 2005".

The legal case for an enquiry rests on Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This requires the state to protect life and to undertake an independent and effective investigation of the issue if the article is breached. Even if the requirement to protect life was not breached, the Article allows for an enquiry because of the obvious need for public protection.

Rob Webb, whose sister Laura Webb, 29 was murdered at Edgware Rd said:

"The drip feed of information since the attacks probably doesn't give the whole story. But it is now clear that the security services knew far more about the bombers and the possibility of an attack than we had originally been led to believe. So the state looks to have breached its duty to protect life. We all – Government, Security Services, survivors, bereaved and of course the public at large, who remain at risk of terrorist plots, need to learn all we can about the 7/7 attacks. We need to know what could have been done to help prevent them and so help prevent innocent people from suffering the fate of all those who were caught up in the awful events of that day in July 2005."

Should the Government once again turn down the request for an independent investigation, the signatories of the letter will seek a Judicial Review into the decision.

Rob concluded:

"We don't wish to take our Government to Court. But we need to ensure that everything is done to prevent further attacks. We believe that an Independent investigation will help do that, which is why we are prepared to go to Court to ensure that one happens."

Petition for an inquiry here.

---Ends---

The contents of letter can be previewed here.

Those signatories of the letter who are willing to have their names published are:

Nader Mozzaka, bereaved. Nader's wife, Nazy, died at Kings Cross
Graham Foulkes, bereaved. Graham's son, David, died at Edgware Rd
Rob Webb, bereaved. Rob's sister, laura, died at Edgware Rd
Paul Mitchell, survivor. Paul lost part of his leg and had serious hearing injuries at Kings Cross
Thelma Stober, survivor. Thelma lost her left leg and had other serious back injuries at Aldgate
Kirsty Morrison, survivor, King's Cross. Kirsty developed debililtating PTSD.
Elizabeth Alderton, survivor, Aldgate
Ros Morley, bereaved. Ros's husband Colin died at Edgware Rd
Lesley Ratcliff, survivor, King's Cross
Michael Henning, survivor, Aldgate. Michael had facial injuried and developed PTSD
Judy Mallinson. Judy's husband, Ross, suffered serious head injuries.
Ema Plunkett, survivor, Tavistock Square
Elizabeth Kenworthy, Aldgate. Survivor and first responder
David Gould, bereaved. David's step-daughter, Helen, died at King's Cross
Angela Iouannou, survivor, King's cross
Fiona Crosbie, survivor, King's Cross
Mark Elding, survivor, Tavistock Square
Andy Brown, survivor, Aldgate. Andy lost both legs in the explosion.
Janine Mitchell. Janine's husband Paul was seriously injured at King's Cross
Janne Palthe, survivor, Edgware Rd
Thomas Ikemi, bereaved. Thomas cousin, Anthony, was killed in Tavistock Sq
Ross Mallinson, survivor. Ross suffered serious head injuries at Aldgate
Sarah Stow, survivor, Tavistock Sq
Tim Coulson, survivor, Edgware Rd
Rachel North, survivor, King's Cross.

It's been over two years since the July 7 bombings and the government has tried every imaginable method to avoid holding a proper inquiry into that atrocity which killed 52 people and injured 800. We've been told that Britain, one of the world's richest economies cannot afford an inquiry. We've also been told that there are not enough resources to hold an inquiry and continue fight terrorism.

The government has tried to convince us that a parliamentary committee revisiting the case is somehow 'independent'and that the ‘narrative’(pdf), the ISC report (pdf) and the London Assembly's July 7 review committee report (pdf) give us all the information we need. They don’t, they merely give us small vignettes into the tragedy, and worse still, they contradict and conflict with each other thus raising even more questions rather than actually answering any. None of these reports go into any great detail about why the bombings happened; the ‘narrative’ is merely a write-up of the sequence of events, the ISC report is very brief and clears the security and intelligence community of any failures, and the London Assembly report (the only one to take testimony from the victims) focuses on the response of the emergency services.

We need to learn more so we can be in a better position to try and prevent further attacks and to deal with them if they do happen (God forbid). An inquiry may also lay to rest some of the more outlandish conspiracy theories that have been circulating. An inquiry might be expensive, it might even end up being a whitewash, but these are not good enough reasons not to fully investigate the first suicide bombings in Europe and the biggest attack on London since the Second World War. We have a new Prime Minister now, and if Gordon Brown wants to show that he is different to Tony Blair then holding an independent inquiry into the London bombings would be a smart move. If nothing else, it would show some respect to the survivors and the bereaved. Previous posts on 7/7 can be found here.

Please write to your MP and ask for an independent inquiry, and please also take a moment to sign the petition.

More Bloggage from:

Media Coverage:

Tags: 7/7, London Bombings, July 7, Terrorism

Out Of The Tunnel - A Review

2007-07-07T17:41:00.000+01:00

I've just finished reading Out of the Tunnel, the first book by Rachel North in which she describes her experience of the London bombings of July 7 2005 and subsequent recovery. Because today is the second anniversary of that atrocity, I thought this would be a good day to review the book.

In short, it's excellent. I couldn't put it down and had to put other things on-hold until I had finished reading it. It's not often I can say that about a book. Rachel describes the horror and confusion of July 7 in vivid detail. She also describes her struggle with the inevitable Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that followed the bombings. Three years prior to being blown up on the London tube, Rachel had been viciously attacked, raped and left for dead in her home and this horrific episode is woven into the narrative. She was reading her own account of this assault in a magazine when her carriage exploded.

In fact I found the description of that attack one of the most moving parts of the book and I was wincing as every blow was recounted. Much of the book though is about Rachel's coming to terms with both of these traumatic events and the title, Out of the Tunnel is very apt. As the story progresses we see how these life-changing events transformed Rachel from helpless victim to strong campaigner and author. Rachel used the medium of blogging as part of her therapy and from this discovered and then honed her talent as a writer.

One of the things this book does well is highlight the problems of PTSD which are not well known. Rachel was fortunate enough not to suffer serious physical injury on July 7 (unlike 800 other survivors of that attack) but the survivor guilt and the flashbacks had a detrimental effect on her job, her personal life and general well-being. If Out of the Tunnel helps people to better understand PTSD, then that alone is a valuable service.

This is a book I would recommend to anyone. Despite the awful experiences described, the overall message is positive. I was moved to the verge of tears on several occasions. Oddly, the times when I found my eyes welling up were when reading about the numerous acts of kindness from people either after the rape or in the aftermath of the bombings.

I urge people to read this book and I challenge anyone not to be moved by it. Out of the Tunnel is published by The Friday Project and should be available in most bookshops from next week as well as from Amazon (UK).

You can purchase the book from here by clicking on the link in the left sidebar.

Tags: Rachel North, Out Of The Tunnel, London Bombings, 7/7, Books

July 7: The Truth Starts To Emerge

2007-04-30T21:47:00.000+01:00

There has been a long gap in any reporting of the London bombings of July 7 2005. One of the reasons for this is the wait for the verdict in another trial which is related to the 7/7 atrocity.

The plot was to blow up the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent and the Ministry of Sound nightclub in London (amongst other targets) with ammonium nitrate fertiliser. The plot was foiled in 2004 by the police who had the gang under surveillance.

Five British men with close links to the July 7 bombers were today jailed for life after being found guilty of a plot to set off a wave of fertiliser-based explosions around the country.
The judge, Sir Michael Astill, told the ringleader, Omar Khyam, he would serve a minimum of 20 years in jail. He warned all five they may spend the rest of their lives in prison.
"You have betrayed this country that has given you every opportunity," he said. "All of you may never be released," he said, while noting it was not "a foregone conclusion".
Condemning "preachers of hate who contaminate impressionable young minds", Sir Michael labelled 25-year-old Khyam, who boasted about links to al-Qaida, "ruthless, devious, artful and dangerous".
After the verdicts it emerged that police had monitored Khyam repeatedly in the company of two of the July 7 bombers more than a year before the London suicide attacks, but that officers failed to act on the information.

Now that the trial is over some restrictions on reporting have been lifted. What emerges is a recognition that two of the July 7 bombers, Mohammad Sidique Khan (the ringleader) and Shehzad Tanweer were linked to the people behind the Fertiliser Bomb Plot. What is also coming out is that the July 7 bombers (like the fertiliser bomb plotters) had been followed, filmed and bugged by the security services in what is known as Operation Crevice , something that many of us have been saying for some time. The surveillance uncovered links between the gang and Islamist militants abroad, including al-Qaida.

MI5 secretly monitored two of the London 7 July bombers four times before the 2005 attacks, it emerged during the fertiliser bomb plot trial.
Details of how much the security services knew about suicide bombers Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer emerged at the trial.
The trial linked the bombers to an international network which was watched a year before the 2005 suicide attacks.

This of course makes a complete mockery of the the statement made by the Home Secretary at the time, Charles Clarke, a day after the London bombings:

"This was a vicious and cynical attack out of the blue in a way that there was no knowledge of beforehand in any respect whatsoever."

The spinning has now gone up a gear with both MI5 and the Government trying to clarify their positions. MI5 have published their explanation on their website while the government is going out of its way to tell us why we still can't have a full public inquiry into the atrocity. Instead it is offering us the lame alternative of a parliamentary committee revisiting the case and trying to pass that off as somehow 'independent'.

This just isn't good enough. We need a public (or at least independent) inquiry into July 7 if we want to have the best chance of preventing a repeat of that atrocity. Once again I'm calling on everyone to sign this petition calling for such an inquiry. By everyone I mean not just ordinary people but politicians of all parties (the opposition parties are also calling for a public inquiry) and media organisations. If you have a blog, please link to this petition and ask visitors to sign it. Many thanks to those who have already signed. With enough pressure we may eventually be able to force the government to investigate this event properly. As Rachel says:

I do not blame people in the security services for their mistakes and failure to use intelligence. It is failing to admit mistakes and then trying to cover up mistakes which is unforgivable and inexcusable.

Now that the Fertiliser Plot trial is over, the government can no longer hide behind sub judice rules and the excuse that a public or independent inquiry would take up too many resources and prevent further counter-terrorism measures is frankly ludicrous.

Related Bloggage
Blairwatch
Chicken Yoghurt
Rachel From North London
D-Notice
Obsolete

More as I find it. Previous postings on 7/7 can be found here.

Tags: 7/7, London Bombings, July 7, Terrorism, Fertiliser Bomb Plot

Light Posting

2007-03-11T10:35:00.000Z

Apologies for the scarcity of posts here of late. I've been a little busy with a few things, but hopefully 'normal' service will be resumed sometime soon. In the meantime, here are a couple of things I've been writing over at Blairwatch to keep you occupied.

Firstly, it seems that Tony Blair's statement about him knowing nothing about Extraordinary Rendition and CIA black sites is a load of bollocks (yes, I thought that would surprise you). What seems to be emerging is that he is not only complicit in this programme but actively participating in it. We now learn that that America and Britain asked Poland to host a secret CIA gulag and Blair requested that the Polish Prime Minister to keep this secret from his government. Nice eh?

Secondly, tonight (March 11) the first part of Adam Curtis' new three-part documentary, "The Trap – What Happened To Our Dream Of Freedom?" is being shown on BBC 2 at 21:00. This will be well worth watching. It is about freedom and how the concept of freedom seems to have changed since the Cold War and how that change came about. As Britain and America go around the world 'liberating' oppressed people, and as they try to 'liberate' us from the old bureaucracies of the past, they replace what was there before with a strange kind of freedom which bears little resemblance to the freedom we knew before. This series examines how this came to happen and looks at the mechanisms behind this paradox which is, in effect, the losing of our freedom in the name of freedom, replacing it with a new form of social control which entraps us all.

Adam Curtis has generously agreed to do an interview with Blairwatch next week and in order to prepare for it, I managed to get the first two installments of this three part series and I was blown away by what I saw. So I posted a synopsis of the first episode here for those who will be unable to catch the program. I'll post a synopsis of the second episode once the first has been screened.

Lenin's Tomb and Ten Percent have also posted stuff about it and from those sites I've found reviews of the documentary in The Guardian and Socialist Worker.

Back soon hopefully.

Tags: Torture, Extraordinary Rendition, Black Sites, Media, Democracy, Freedom, Adam Curtis, The Trap

David Hicks

2007-03-06T22:03:00.000Z

Many People may know who David Hicks is. He's the Australian citizen who was arrested in Afghanistan by the Northern Alliance five years ago and sold to the Americans who have incarcerated him in the Guantanamo Bay gulag where he has been ever since. He is accused of being an "enemy combatant" although he has not, until very recently, been charged with any crime, and after five years all the US government can come up with is 'providing material support for terrorism' a charge that has been tailored to fit his actions and guarantee he will not get a fair trial.

Mr Hicks, whose mother is British, should be entitled to British citizenship and therefore some help from the British Government which did help secure the release of other British citizens. However, despite senior judges ordering the home secretary to grant Mr Hicks citizenship, the Home Secretary John Reid revoked it. Hicks has therefore been abandoned by both the British and Australian governments and left in Guantanamo where he has been abused and tortured. Abuse of the inmates at Guantanamo still continues despite denials and attempted cover-ups by US authorities.

David Hicks is appealing for help through his family, friends and supporters. The following video has more information. It is a speech by Michael Mori, Hicks' defence attorney with other images added.

Further details can be found at Mask of Anarchy, Ten Percent and Fair Go For David. You can help David Hicks by spreading the word about this injustice.

Tags: David Hicks, Guantanamo, Torture

The Fallout Over Rendition Grows

2007-02-16T19:29:00.000Z

Following the vote in the the EU Parliament which saw the approval of the MEPs report into CIA abductions and renditions, Italy, which came in for heavy criticism (as did Britain), is taking some action.

An Italian judge has ordered 26 US citizens - most of them CIA agents - to stand trial over the kidnap of an Egyptian cleric in Milan in 2003.

Osama Mustafa Hassan was allegedly seized by the CIA and flown to Egypt, where he says he was tortured.

Seven Italians were also indicted, including Italy's ex-military intelligence chief, Nicolo Pollari.

The case would be the first criminal trial over the secret US practice known as "extraordinary rendition".

Not only will this be the first trial over rendition, it will also be the biggest ever trial of US intelligence agents in an allied country. The trial is due to begin on June 8 and the American suspects are likely to be tried in absentia as they are believed to have fled the country including Robert Seldon Lady, the former station chief of CIA operations in Milan, who has abandoned his Italian villa and says he was over-ruled in his opposition to the Kidnap. He also says (through his lawyer) that he does not recognise the court.

One Italian policeman has already been jailed for 21 months for stopping the cleric in order for the CIA to abduct him. His reduced sentence was part of a plea-bargain. According to him, the CIA said that they were trying to recruit Omar and that the operation had the approval of the US and Italian governments. Nicolo Pollari is trying to hide behind the Italian state secrets act and so is not co-operating with the court apart from insisting that Italian military intelligence did nothing wrong. The Italian government has yet to seek the extradition of the US citizens and it will be interesting to see if it does and what reaction it will get from the US authorities who, as we know, are always keen to uphold the rule of law. Somehow I doubt it will happen. Osama Mustafa Hassan however, despite risking prosecution for terrorism charges, wants to return to Italy as a refugee and testify against Berlusconi and his administration. He was released from Egyptian custody when the authorities there decided they had no reason to hold him.

What is interesting about this case is that it looks like being the first of many prosecutions around Europe. Germany, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland and Romania are all conducting investigations. Unsurprisingly, the UK is not conducting any investigation, but then Tony Blair has yet to acknowledge that there is any such thing as extraordinary rendition.

Tags: Extraordinary Rendition, Terrorism, Torture, Italian Politics, EU

Why Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller quit MI5

2007-01-10T03:19:00.000Z

News of Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller's resignation as head of MI5 last month was slipped out quietly on a day, when Tony Blair was being questioned by police over the cash for peerages scandal and when it emerged that the Prime Minister halted the Serious Fraud Squad investigation into the corruption of BAE. In other words the story was buried under a pile of other stories, some of which also needed to be buried. That didn't stop speculation into Dame Eliza's surprise resignation, the general consensus being that it was in anticipation of revelations of incompetence over the London Bombings of July 7th 2005.

That speculation was covered in the previous post so I won't go into the failings of the security services yet again for the moment except to mention that we now know why Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller resigned, and yes, it was incompetence... stunning incompetence. Not only did she fail to prevent a terrorist attack when two of the bombers responsible for the London bombings were under surveillance and had been filmed and bugged, she told senior MPs the day before the attack on July 6th that there was no imminent terrorist threat to London or the rest of the country.

The director-general of the security service MI5 told senior MPs there was no imminent terrorist threat to London or the rest of the country less than 24 hours before the July 7 suicide bombings.

Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller gave the assurance at a private meeting of Labour whips at the Commons on the morning of July 6 2005, the Guardian has learned from a number of those present.

The whips are said to have been confident, on leaving the meeting, that they could brief fellow MPs that the security situation was under control, and are said to have been deeply alarmed by the following day's events.

Well if that's not a resigning issue I don't know what is. Never mind the bollocks we were told about Dame Eliza saying she was going to step down in two years time after a couple years into the job and to a home secretary who was also tainted by the bombings. This story has already been covered over at Blairwatch and very eloquently by Rachel here and here. I mention it mainly as an update to the previous post on Dame Eliza's resignation and, more importantly, to highlight once again the urgent need for a full public inquiry into the London Bombings. Every month it seems like another reason to hold an inquiry into 7/7 emerges. Well bang on time here it is. Please sign this petition to the Prime Minister which asks for an inquiry.

Tags: London Bombings, 7/7, Terrorism, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller

Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller's resignation and the July 7 Bombings

2006-12-17T23:42:00.000Z

With the plethora of news stories released last Thursday, you'd be forgiven for missing the interesting revelation that the head of MI5, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller is stepping down. So, perhaps not as newsworthy as Blair being questioned by the police or the news that Saudi Arabia can tell the SFO what they can and can't investigate via an ever compliant (and increasingly corrupt) Tony Blair, but now that we have digested those unpalatable tit-bits, the reasons for Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller's surprise resignation are starting to look interesting. Two newspapers are now suggesting that she wanted to quit before new details of the July 7 London Bombings come to light in the New year, details which may have led to her being sacked. Here are a couple of snippets, First the Mail:

The head of MI5 has resigned weeks before full details of the role of her agents in a surveillance operation involving two of the July 7 bombers are due to be revealed.

And also The Sunday Times:

Sources said she had decided to quit in anticipation that she might be asked to resign over blunders concerning last year’s July 7 bombings.

However, Dame Eliza is maintaining that she agreed her resignation with former Home Secretary Charles Clarke, who was removed from his post back in May. This is the same Charles Clarke, of course, who trumpeted that the attacks came "out of the blue", a statement which has already been shown to be completely untrue. So it will be interesting to find out just what these new revelations might be seeing as we've already heard about Operation Crevice and that Mohammed Sidique Khan and others had been under observation by the security services and that those security services had allegedly been warned by their American and French counterparts.

Obviously there was an intelligence failure, and it seems that the media know far more than has already been revealed but are prevented from releasing what they know.

The sources said that the agency was bracing itself for detailed disclosures about its intelligence on Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shezhad Tanweer, the two leading bombers who killed 52 people. The Sunday Times and other media are prevented by court orders from making this evidence public.

New information about the attacks trickles out from time to time, but the best way to get to the bottom of all this is to have a full public inquiry, something many of us have been asking for since the bombings but which the Government is still resisting despite an on-going campaign. When the Downing Street Website announced that it would be hosting a petition service last month, I suspended my usual cynicism and created a petition to hold a full public inquiry into 7/7. I still don't know how close to an inquiry we are or if a petition will help but the petition is still on-line and this might be a good time to add to the pressure for an inquiry.

If you think we should have an inquiry into July 7, please sign the petition.

Tags: July 7, London Bombings, 7/7, Terrorism

Four Out of Five Victims of July 7 Still Suffer From Trauma

2006-12-01T09:48:00.000Z

Here is another good reason to have a public inquiry into the 7/7 bombings last year.

More than 80% of the survivors of the July 7 London bombings are still suffering psychological symptoms of post-traumatic stress, according to the first study of the long-term effects of the attacks.
Nearly 18 months after the bombings, health protection officials have released details of the impact on survivors - but they are still searching for up to 3,500 people nearest the four bombs who fled the scenes. Psychologists fear that many are still struggling to come to terms with what they saw.
The research by the Health Protection Agency (HPA) involved questionnaires returned by 158 survivors, with 82% saying they were still experiencing emotional symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Some 30% of those injured have hearing problems such as tinnitus and some degree of deafness. But the research also gives the first clear indication that people caught up in the emergency were not exposed to any chemical agents which could harm their health. Asbestos on the trains was not released in the explosions.
Read on

It's outrageous that the Government still refuses to hold a full public inquiry into this atrocity. Please sign this petition which asks for one.

Tags: July 7, London Bombings, Terrorism, 7/7

The continuing delusions of Bush and Blair

2006-09-28T07:53:00.000+01:00

The gulf between the fantasy world of the Bush/Blair axis and the real world is getting wider. This is particularly evident when listening to the utter drivel spouted by these leaders in their recent speeches and comparing their views with the findings of more qualified professionals and, well, just about everybody else.

Tony Blair at the Labour Party Conference September 2006

"This terrorism isn't our fault. We didn't cause it. It's not the consequence of foreign policy."
Source

Ministry of Defence thinktank

"The war in Iraq ... has acted as a recruiting sergeant for extremists across the Muslim world ... Iraq has served to radicalise an already disillusioned youth and al-Qaida has given them the will, intent, purpose and ideology to act."
Source

George Bush September 2006

"America is safer and America is winning the War on Terror."
Source

Declassified excerpt from the April 2006 National Intelligence Estimate on Trends in Global Terrorism released on Tuesday 26 September 2006.

We assess that the Iraq jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives; perceived jihadist success there would inspire more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere.

The Iraq conflict has become the "cause celebre" for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.
Source

UN Report 27 September 2006

"New explosive devices are now used in Afghanistan within a month of their first appearing in Iraq," said the report. "And while the Taliban have not been found fighting outside Afghanistan/Pakistan, there have been reports of them training in both Iraq and Somalia."
Source

Maintaining these unrealistic positions on the 'War on Terror' despite all the evidence which points to the contrary and advice from their own experts, demonstrate just how deluded and dangerous these people are.

Tags: Bush, Blair, Terrorism, Iraq, Afghanistan

More verbal manure from Sir Ian Blair

2006-08-21T19:12:00.000+01:00

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair is not known for his great honesty. In fact he is better known for his embarrassing gaffes, botched operations, political meddling, cover-ups, smearing of opponents and outright lying.

So I think we can take with a very large pinch of salt the latest utterings from New Labour's top cop:

LONDON is returning to an era of neighbourliness and low crime in which people are happy to leave their front doors open, according to the country’s most senior policeman.

Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said the work of community-based Safer Neighbourhood Teams was making people feel as safe as they did 25 years ago.
Source

Hmmm really? This seems just a tad out of step with the recent statements of John Reid who seems to think that Britain is facing "probably the most sustained period of severe threat since the end of the second world war".

Needless to say not everyone is convinced by Sir Ian Blair's rosy picture of London.

However, Sir Ian's comments about the safety of London's streets, made during an interview with the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, were met with surprise.

Damian Hockney, a member of the Metropolitan police authority, said the remarks were "truly extraordinary", while Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Mark Hunter accused Sir Ian of being out of touch.

"Many Londoners will feel uneasy that the top police officer entrusted with tackling crime in the capital could be so out of touch," Mr Hunter said.

"Neighbourhood policing may be helping to cut crime, but burglary is still a serious threat, and there is no reason for people to stop taking sensible precautions."
Source

On the other hand, maybe this really is good news. In which case we now have proof that there is no need for 90 days detention without trial, internment or ID cards, things which Sir Ian and the Home Secretary have been arguing for in order to keep us safe and to protect our freedoms.

Tags: UK Police, Terrorism, Crime, Sir Ian Blair

John Pilger on Tony Blair and the alleged plot

2006-08-19T03:37:00.000+01:00

John Pilger writes about the alleged terror plot, Britain's foreign policy and the alienation of Muslim youth and concludes that the real threat the British face is in Downing Street.

The real threat we face in Britain is Blair

If the alleged plot to attack airliners flying from London is true – remember the lies that led to the invasion of Iraq, and to the raid on a “terrorist cell” in east London – then one person ultimately is to blame, as he was on 7 July last year. They were Blair’s bombs then; who doesn’t believe that 52 Londoners would be alive today had the Prime Minister refused to join Bush in his piratical attack on Iraq? A parliamentary committee has said as much, as have MI5, the Foreign Office, Chatham House and the polls.

A senior Metropolitan Police officer, Paul Stephenson, claims the Heathrow plot “was intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale”. The most reliable independent surveys put civilian deaths in Iraq, as a result of the invasion by Bush and Blair, above 100,000. The difference between the Heathrow scare and Iraq is that mass murder on an unimaginable scale has actually happened in Iraq.
Read on

It's nothing that hasn't been said here before but it is refreshing to know that there are still a few campaigning journalists out there willing to challenge the faintheartedness of the corporate media.

Tags: Blair, Terrorism, Iraq

Talking bollocks and playing politics with terror

2006-08-13T20:07:00.000+01:00

The latest foiled terror plot in the UK which has been dominating the news for the last few days has brought out a plethora of asinine statements from politicians on both sides of the Atlantic as they try to use the plot to push forward their political agendas. These agendas are, unsurprisingly, either to do with curtailing the last few civil liberties we have left or to justify further mass murder in the Middle East.

There are so many ludicrous statements that it’s hard to know where to begin, but America’s arsehole in chief might be as good a starting point as any. He seems to think that Hezbollah is linked to the foiled plot to bring down aircraft. In his weekly radio address he observed that:

"They kill civilians and American servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they deliberately hide behind civilians in Lebanon. They are seeking to spread their totalitarian ideology."

What he is doing here, obviously, is deliberately lumping together all the different groups that oppose US or Israeli occupation under the general banner of “terrorists” whether they are terrorists or not, undoubtedly some are but many are not. This is exactly what Tony Blair tried to do in his spectacularly stupid “arc of extremism” speech in California recently. Israel, America and Britain, of course, never kill civilians or try to spread their own particular ideologies using force. Nor do they ever hide behind civilians.

Richard Perle, the ultra right-wing American political advisor had some choice things to say in today’s Telegraph. Here is a snippet:

Inexplicably, the British Government has accepted as its main partner on Muslim issues the Muslim Council of Britain despite "the clear Islamist sympathies of its leaders".

Presumably Christians and Jews would be higher authorities on Muslim affairs than Muslims. This brings us neatly to the idiotic statements from British commentators and politicians. Let’s jump in the deep-end with John Reid responding to an open letter by leading British Muslims to Tony Blair which notes, not unreasonably, that his Middle East policies give "ammunition to extremists" and puts British lives "at increased risk", something the British Government has been in a state of denial about despite the July 7 bombings last year. Non-Muslim Labour politicians have closed ranks to try and drown out this obvious fact. Reid said:

"No government worth its salt would stay in power in my view, and no government worth its salt would be supported by the British people if our foreign policy or any other aspect of policy was being dictated by terrorists," the home secretary told the BBC.
"That is not the British way, it is antithetical to our very central values. We decide things in this country by democracy, not under the threat of terrorism."
Source

Leaving aside the implication in his statement that all Muslims must be terrorists if they object to what the Government is doing to their fellow Muslims in the Middle East, and that British Muslims do not seem to be part of the British people in Reid’s opinion, his statement is obviously ridiculous. He himself, as well as previous Home Secretaries have told us time and again that the draconian (and ineffective) measures they constantly introduce are a response to the threat of terrorism, and the fact that so many people oppose these measures questions the democratic basis of their introduction.

Similarly, Kim Howells MP, after having shown the beginnings of the growing of a backbone by calling for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon a month ago, has slipped back to invertebrate status by denying that there was a "rational connection" between Government foreign policy and terrorism and said "no government" formulates policy based on a perceived risk from terrorists. Not to be outdone, Margaret Beckett has added her own pearls of wisdom by saying that people who blamed Britain's foreign policy for the terror threat were making "the gravest possible error". Could it just be that by ignoring the growing anger in the Muslim community, and continuing with a foreign policy that has been shown repeatedly to be disastrous, for civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Palestine and Israel, as well as disastrous for Britain’s international standing, that it is the Government that is making the gravest possible error?

Some particularly unintelligent and racist remarks were made by the former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Lord Stevens in an article in the News of The World, marvellously titled “If You’re a Muslim - It's Your Problem”. In his rant Stevens starts by stating that it is totally a Muslim problem that has nothing whatsoever to do with anything the Government might be doing.

WHEN will the Muslims of Britain stand up to be counted?
When will they declare, loud and clear, with no qualifications or quibbles about Britain's foreign policy, that Islamic terrorism is WRONG?
Most of all, when will the Muslim community in this country accept an absolute, undeniable, total truth: that Islamic terrorism is THEIR problem? THEY own it. And it is THEIR duty to face it and eradicate it.
To stop the denial, endless fudging and constant wailing that somehow it is everyone else's problem and, if Islamic terrorism exists at all, they are somehow the main victims.

Completely ignoring the fact that terrorism affects everybody, and that murders no matter how wrong have causes that are worth investigating in order to prevent them, he then argues that only people who look Muslim should be targeted for harassment at airports (the same attitude that resulted in the death of Jean Charles De Menezes). Justin at Chicken Yoghurt rightly points out terrorists don’t necessarily have to look like the stereo-types portrayed by the police.

Now, here’s where Steven’s crackerjack profiling plan falls on it’s abject arse. At least one of the men arrested last week (Abdul Waheed born Don Stewart-Whyte) was a white convert.

With all the fear generated with the foiled plot to blow up aircraft, ministers can now redouble their efforts to bring in the legislation that they have failed to impose on is in the past. The 90 days detention without charge part of the terrorism act that was rejected by Parliament causing Blair and his loyalists to go into a huge sulk, is now firmly back on the agenda.

Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and John Reid are all in favour of trying to change the 28-day limit, which they believe is insufficient to safeguard the public. The Government is likely to try again to win the new powers for police after Parliament returns from its summer break.
Source

It’s not surprising really, considering the bad grace with which Blair lost the vote the last time, it was only a matter of time before a convenient reason came up to push it through. I think we can expect ID cards to come to come onto the agenda again, and the House of Lords will face renewed pressure to pass John Reid’s revolting control order scheme. We can expect New Labour to milk this failed plot for all its worth. And all the while the underlying causes of the terrorism will remain unresolved. The Government is still resisting calls for a public inquiry into Last years London bombings despite a possible link with the latest terror plot. It suits the purposes of the Bush administration to emphasise an Al Qaeda link with the plot even before we know for sure whether that is the case. Bush faces mid-term elections in November and Al Qaeda terrorism is helpful for him. Any real information on the plot is still pretty scarce but there are disagreements and conflicting accounts abound, but that is not stopping the bellicose rhetoric coming from our leaders which frankly, doesn’t help.

Tags: Terrorism, UK Politics, Nu Labour

The latest scare

2006-08-11T02:11:00.000+01:00

Image by Beau Bo D'Or

As always, Beau Bo D'Or managed to sum up the madnaess of a situation with one great image. I've already written about what I thought of yesterday's drama over at Blairwatch so you can read it over there. Here are some other links to the story that knocked the Lebanon/Israel conflict out of the news for a whole day - adapted from Bloggerheads:

Tags: Terrorism

Another insult for the family of Jean Charles De Menezes

2006-08-09T07:05:00.000+01:00

Not only are there to be no prosecutions for the police officers involved in the ~~public execution~~ accidental shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes last year at Stockwell tube station last year, the most senior officer involved in the incident is to be promoted.

The senior police officer involved in the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes is being backed for promotion to the upper echelons of British policing by Sir Ian Blair, the Guardian has learned.

Commander Cressida Dick is applying to be a deputy assistant commissioner in the Metropolitan police, a month after finding out she will not face criminal prosecution over the killing of Mr De Menezes at Stockwell tube station in July 2005.

On the day Mr De Menezes was killed after being mistaken for a suicide bomber, Ms Dick was the officer in charge of enacting the controversial shoot-to-kill policy, called Operation Kratos. The Independent Police Complaints Commission found that firearms officers thought she had cleared them to shoot dead Mr De Menezes. In fact, she told investigators, she had intended that he be arrested.
Last night Mr De Menezes's family reacted with anger to the news, saying officers behind the blunders should be "prosecuted, not promoted".
Read on

It was an insult to the family that the police tried to cover up the crime after killing Jean Charles and prevent a thorough investigation. It was a further insult when Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman, who was also involved in the operation (as well as the botched Forest Gate raid which resulted in another innocent person being shot with impunity), was rewarded for his incompetence by being made a CBE. Insults turned into taking the piss when the family of Jean Charles learned that there are to be no prosecutions for any of the officers involved in the shooting. And now the most senior officer on the scene in the incident is to be promoted. How the police must hate the De Menezes family.

Tags: Jean Charles De Menezes, Stockwell Shooting, British Police, Justice

Police in Forest Gate raid to be exonerated

2006-08-03T02:40:00.000+01:00

An interim report into the botched Forest Gate raid in which an innocent man was shot by the police is expected to partially exonerate the participating officers. The raid, which took place June 2 this year, involved some 250 officers some dressed in chemical suits storming a house, and wrecking it. Two brothers, Mohammed Abdul Kahar and Abul Koyair were beaten up and arrested and Mr Kahar was shot in the shoulder. The Police, responding to faulty intelligence, were looking for a chemical bomb which never existed. Relations between the police and the Muslim community were severely damaged by the incident.

The two brothers who were detained by police for a week, smeared in the press and then released without charge. The policeman responsible of the fiasco, Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman, was rewarded for his incompetence by being made a CBE. The clearing of the officers will be a further insult to the family.

This news comes on the same day that we hear that officers from the West Midlands police force are to be cleared for the death of a man who died in their custody. It also comes two weeks after we learned that no officers will be prosecuted for the execution of Jean Charles de Menezes, who was shot seven times in the head at Stockwell tube station last year.

Lack of accountability for public servants is bad enough, but this is taking the piss.

Tags: Forest Gate Raid, UK Police, British Justice

Fisking Tony Blair

2006-08-02T04:51:00.000+01:00

Tony Blair has delivered his major foreign policy speech on the Middle East to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. The media is calling it a coded criticism of George Bush, but I doubt Dubya will decode it as anything other than endorsement of his policies.

In the speech he called for a "complete renaissance" on foreign policy to combat "Reactionary Islam". I don’t usually fisk speeches or articles so I’m out of practice, but I couldn’t resist this. It’s such a load of the usual Blairite garbage it deserves a good fisking.

Overnight, the news came through that as well as continuing conflict in the Lebanon, Britain's Armed Forces suffered losses in Iraq and Afghanistan. It brings home yet again the extraordinary courage and commitment of our armed forces who risk their lives and in some cases tragically lose them, defending our country's security and that of the wider world. These are people of whom we should be very proud.

They are not defending our country’s security. Iraq was never a threat to us. They are risking their lives for Bush’s imperial mission, control of oil supplies oh, and your legacy.

I know the US has suffered heavy losses too in Iraq and in Afghanistan. We should never forget how much we owe these people, how great their bravery, and their sacrifice.

I planned the basis of this speech several weeks ago. The crisis in the Lebanon has not changed its thesis. It has brought it into sharp relief.

The crisis in Lebanon demonstrates yet again how many innocent people you are willing to see die, this time so that Israel can expand into Lebanon for the 5th time in 30 years.
The purpose of the provocation that began the conflict was clear. It was to create chaos, division and bloodshed, to provoke retaliation by Israel that would lead to Arab and Muslim opinion being inflamed, not against those who started the aggression but against those who responded to it.
The purpose of the “provocation” as you put it was to get some its prisoners back and to show support for the beleaguered Palestinians in Gaza who are being massacred.
It is still possible even now to come out of this crisis with a better long-term prospect for the cause of moderation in the Middle East succeeding. But it would be absurd not to face up to the immediate damage to that cause which has been done.
If it would be absurd not to face up the immediate damage to the cause of moderation in the Middle East, then why are you silencing the voices of moderation and encouraging extremism? You should be helping Lebanon, a moderate state. By encouraging the slaughter you are going to turn them into fanatics.

We will continue to do all we can to halt the hostilities. But once that has happened, we must commit ourselves to a complete renaissance of our strategy to defeat those that threaten us. There is an arc of extremism now stretching across the Middle East and touching, with increasing definition, countries far outside that region. To defeat it will need an alliance of moderation, that paints a different future in which Muslim, Jew and Christian; Arab and Western; wealthy and developing nations can make progress in peace and harmony with each other. My argument to you today is this: we will not win the battle against this global extremism unless we win it at the level of values as much as force, unless we show we are even-handed, fair and just in our application of those values to the world.

The point is this. This is war, but of a completely unconventional kind.

You have done nothing to halt the hostilities and, in fact, done everything possible to prevent the ceasefire that the whole world is calling for, except for the USA, Israel and Britain. A “renaissance of our strategy”? A complete re-think you mean, surely. Its been an unmitigated disaster right from the start and is getting worse. This “arc of extremism”, was that term thought up by the same idiot who came up with “axis of evil”? And this “alliance of moderation”, that’s you I suppose; rendition, Guantanamo etc. Last year you were saying “the rules have changed”. Your argument that you cannot win against global extremism unless you show even-handedness and fairness sounds good Tony. Have you just realised that? We’ve been saying it for years. Perhaps the fact that you are not winning shows that there is no fairness, no even-handedness, and as for values … explain them to the survivors of Qana of Fallujah. And as for war of an “unconventional kind”, well I’m not sure about that. After all in World War II thousands of innocent civilians were also deliberately targeted by superpowers levelling cities with WMD. And there were also resistance groups, only they weren’t called “terrorists” in those days; partisans, maquis or just the resistance, but not terrorists.
9/11 in the US, 7/7 in the UK, 11/3 in Madrid, the countless terrorist attacks in countries as disparate as Indonesia or Algeria, what is now happening in Afghanistan and in Indonesia, the continuing conflict in Lebanon and Palestine, it is all part of the same thing. What are the values that govern the future of the world? Are they those of tolerance, freedom, respect for difference and diversity or those of reaction, division and hatred? My point is that this war can't be won in a conventional way. It can only be won by showing that our values are stronger, better and more just, more fair than the alternative. Doing this, however, requires us to change dramatically the focus of our policy.
Yes Tony is all part of the same thing, if you look at the injustices heaped on these peoples prior to 9/11. That’s not justifying what they do, it's obviously totally wrong and has to be stopped, but it does mean you need to look at the causes then you can go about preventing these atrocities. You keep using the word “values”. Your values (whatever they are) haven’t succeeded in Iraq, unless utter chaos and anarchy are part of your values. And yes, you certainly do need to change your policy, not just the focus of it.
Unless we re-appraise our strategy, unless we revitalise the broader global agenda on poverty, climate change, trade, and in respect of the Middle East, bend every sinew of our will to making peace between Israel and Palestine, we will not win. And this is a battle we must win.
You’ve failed on poverty, failed on climate change, failed on trade and failed with Israel and Palestine, and you will continue to fail until you stop putting the interests of the USA and Israel above all else.

What is happening today out in the Middle East, in Afghanistan and beyond is an elemental struggle about the values that will shape our future.

That word again, please stop using it until you know what it means.
It is in part a struggle between what I will call Reactionary Islam and Moderate, Mainstream Islam. But its implications go far wider. We are fighting a war, but not just against terrorism but about how the world should govern itself in the early 21st century, about global values.
In other words you think that you and Bush should govern the world and there is no room for any other kind of governance, that doesn’t sound very tolerant and moderate.

The root causes of the current crisis are supremely indicative of this. Ever since September 11th, the US has embarked on a policy of intervention in order to protect its and our future security. Hence Afghanistan. Hence Iraq. Hence the broader Middle East initiative in support of moves towards democracy in the Arab world.
The point about these interventions, however, military and otherwise, is that they were not just about changing regimes but changing the values systems governing the nations concerned. The banner was not actually "regime change" it was "values change".

Not about changing regimes? That’s not what you said when you went about changing those regimes was it? I don’t recall you saying “values change” three years ago.
What we have done therefore in intervening in this way, is far more momentous than possibly we appreciated at the time.
You can say that again, it will take generations to put right, and Iraq is probably destroyed forever.
Of course the fanatics, attached to a completely wrong and reactionary view of Islam, had been engaging in terrorism for years before September 11th. In Chechnya, in India and Pakistan, in Algeria, in many other Muslim countries, atrocities were occurring. But we did not feel the impact directly. So we were not bending our eye or our will to it as we should have. We had barely heard of the Taleban. We rather inclined to the view that where there was terrorism, perhaps it was partly the fault of the governments of the countries concerned.
Have you any idea how you sound when you, a Christian, say which bits of Islam are right and which are wrong? Yes, there is obviously Islamic extremism. Look at the causes not the symptoms. Extremist Islam is the excuse for a much deeper problem.
We were in error. In fact, these acts of terrorism were not isolated incidents. They were part of a growing movement. A movement that believed Muslims had departed from their proper faith, were being taken over by Western culture, were being governed treacherously by Muslims complicit in this take-over, whereas the true way to recover not just the true faith, but Muslim confidence and self esteem, was to take on the West and all its works.
And you call us conspiracy theorists. The West and all its works is largely the cause of the extremism IMHO.
Sometimes political strategy comes deliberatively, sometimes by instinct. For this movement, it was probably by instinct. It has an ideology, a world-view, it has deep convictions and the determination of the fanatic. It resembles in many ways early revolutionary Communism. It doesn't always need structures and command centres or even explicit communication. It knows what it thinks.
What are you on about? Are you trying to convince us we should go back to the reds-under-the-bed McCarthy climate of fear that existed in America in the 1950s?

Its strategy in the late 1990s became clear. If they were merely fighting with Islam, they ran the risk that fellow Muslims - being as decent and fair-minded as anyone else - would choose to reject their fanaticism. A battle about Islam was just Muslim versus Muslim. They realised they had to create a completely different battle in Muslim minds: Muslim versus Western.

So Muslims decided to become fanatical and attack the West why, out of boredom with killing each other? No reason at all, whatsoever, just a unilateral decision to attack the West? Are you serious?
This is what September 11th did. Still now, I am amazed at how many people will say, in effect, there is increased terrorism today because we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. They seem to forget entirely that September 11th predated either. The West didn't attack this movement. We were attacked. Until then we had largely ignored it.
Yes, we were attacked on September 11th no one is justifying it or excusing it. Because you think that nothing at all was done to provoke it and that history started on that day (no mention for instance of the Gulf War and American troops in Saudi Arabia, the continuing Israeli expansion into Palestinian territories and the American arming of the Mujahadim in Afghanistan etc.) then I guess you think the resulting chaos across the entire region was proportionate, and successful.
The reason I say our response was even more momentous than it seemed at the time, is this. We could have chosen security as the battleground. But we didn't. We chose values. We said we didn't want another Taleban or a different Saddam. Rightly, in my view, we realised that you can't defeat a fanatical ideology just by imprisoning or killing its leaders; you have to defeat its ideas.
You can’t kill an idea. And, now that you mention it, security seems like a pretty good idea, certainly better than what you achieved; a resurgent Taliban, Iraq in civil war and increasingly fanatical and theocratic. What were those values of yours again?
There is a host of analysis written about mistakes made in Iraq or Afghanistan, much of it with hindsight but some of it with justification. But it all misses one vital point. The moment we decided not to change regime but to change the value system, we made both Iraq and Afghanistan into existential battles for Reactionary Islam. We posed a threat not to their activities simply: but to their values, to the roots of their existence.
Wrong, first of all, you lied to us about WMD, remember? You’re so called values again no doubt. Again you never mentioned changing value systems. When the WMD lie was exposed, the reason for the invasion kept changing. We’ve had every conceivable excuse from you except the one about America’s need to control the world’s oil supply, and of course your famous legacy.
We committed ourselves to supporting Moderate, Mainstream Islam. In almost pristine form, the battles in Iraq or Afghanistan became battles between the majority of Muslims in either country who wanted democracy and the minority who realise that this rings the death-knell of their ideology.
You support moderate, mainstream Islam. Is that why women in southern Iraq can no longer work or go out or wear what they want the way they used to. Tell us some more about you’re support for the very moderate Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan. From what I’ve heard, the death-knells in that country come from large vats of boiling water.
What is more, in doing this, we widened the definition of Reactionary Islam. It is not just Al-Qaeda who felt threatened by the prospect of two brutal dictatorships - one secular, one religious - becoming tolerant democracies. Any other country who could see that change in those countries might result in change in theirs, immediately also felt under threat. Syria and Iran, for example. No matter that previously, in what was effectively another political age, many of those under threat hated each other. Suddenly new alliances became formed under the impulsion of the common threat.
Not only did you widen the definition of reactionary Islam, you spread reactionary Islam, I don’t think Al Qaeda feels threatened by tolerant democracies, mainly because you have failed to create tolerant democracies. Countries do feel threatened and are banding together to defend themselves better from Anglo-American aggression.

So in Iraq, Syria allowed Al-Qaeda operatives to cross the border. Iran has supported extremist Shia there. The purpose of the terrorism in Iraq is absolutely
simple: carnage, causing sectarian hatred, leading to civil war.

That’s putting the cart before the horse don’t you think? Blair, it was you’re invasion of Iraq that caused the carnage, the sectarian strife and the civil war. None of that would have happened if you hadn’t invaded. Saddam was the lesser of many evils you have unleashed on that country.
However, there was one cause which, the world over, unites Islam, one issue that even the most westernised Muslims find unjust and, perhaps worse, humiliating: Palestine. Here a moderate leadership was squeezed between its own inability to control the radical elements and the political stagnation of the peace process. When Prime Minister Sharon took the brave step of disengagement from Gaza, it could have been and should have been the opportunity to re-start the process. But the squeeze was too great and as ever because these processes never stay still, instead of moving forward, it fell back. Hamas won the election. Even then, had moderate elements in Hamas been able to show progress, the situation might have been saved. But they couldn't.
Yes Tony, Palestine, and still you are misinterpreting it. Here a moderate leadership was squeezed by a vicious and brutal occupier supported by a superpower, with carte blanche do precisely what it pleased with total impunity and any nation or group trying to help labelled “terrorist” or “extremist”. The crushing daily humiliation and suffering on that population and no help at all from you caused them to vote in Hamas. The moderate element in Hamas vanished when you and your master ensured that all funding was cut off from them.
So the opportunity passed to Reactionary Islam and they seized it: first in Gaza, then in Lebanon. They knew what would happen. Their terrorism would provoke massive retaliation by Israel. Within days, the world would forget the original provocation and be shocked by the retaliation. They want to trap the Moderates between support for America and an Arab street furious at what they see nightly on their television. This is what has happened.
Wrong again, their retaliation provoked massive terrorism from Israel, and no one except you and the people you can dupe have forgotten the original provocation. They don’t want to trap anybody, they want to be free, and they want their land back. What they see on their television is real; Israel backed by you and bush bombing civilians …again. Of course they are furious.
For them, what is vital is that the struggle is defined in their terms: Islam versus the West; that instead of Muslims seeing this as about democracy versus dictatorship, they see only the bombs and the brutality of war, and sent from Israel.
It’s not about Islam, religion becomes an excuse (just as it does in America). It’s about occupation and freedom to decide one’s own destiny.

In this way, they hope that the arc of extremism that now stretches across the region, will sweep away the fledgling but faltering steps Modern Islam wants to take into the future.

I can’t help remembering that the “arc of extremism” you mention has the same shape as what historians call the “fertile crescent”. Is that just a coincidence? Perhaps if you left them alone they might find an easier path to democracy, because you’re interference certainly has the opposite effect.
To turn all of this around requires us first to perceive the nature of the struggle we are fighting and secondly to have a realistic strategy to win it. At present we are challenged on both fronts.
To turn this around requires you to stop what you’re doing and get out. The more you interfere the worse it gets. Can’t you see that?
As to the first, it is almost incredible to me that so much of Western opinion appears to buy the idea that the emergence of this global terrorism is somehow our fault. For a start, it is indeed global. No-one who ever half bothers to look at the spread and range of activity related to this terrorism can fail to see its presence in virtually every major nation in the world. It is directed at the United States and its allies, of course. But it is also directed at nations who could not conceivably be said to be allies of the West. It is also rubbish to suggest that it is the product of poverty. It is true it will use the cause of poverty. But its fanatics are hardly the champions of economic development. It is based on religious extremism. That is the fact. And not any religious extremism; but a specifically Muslim version.
Yes it is you’re fault, everyone knows that and if you don’t it is either because you are stupid, in denial or just lying again. It is global because, as you like to say, “We live in a globalised world”. Did you really think that globalisation was just about commerce? Do you think it’s a coincidence that the United States is in every major nation of the world? Just because these fanatics, as you call them, are not the champions of economic development doesn’t mean that you are either. And no, it is not just Muslim extremism. What country is banning stem cell research for religious reasons? Which country is going out of its way to prevent women from choosing whether or not to have children? Which country teaches creationism as if it was scientific fact? And which American president believes in all that and also the end-of-days theocracy with the rapture? Bush makes Mahmoud Ahmadinejad look sane.
What it is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan is not about those countries' liberation from US occupation. It is actually the only reason for the continuing presence of our troops. And it is they not us who are doing the slaughter of the innocent and doing it deliberately.
It is exactly about liberation from US occupation. You went in, created chaos and then say that you have to stay there because it is chaos. It is they and you doing the slaughter of the innocent, but mostly you, and you’re bombing campaigns are no accident.
Its purpose is explicitly to prevent those countries becoming democracies and not "Western style" democracies, any sort of democracy. It is to prevent Palestine living side by side with Israel; not to fight for the coming into being of a Palestinian State, but for the going out of being, of an Israeli State. It is not wanting Muslim countries to modernise but to retreat into governance by a semi-feudal religious oligarchy.
It is the west that prevents those countries becoming democracies. Iran was once a democracy until American and British interference removed the Prime Minister. Saudi Arabia is under no pressure from you to be democratic, nor is Kuwait. Palestinians elected their government and you punished them for it. Lebanon is a struggling democracy and you are standing by as it is snuffed out. It will probably turn into a semi-feudal religious oligarchy now.
Yet despite all of this, which I consider virtually obvious, we look at the bloodshed in Iraq and say that's a reason for leaving; we listen to the propaganda that tells us its all because of our suppression of Muslims and have parts of our opinion seriously believing that if we only got out of Iraq and Afghanistan, it would all stop.
No, it probably won’t all stop if you leave the damage is done and I fear its irreparable.
And most contemporaneously, and in some ways most perniciously, a very large and, I fear, growing part of our opinion looks at Israel, and thinks we pay too great a price for supporting it and sympathises with Muslim opinion that condemns it. Absent from so much of the coverage, is any understanding of the Israeli predicament.
Israel should be condemned. Not condemning it shows a double standard. If Iran behaved like Israel would you justify it? No, I didn’t think so. How many UN resolutions has Israel ignored with impunity? How many did Iraq ignore?

I, and any halfway sentient human being, regards the loss of civilian life in Lebanon as unacceptable, grieves for that nation, is sickened by its plight and wants the war to stop now. But just for a moment, put yourself in Israel's place. It has a crisis in Gaza, sparked by the kidnap of a solider by Hamas. Suddenly, without warning, Hizbollah who have been continuing to operate in Southern Lebanon for two years in defiance of UN Resolution 1559, cross the UN blue line, kill eight Israeli soldiers and kidnap two more. They then fire rockets indiscriminately at the civilian population in Northern Israel.

You obviously don’t find the loss of civilian life so unacceptable that you are calling for an immediate ceasefire as the rest of the world does. Israel created the crisis in Gaza. The day before the “kidnap” of the Israeli soldier, Israel “kidnapped” Palestinians. It was even reported in the news albeit briefly before the story mysteriously vanished. Here it is.

Hizbollah gets their weapons from Iran. Iran are now also financing militant elements in Hamas. Iran's President has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map". And he's trying to acquire a nuclear weapon. Just to complete the picture, Israel's main neighbour along its eastern flank is Syria who support Hizbollah and house the hardline leaders of Hamas.

And you’re point is? America supplies the bombs that are dropped on Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, and, as you know, they go through British airports.
It's not exactly a situation conducive to a feeling of security is it?
No, it certainly is not. Stop supplying weapons to terrorists.
But the central point is this. In the end, even the issue of Israel is just part of the same, wider struggle for the soul of the region. If we recognised this struggle for what it truly is, we would be at least along the first steps of the path to winning it. But a vast part of the Western opinion is not remotely near this yet.
Yes, the vast part of the Western opinion differs from yours, what does that tell you? Is it always the case that you are right and everyone else is wrong?
Whatever the outward manifestation at any one time - in Lebanon, in Gaza, in Iraq and add to that in Afghanistan, in Kashmir, in a host of other nations including now some in Africa - it is a global fight about global values; it is about modernisation, within Islam and outside of it; it is about whether our value system can be shown to be sufficiently robust, true, principled and appealing that it beats theirs. Islamist extremism's whole strategy is based on a presumed sense of grievance that can motivate people to divide against each other. Our answer has to be a set of values strong enough to unite people with each other.
The longer you stay in power the worse it seems to get, funny that. It is not a global fight against global values. That’s how you choose to spin it for your own agenda. It is lots of regional issues with similar causes. And, believe me, your values are no where near robust enough to beat the problems. It has come to our attention that you are not exactly “whiter than white”. Values will eventually help solve the problem, but not yours.
This is not just about security or military tactics. It is about hearts and minds about inspiring people, persuading them, showing them what our values at their best stand for.
The hearts and minds are blown all over the streets of Qana and Fallujah. Those that survive will remember Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Very inspiring eh?
Just to state it in these terms, is to underline how much we have to do. Convincing our own opinion of the nature of the battle is hard enough. But we then have to empower Moderate, Mainstream Islam to defeat Reactionary Islam. And because so much focus is now, world-wide on this issue, it is becoming itself a kind of surrogate for all the other issues the rest of the world has with the West. In other words, fail on this and across the range, everything gets harder.
It fails because it is based on falsehoods. Not even you can fool all the people all of the time. You are not empowering Moderate Mainstream Islam, you are scaring it.

Why are we not yet succeeding? Because we are not being bold enough, consistent enough, thorough enough, in fighting for the values we believe in.

You are not succeeding because you are utterly wrong. No amount of boldness, consistency, thoroughness, is going to help. Again, it’s your values that are flawed and in your arrogance you believe that you are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
We start this battle with some self-evident challenges. Iraq's political process has worked in an extraordinary way. But the continued sectarian bloodshed is appalling: and threatens its progress deeply. In Afghanistan, the Taleban are making a determined effort to return and using the drugs trade a front. Years of anti-Israeli and therefore anti-American teaching and propaganda has left the Arab street often wildly divorced from the practical politics of their governments. Iran and, to a lesser extent, Syria are a constant source of de-stabilisation and reaction. The purpose of terrorism - whether in Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon or Palestine is never just the terrorist act itself. It is to use the act to trigger a chain reaction, to expunge any willingness to negotiate or compromise. Unfortunately it frequently works, as we know from our own experience in Northern Ireland, though thankfully the huge progress made in the last decade there, shows that it can also be overcome.
You are repeating yourself Blair. All your language is dressed in words like “battle”. It’s a dead giveaway. You’ll be talking about crusades next if you’re not careful. What is extraordinary about Iraq’s political process is that it has survived despite you not because of you, but I might be speaking too soon. The drugs trade in Afghanistan has got worse since the “defeat” of the Taliban. And just give up talking about Israel and Palestine until you are prepared to level equal criticism at Israel. I’m sure Lord Levy won’t mind.
So, short-term, we can't say we are winning. But, there are many reasons for long-term optimism. Across the Middle East, there is a process of modernisation as well as reaction. It is unnoticed but it is there: in the UAE; in Bahrain; in Kuwait; in Qatar. In Egypt, there is debate about the speed of change but not about its direction. In Libya and Algeria, there is both greater stability and a gradual but significant opening up.
In the short-term you are losing. In the long-term you or Bush won’t be around to screw things up any more than you already have. The way things are going there will be a series of revolutions among your Middle Eastern allies and things may well get significantly worse.

Most of all, there is one incontrovertible truth that should give us hope. In Iraq, in Afghanistan, and of course in the Lebanon, any time that people are permitted a chance to embrace democracy, they do so. The lie - that democracy, the rule of law, human rights are Western concepts, alien to Islam - has been exposed. In countries as disparate as Turkey and Indonesia, there is an emerging strength in Moderate Islam that should greatly encourage us.

Isn’t that so typical of Blairism, to spout a truism as though everyone was saying the opposite? Of course the Middle East is able to embrace democracy, if only you would let it. Lead by example not by bombing. British democracy evolved over years, we weren’t bombed into it.
So the struggle is finely poised. The question is: how do we empower the moderates to defeat the extremists?
By resigning, you are part of the problem and an extremist.
First, naturally, we should support, nurture, build strong alliances with all those in the Middle East who are on the modernising path.
You mean in places like Lebanon… Oops!
Secondly, we need, as President Bush said on Friday, to re-energise the MEPP between Israel and Palestine; and we need to do it in a dramatic and profound manner.
When has Bush done anything to help the MEPP? Oh, yes he made some noises about a Palestinian state and then said Israel could keep its settlements. He then vetoed any attempt to stop a wall being driven from what’s left of Palestinian land. Solving the problem in a dramatic and profound manner would be to have a process not run by Zionists. You wouldn't put a fox in charge of a chicken coup, would you?
I want to explain why I think this issue is so utterly fundamental to all we are trying to do. I know it can be very irritating for Israel to be told that this issue is of cardinal importance, as if it is on their shoulders that the weight of the troubles of the region should always fall. I know also their fear that in our anxiety for wider reasons to secure a settlement, we sacrifice the vital interests of Israel.
The vital interests of Israel being: the extermination of the Palestinians, the theft of their land and hegemony over all its neighbours as the only nuclear power in the region. A racist Zionist state controlling all the surrounding Muslim states.
Let me make it clear. I would never put Israel's security at risk.
Funnily enough I never doubted it.
Instead I want, what we all now acknowledge we need: a two state solution. The Palestinian State must be independent, viable but also democratic and not threaten Israel's safety.
Except that it can’t be because Israel continues to swallow up the West Bank and you have just said that you would never put Israel’s security at risk. So far we have not heard a word of criticism towards Israel, have we Blair?

This is what the majority of Israelis and Palestinians want.

If that was true then they would have it.
Its significance for the broader issue of the Middle East and for the battle within Islam, is this. The real impact of a settlement is more than correcting the plight of the Palestinians. It is that such a settlement would be the living, tangible, visible proof that the region and therefore the world can accommodate different faiths and cultures, even those who have been in vehement opposition to each other. It is, in other words, the total and complete rejection of the case of Reactionary Islam. It destroys not just their most effective rallying call, it fatally undermines their basic ideology.
Err what about reactionary Zionism that will never allow it to happen. You know the old ‘put the MEPP in formaldehyde’ trick.

And, for sure, it empowers Moderate, Mainstream Islam enormously. They are able to point to progress as demonstration that their allies, ie us, are even-handed not selective, do care about justice for Muslims as much as Christians or Jews.

There is just one problem with that. You are not even-handed, you are selective and don’t care about justice full stop.
But, and it is a big 'but', this progress will not happen unless we change radically our degree of focus, effort and engagement, especially with the Palestinian side. In this the active leadership of the US is essential but so also is the participation of Europe, of Russia and of the UN. We need relentlessly, vigorously, to put a viable Palestinian Government on its feet, to offer a vision of how the Roadmap to final status negotiation can happen and then pursue it, week in, week out, 'til its done. Nothing else will do. Nothing else is more important to the success of our foreign policy.
No Blair, it won’t. But who is it who sidelines Europe, the Russians and the UN? You have just destroyed one Palestinian Government, they might be rather cautious to form another one now that they know your attitude to democracy. Your foreign policy has been a dismal failure. You and your foreign policy have as much credibility as the Roadmap that we all know Israel will never allow.
Third, we need to see Iraq through its crisis and out to the place its people want: a non-sectarian, democratic state. The Iraqi and Afghan fight for democracy is our fight. Same values. Same enemy. Victory for them is victory for us all.
Too bad that what your foreign policy created in Iraq, was, in fact, a sectarian civil war then. How likely do you think it is that Iraqis and Afghans are going to buy cheap soundbites after what they have experienced? Some Americans may buy that crap but no one else will.

Fourth, we need to make clear to Syria and Iran that there is a choice: come in to the international community and play by the same rules as the rest of us; or be confronted. Their support of terrorism, their deliberate export of instability, their desire to see wrecked the democratic prospect in Iraq, is utterly unjustifiable, dangerous and wrong. If they keep raising the stakes, they will find they have miscalculated.

Syria and Iran are doing no more than you are doing. If their export of instability is so “utterly unjustifiable” then why are you doing the same? Threats won’t help here. You need to talk to Iran and Syria. You don’t need me to tell you just how many problems Iran will give you if you try to confront it. They will play havoc with oil prices, spread even more chaos than you have in southern Iraq, and that’s before a war starts. Confront Syria and you risk consequences from Egypt which is very unstable at the moment.
From the above it is clear that from now on, we need a whole strategy for the Middle East. If we are faced with an arc of extremism, we need a corresponding arc of moderation and reconciliation. Each part is linked. Progress between Israel and Palestine affects Iraq. Progress in Iraq affects democracy in the region. Progress for Moderate, Mainstream Islam anywhere puts Reactionary Islam on the defensive everywhere. But none of it happens unless in each individual part the necessary energy and commitment is displayed not fitfully, but continuously.
What you need is a completely new strategy, and new people to carry it through. Everything you have done has failed. Everything you have done to try and correct the failure has made matters worse. You won’t make any progress in Iraq. Iraq is finished as a country. Your killing spree has ended Moderate Mainstream Islam in the region.
I said at the outset that the result of this struggle had effects wider than the region itself. Plainly that applies to our own security. This Global Islamist terrorism began in the Middle East. Sort the Middle East and it will inexorably decline. The read-across, for example, from the region to the Muslim communities in Europe is almost instant.
I thought you said that 7/7 had nothing at all to do with the war in Iraq. What brought on the change of heart? When you learn to show even-handedness both in the Middle East and at home then things might improve, but you are too enslaved to an American agenda for that.
But there is a less obvious sense in which the outcome determines the success of our wider world-view. For me, a victory for the moderates means an Islam that is open: open to globalisation, open to working with others of different faiths, open to alliances with other nations.
Open to exploitation by America and Britain you mean.
In this way, this struggle is in fact part of a far wider debate.
Here we go, your vision of the future.
Though Left and Right still matter in politics, the increasing divide today is between open and closed. Is the answer to globalisation, protectionism or free trade?
That’s part of the problem. You abandoned the left in favour of greed and exploitation.
Is the answer to the pressure of mass migration, managed immigration or closed borders?
If you hadn’t wrecked the rest of the world they wouldn’t be trying to get here in such numbers.
Is the answer to global security threats, isolationism or engagement?
In the case of you and Bush, isolation would be best until someone competent comes along.
Those are very big questions for US and for Europe.
It’s quite easy really.
Without hesitation, I am on the open side of the argument. The way for us to handle the challenge of globalisation, is to compete better, more intelligently, more flexibly. We have to give our people confidence we can compete. See competition as a threat and we are already on the way to losing.
Hmm we’re back to the problem of your ability to display intelligence and flexibility. I’m afraid you just don’t inspire confidence, and by the way, you’ve already lost. Your international credibility is slightly above zero.
Immigration is the toughest issue in Europe right now and you know something of it here in California. People get scared of it for understandable reasons. It needs to be controlled. There have to be rules. Many of the Conventions dealing with it post WWII are out of date. All that is true. But, properly managed, immigrants give a country dynamism, drive, new ideas as well as new blood.
That’s why in America they are building a huge wall across the Mexican frontier, and in Britain you don’t even know how many illegal immigrants there are. Unless of course they are ex-prisoners who should have been deported.
And as for isolationism, that is a perennial risk in the US and EU policy. My point here is very simple: global terrorism means we can't opt-out even if we wanted to. The world is inter-dependent. To be engaged is only modern realpolitik.
I think the world has had enough of your realpolitik. You talk about the dangers of isolation. You have isolated Britain from Europe and the rest of the world. America is seen as a pariah state, as is Israel. Three countries against everyone else, what an achievement!

But we only win people to these positions if our policy is not just about interests but about values, not just about what is necessary but about what is right.

Yeah right, everyone is flocking to your values… dream on.
Which brings me to my final reflection about US policy. My advice is: always be in the lead, always at the forefront, always engaged in building alliances, in reaching out, in showing that whereas unilateral action can never be ruled out, it is not the preference.
I’m sure they will be doing just that now that you’ve told them to.
How we get a sensible, balanced but effective framework to tackle climate change after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012 should be an American priority.
The American priority is to get its hands on the world’s remaining oil supplies and blackmail the rest of the world. Bush wouldn’t believe in climate change if California caught fire year after year and hurricanes took out large cities… Oh, it’s already happened.
America wants a low-carbon economy; it is investing heavily in clean technology; it needs China and India to grow substantially. The world is ready for a new start here. Lead it.
The growth of China, India and pretty much everywhere else is unsustainable. Resources are limited and we will be fighting over them in no time unless another system is found.

The same is true for the WTO talks, now precariously in the balance; or for Africa, whose poverty is shameful.

And guess who sabotaged the WTO talks? Not “precariously in the balance”… wrecked!

If we are championing the cause of development in Africa, it is right in itself but it is also sending the message of moral purpose, that reinforces our value system as credible in all other aspects of policy.

I wonder how many times you’ve used the word “value” so far. Hmm, 19 times, I bet that’s more than the words “peace” or “immediate” or “ceasefire”.
It serves one other objective. There is a risk that the world, after the Cold War, goes back to a global policy based on spheres of influence. Think ahead. Think China, within 20 or 30 years, surely the world's other super-power. Think Russia and its precious energy reserves. Think India. I believe all of these great emerging powers want a benign relationship with the West. But I also believe that the stronger and more appealing our world-view is, the more it is seen as based not just on power but on justice, the easier it will be for us to shape the future in which Europe and the US will no longer, economically or politically, be transcendant. Long before then, we want Moderate, Mainstream Islam to triumph over Reactionary Islam.
We are already in a global situation based on spheres of influence, we always were. That’s why Americans are not marching into North Korea, or doing anything about Chechnya. India and China already have relationships with the West. The longer the Bush/Blair axis lasts, the less appealing our world-view is, with both power and justice waning. Unless that axis is dismantled, Reactionary Islam will triumph.

That is why I say this struggle is one about values. Our values are worth struggling for. They represent humanity's progress throughout the ages and at each point we have had to fight for them and defend them. As a new age beckons, it is time to fight for them again.

21 uses of the word “values” and still no credible explanation as to what you mean. 10 uses of the word “fight”, 11 uses of the word “battle” and 3 uses of the word “peace”.
I’m sure the speech went down a storm.

Tags: Blair, Lebanon, Palestine, Isreael, UK Politics, US Politics

The New Terror Alert System

2006-07-11T12:26:00.000+01:00

John Reid has announced that a new terror warning system is to be launched. Code-named Contest, the new system will be viewable on the Home Office and MI5 websites. The new simplified system is part of the government's counter-terrorist strategy.

It is a sensible idea and was one of the recommendations made by the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) in the wake of the London bombings last year. The Current seven-tier system will be replaced with five levels.

Moderate

Substantial

Severe

Critical

However, with the Government's habit of playing politics with terror alerts (as also happens frequently in the USA), it is unlikely that the level will show anything safer than Severe.

The home secretary revealed that the UK has been on a "severe general" level since August last year, equating to "severe" on the new scale.
He defined severe as the threat of a terrorist attack being "highly likely".
Source

Of course, when the country really was under attack on July 7 last year the threat level had been reduced from "severe general" to "substantial" just beforehand despite the security services being aware of plots. So quite how useful this new system will be is still a mystery.

Tags: Terrorism

Two blows against illegal legislation

2006-06-30T01:51:00.000+01:00

The governments of both Britain and America were dealt blows from their respective judiciaries yesterday. In Britain the High Court Judge Mr Justice Sullivan ruled that Government’s control orders were unlawful and breached Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), prompting John Denham the chairman of the Home Affairs Committee to speak of a looming constitutional crisis.

"There is a constitutional crisis emerging here I think about the way in which the judges and the courts are approaching these issues.

"When many of us, as I did, supported the Human Rights Act and indeed still support it, we thought that on great matters of state of this sort, if the elected Parliament had taken a careful view of what was in the wider public interest that would be given considerable weight by the courts.

"That doesn’t seem to be what’s happening at the moment and that’s why I don’t think it’s over the top to talk about an emerging constitutional crisis.

"We have got to have a serious discussion between law makers in Parliament, ministers and judges about the way through here. Before we get into too big a conflict, sensible people have got to get round the table and explore the way in which this is going to be handled."
Source

The control orders were brought in after the imprisonment of suspected terrorists without charge or access to the evidence against them was also ruled to be illegal. For the second time in as many weeks, a battle of wills has erupted between the Government and the judiciary with an angry John Reid has saying that the Government will now appeal the ruling. The appeal hearing next Monday will be interesting. If the Government loses, much of its anti-terror policy will be in shreds.

Article 5 of the ECHR is quite clear, it prohibits indefinite detention without trial. The Government will no doubt argue that the six foreigners affected by the control orders were not actually behind bars. However, all but one of them had to leave their homes and live in special Home Office-approved accommodation which they were required to remain in for 18 hours a day; they were also electronically tagged, and were unable to communicate with anyone without Home Office permission. Mr Justice Sullivan called this "the antithesis of liberty and equivalent to imprisonment".

What John Denham is calling a “crisis” is really just the judiciary doing its job and pointing out that it is the Government that is breaking the law. Michael Mansfield QC said:

"We are not on the verge of a constitutional crisis; what we are on the verge of is recognising at long last that the courts are performing the role they were always there to do.

"Although the government has been elected, the elected democracy has put in place a judiciary whose job it is to monitor the extent to which legislation is incompatible with human rights.

"That's exactly what the judges are doing and as soon as they do their job then in comes the government and says 'oh we don't like this, we wish to lock up people we think are suspects and subversive'.

"We can't tolerate a society in which a government is allowed that view untrammelled."
Source

While some politicians may use Mr Justice Sullivan's ruling as an excuse for abandoning the ECHR (which British lawyers and civil servants played a large part in drafting), the root of the problem is Tony Blair’s aversion to any legal system which differs from his own idea of "speedy, simple summary justice" which has little room for niceties such as evidence and the presumption of innocence and sees the role of judges as bureaucrats to rubber-stamp the decisions of the Government and the police.
His talk of rebalancing the justice system in favour of victims of crime is completely at odds with the idea of everyone being equal under the law and just panders to the unelected Murdoch tabloids which seem to be the real power in the country.

Across the Atlantic George Bush received a similar blow to his plans to use military tribunals to try the detainees at the Guantanamo gulag. The US Supreme Court has ruled that the military tribunals due to be held at the camp which were suspended after three detainees committed suicide are illegal. The ruling came after Salim Ahmed Hamdan, an inmate accused of being Osama Bin Laden’s driver challenged Bush’s right to try him under a military tribunal without the protections afforded military prisoners under the Geneva Conventions or US courts.

The US supreme court ruled today that the US president, George Bush, overstepped his authority in creating military war crimes trials for detainees at Guantánamo Bay.

In a rebuke to the Bush administration, Justice John Paul Stevens said the proposed trials were illegal under US law and Geneva conventions.

[…]

Justice Anthony M Kennedy, regarded as a moderate conservative, joined the court's liberal members in most of the ruling against the Bush administration.

"Trial by military commission raises separation-of-powers concerns of the highest order," Mr Kennedy wrote in his opinion.

"Concentration of power [in the executive branch] puts personal liberty in peril of arbitrary action by officials, an incursion the constitution's three-part system is designed to avoid."
Source

The rebuke echoes that given almost simultaneously to Tony Blair by the British High Court. The US ruling does not mean that Guantanamo will close just yet, but it does mean that the day of its eventual closure has been brought forward and that the detainees will either have to be given a fair trial or be released. It also puts limits on the power of the President to do as he pleases in a time of war.

By declaring the Guantanamo Bay military tribunals illegal, the U.S. Supreme Court put fresh curbs on President George W. Bush’s powers in the war on terrorism and gave ammunition to those demanding the prison be closed.

[…]

"The administration was asserting incredibly broad, essentially plenary, executive authority in this very broadly and very nebulously defined context of the war on terror," said retired Air Force lawyer, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Walker. "This is nothing but a slap in the face of the administration."
Source

So the two world leaders who continuously wax lyrical about the rule of law have both been found to be flouting it by their own judiciaries. “Shoulder to shoulder” indeed.

Tags: Terrorism, Bush, Blair, Civil Liberties

Keystone cops demonstrate their anti-terror skills

2006-06-26T19:19:00.000+01:00

You might think that highly sensitive information about bomb plots and suspects under surveillance would be treated with greater care than this:

Anti-terrorist police have been ordered to revamp security procedures after a bag containing details of bomb plots and suspects identified for surveillance was lost in the street.
The Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, has imposed strict new rules on the carrying of sensitive material after files were accidentally lost in a rucksack in south-east London. Sources yesterday told the Guardian the files held important information and that anti-terrorist officers were desperate to get them back before they fell into the wrong hands.
The Home Office and the home secretary, John Reid, are being kept informed. The officer responsible for the mistake has been moved to other duties.
Scotland Yard said: "An internal inquiry has been carried out to ascertain the full circumstances around the loss of documents. We take incidents of this nature very seriously. We have also carried out an urgent review of how sensitive information is handled by officers. A number of changes have been made to ensure we minimise the risk of such incidents in future."
Source

So just what are these new procedures and what are they calling the initiative, Operation Stable Door? These are the people we trust to protect us from terrorism. After the botched Forest Gate raid, two innocent people shot, one of them fatally and the stream of revelations now emerging from the July 7 London bombings. I think we are entitled to ask if they are really up to the job.

Tags: Terrorism, UK Police

Yet another reason for an inquiry into the July 7 London Bombings

2006-06-24T16:36:00.000+01:00

As if we needed another reason for an inquiry into the most serious attack on UK territory since Lockerbie bombing and the first suicide bombings in Western Europe.

The Guardian, however, provides us with one (via Blairwatch).

A computer expert who worked alongside two of the July 7 bombers claims today that he tried to warn the police about their activities almost two years before the suicide attacks.

Speaking for the first time about his work, Martin Gilbertson, 45, says he produced anti-western propaganda videos, secured websites and encrypted emails for Muslims who were involved in an Islamic bookshop and a youth centre attended by bombers Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer. Mr Gilbertson was also employed to establish firewalls that would safeguard both places from outside interference.

By October 2003, he says he was so alarmed by what he was producing in Beeston, West Yorkshire that he went to the local Holbeck police station, saying he had material and names he wanted to deliver to anti-terrorist officers. He was told to post his material, and did so, to West Yorkshire police headquarters in Wakefield. The package contained DVD material he had compiled for circulation by the bookshop, a list of names including Khan and Tanweer and a covering letter giving a contact telephone number.

He claims he heard nothing until he was interviewed three times by two officers from the Metropolitan police, having contacted them after the explosions.
Source

There is also an interview with the computer expert, Martin Gilbertson in the same newspaper. The Government has consistently refused to hold a public inquiry into the bombings of July 7 last year using the pathetic excuses that such an inquiry would use up too many resources and that the ‘narrative’(pdf), the ISC report (pdf) and the London Assembly's July 7 review committee report (pdf) give us all the information we need. They don’t, they merely give us small vignettes into the tragedy, and worse still, they contradict and conflict with each other thus raising even more questions rather than actually answering any. None of these reports go into any great detail about why the bombings happened; the ‘narrative’ is merely a write-up of the sequence of events, the ISC report is very brief and clears the security and intelligence community of any failures, and the London Assembly report (the only one to take testimony from the victims) focuses on the response of the emergency services.

Clearly there is more that we need to learn in order to be better able to prevent a repetition of July 7. The ISC report (the only report to touch upon the causes of the bombing, albeit very briefly) said:
"…there were no culpable failures by the security and intelligence Agencies"
Today’s news makes a mockery of that statement. Nor is it the only example of major intelligence failings and the inadequacy of the ISC report. We have, for example, the story that intelligence officers withheld from MPs the fact they had bugged Mohammad Sidique Khan and had recordings of him planning his attack. We have also been told that intelligence agencies were warned by their US counterparts about Kahn who was under CIA surveillance. And yet the ISC report says that:
“…more resources generally in the UK, might have alerted the Agencies to the intentions of the 7 July group.”
The UK had all the resources it needed. What was missing was the competence to analyse and follow up the information that the security services already had. This, I suspect, is one of the main reasons behind the Government’s reluctance to hold an inquiry, along with the fear that British foreign policy will be held up to be a major factor in the causes of the attack.

For more information on this story I strongly recommend reading Rachel’s latest post which covers this in great detail and suggests that there is much more information due to come out shortly.

And once again I implore readers who haven’t already done so to sign the petition calling for an inquiry into the London bombings (it doesn't matter where you are from, London is a cosmopolitan city and people of all nationalities were affected) and to write to their MPs. The pressure is mounting and by keeping it up we may eventually get some real answers that will help us gain a greater degree of safety than the Government is currently able to provide.

*UPDATE*
It seems Rachel was right, more information is coming out. We are now learning that Mohammad Sidique Khan’s car had a police bugging device in it.

An electronic tracking device of the type used by police to monitor suspected terrorists was recovered from a car belonging to the leader of the London suicide bombers in the days following July 7, a senior security official has claimed.
Source

I wonder how many more damaging revelations will emerge in the coming days and at what point the Government will change its mind an hold the inquiry that the people who elected it are demanding.

Tags: Terrorism, July 7, London Bombings, 7/7

Another report, more damning information and still no inquiry into 7/7

2006-06-05T13:19:00.000+01:00

The London Assembly's July 7 review committee released its report into the response of the emergency services on the day of last year’s London bombings. As expected it is pretty damning and highlights numerous deficiencies in the emergency services despite many acts of bravery from rescuers, London Underground staff and victims. The 151 page report, the longest and most detailed yet can be downloaded from here.

This report focuses almost entirely on the responses of the emergency services that day unlike the other reports which look into the sequence of events and the intelligence failings. It is also the only report that took testimonies from some of the survivors.

The London Assembly report found that communications within and between the emergency services failed on the day, thousands of survivors were left to fend for themselves and there was a lack of basic medical supplies.

The committee said that it was "unacceptable" that the emergency services were still unable to communicate by radio when underground. There was also an over-reliance on the mobile phone network, it said.

But the most striking failure identified by the committee was the lack of planning to care for people who survived or were traumatised by the bombings.

The report revealed that as many as 6,000 people were likely to have been severely psychologically affected by the explosions but that the majority were still not known to the authorities or part of any support network. This was "completely unacceptable", the report said.
Source

This report was not meant to be a substitute for the full public inquiry that is being demanded by so many people and is being denied to us by a government that seems to be terrified at what a public inquiry might find. However, this report will give the Government plenty to think about as the calls for a proper inquiry grow. The reason a public inquiry is so important is so the lessons of 7/7 can be learned and the chances of further attacks be minimised.

Damian Hockney, leader of the One London Party and a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority said: "We called for a public inquiry immediately after the attacks, and today's report only reinforces the need for one.

"It must look at every aspect of this tragic event, as lack of information inevitably leads to an evaporation of goodwill towards those public services which were under severe stress dealing with the events of July 2005.

"The inclination of the Government towards secrecy should be avoided as it is counter-productive. The Home Secretary's excuse that a public inquiry would be too expensive is simply not credible."

One London's Peter Hulme-Cross, one of the co-authors of the report added: "Page after page of this report gives examples of poor planning and lack of foresight on the part of the emergency services.
"What comes across time and again from survivors' testimony is the only thing that saved 7/7 from being far worse was individual Londoners acting on their own initiative."
Source

If you haven’t already done so, please sign this petition calling for a public inquiry ino the London Bombings.

Tags: London Bombings, 7/7

British Government slammed by Amnesty International

2006-05-24T04:26:00.000+01:00

The British Government has been accused by Amnesty International of forcing through legislation which causes "serious human rights violations" using the war on terror as an excuse.

The charity condemned Tony Blair for introducing "control orders" for terror suspects. It said yesterday that the system of house arrest was "tantamount to the executive 'charging', 'trying' and 'sentencing' a person" without a fair trial.
"The Government continued to erode fundamental human rights, the rule of law and independence of the judiciary," Amnesty said in the UK section of its annual report.
The report criticised the new Terrorism Act - which increased the maximum time police can detain terror suspects without charge from 14 to 28 days - for its "sweeping and vague" provisions.
Independent article. Download as a pdf here.

According to Amnesty International's UK director, Kate Allen, this is the first time the UK has not been congratulated by the charity for its work on torture. The report also criticised Britain and America for their "grave" abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq over 10,000 people have had their human rights breached by being interned without charge by American and British forces. Amnesty's secretary general, Irene Kahn said that:

"Governments ... sacrificed principles in the name of the 'war on terror' and turned a blind eye to massive human rights violations. The world has paid a heavy price in terms of erosion of fundamental principles and the enormous damage done to the lives of ordinary people... When the powerful are too arrogant to review and reassess their strategies, the heaviest price is paid by the poor and powerless, ordinary Iraqi women, men and children"

She also said that Tony Blair's "rebalancing" of rights to give priority to the community over individuals was an attempt to divert attention away from human rights abuses.

It really instills a sense of pride in Britain doesn't it?

Tags: Blair, Torture, Human Rights