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A very brief DPRK update

Thursday, January 07, 2010
See, all the old favourites are emerging from the wainscotting now.

"The ABC of the United States reported that the CIA set up and operated two secret prisons in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, and in its vicinity in 2004 and 2005 for the purpose of confining and interrogating Al-Qaeda related and other terrorists...

...All forms of torture such as no-sleep torture, sex torture and hairy caterpillar torture are being practiced against prisoners in the U.S. overseas secret prisons, stunning the world people".

Can't say that I am that enthused by the idea of having caterpillars, even bald ones, crawling on me, but I think worse things have been known.

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posted by Croydonian

Politics Home's Lockerbie poll

Monday, August 24, 2009
Those nice people at Politics Home have polled the nation on the Megrahi decision, and here are the headline figures, by party, as to approval or disapproval of his early release:


It is rather encouraging that supoprt or otherwise conforms, roughly to the pattern one would expect, with Tories the least pleased, and LDs the nearest to being gruntled.

Unfortunately there is no published detail on what Scottish, as opposed to UK, voters think about the decision and the impact on Salmond's merry band north of the border.

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posted by Croydonian

You are a terrorist

Wednesday, June 24, 2009
An excellent animation from some Germans peeved about the assault on their liberties by the state:



Further detail, in German, here.

Remind you of anywhere closer to home?

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posted by Croydonian

Curious party endorsement o' the day

Friday, May 29, 2009
The name Carlos the Jacakal, the nom de guerre of Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, might ring a bell or two with other greybeards. For younger readers, he was a 70s equivalent of Osama Bin Laden, notoriety-wise, back in the 1970s. Wikipedia background here.

Anyway, he has a fairly extensive rap sheet, and is currently cooling his heels in the Clairvaux Big House in Northern France, as a thank you for his acolytes planting bombs on TGV trains which killed four and injured many more.

He has come out for Dieudonné's Anti-Zionist list thus:

"Count on my sumbolic vote. Onwards to Strasbourg with your free voices. I salute Comrade Dieudonné".

And Dieudonné's lot replied thus: "[we] thank Comrade Illich Ramirez Sanchez AKA Carlos for his support".

Nice. I wonder if fraternal greetings from the Taliban or Al Qaeda would be as welcome, presumably yes.

Meanwhile, the Party of European Socialists has come up with a list of '11 terrible candidates' for the EU elections, and while it finds a place for Nick Gr*ffin, Dieudonné does not make the cut.

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posted by Croydonian

How art the mighty fallen. Or not, as the case may be

Friday, May 22, 2009
From Lords Hansard:

Lord Laird:To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether the IRA are involved in activity involving (a) fuel, (b) alcohol, (c) tobacco, (d) livestock, (e) dumping, and (f) DVDs and CDs.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: The most recent assessment is contained in the IMC's 21st report, published on 7 May. This indicates that the PIRA is not involved in illegal activity.

I can just imagine the conversation:

'Hey, Seamus, can you and a couple of your provo mates dump this fridge for me? It's just that my car's on the blink, and my back isn't up to carrying it to the nearest ditch'

'Not a chance Declan, it's all strictly legit since Good Friday'.

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posted by Croydonian

Money can't buy you love

Sunday, May 17, 2009
Pity our Uncle Sam. He hoses countries down with money, puts up with less than subtle support for terrorism, liberates / shields them from Ba'athist tyranny etc etc. And does he get any gratitude? Judge for yourselves with this chart abstracted from here, wherein this question was asked:

"Taking into account all the things which you think are important, how favourable or unfavourable is your overall opinion or impression of the United States?"

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posted by Croydonian

Good-ish news, if true.

Monday, April 27, 2009
From The Hindustan Times:

"Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari said on Monday that the whereabouts of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden remained a mystery and there was a suspicion that he could be dead....Bin Laden, if he is still alive, turned 52 on March 10, but he is known to suffer from ill-health".

Time for some Belloc:

Here, richly, with ridiculous display,
The Politician’s corpse was laid away.
While all of his acquaintances sneered and slanged,
I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.

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posted by Croydonian

Hampshire and South Wales - hot beds of terrorism

Thursday, March 19, 2009
From Hansard:

"David Ruffley: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many (a) stop and account forms and (b) stop and search forms were issued in each police force area in 2007-08

Vernon 'Hokey' Coaker: Data on stops and account are collected by police force area and are published in the 'Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System—2006-07' report for the first time this month

The tables show that there were some 41,924 stops under Section 44(1) and 44(2) of the Terrorism Act 2000.

The breakdown by police forces is instructive, shall we say, in that while the Met is by far the most active, it would seem that Methodist Jihad, Wessex nationalists and a revitalised Meibion Glyndŵr are keeping the South Wales and Hampshire plod busy, or could it be that the pungent scent of rattus norvegicus is assailing my olfactory system?

Yes, fully 10% of the stops under that act were in South Wales, and 6% were in Hampshire. The Greater Manchester and Merseyside police managed nine stops (0.0002%) between them.

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posted by Croydonian

An apology to the good people of Greece

Monday, March 16, 2009
Scotland Yard are co-operating with the Hellenes by offering insights into dealing with terrorism. I could make a cheap comment about our not really being in much of a position to spare Special Branch's finest at the moment, but life is too short.

However:

"Scotland Yard’s chief (sic) Sir Ian Blair, one of the world’s top counter-terrorism experts, is also expected to visit Athens over the next few days to provide his insight into the problem".

What can one say, bar re-iterating the apology?

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posted by Croydonian

"A tiny minority of extremists"

Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Judge for yourself from this polling by Pew Global:

Attacks on civilians in the US:

Approved by 8% of Egyptians, 5% of Indonesians, 9% of Pakistanis, 7% of Moroccans, 24% of people in the Palestinian territories, 11% of Jordanians, 8% of Turks and 4% of Azeris. Or round about 52 million supporters, based on quick 'n' dirty calculations.

Attacks on US civilians in Islamic countries:

Approved by 7% of Egyptians, 6% of Indonesians, 12% of Pakistanis, 7% of Moroccans, 30% of people in the Palestinian territories, 15% of Jordanians, 10% of Turks and 7% of Azeris.

If the US were to withdraw its military force from Iraq do you think the likelihood that al Qaeda would commit attacks against civilians inside the US would increase, remain unchanged, decrease:

Increase / unchanged - Egyptians 19%, Indonesians 12%, people in the Palestinian territories 48%, Jordanians 32%, Turks 31% and Azeris 44%.

There's much more of the same at the Pew Global site, and it is just as encouraging....

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posted by Croydonian

A product endorsement Apple probably did not seek...

Saturday, February 14, 2009
From The Hindustan Times:

"Taliban in Afghanistan may be a sworn enemy of US forces and everything western yet technology is one western influence they find hard to resist. Its former ambassador to Pakistan Mullah Zaif is an iphone addict. Yes you heard it right and that too while his organization early last year had issued an ultimatum to Afghanistan's four mobile phone operators, to shut down operations at night or face dire consequences. Call it comedy or irony, the threat was issued via cell phone".

Maybe there is scope for some ambush marketing by Nokia or Blackberry. Way back lost in the mists of time, I used to mull on whether Rolls, Cadillac etc would benefit from targeting Mercedes with a slogan along the lines of 'Our cars are NOT the first choice of Third World Despots'.

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posted by Croydonian

Proof that fence sitting dulls the mind?

Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Those Gallic pollsters may have come demonstrated the truth of that thesis, as the Plain People of France were asked, 'You know that there is a currently a conflict in the Gaza Strip between the Israeli army and Hamas. In your opinion, is the Israeli government or Hamas principally responsible?'

I cannot say that I know anyone who does not have an opinion on it, but maybe I should get out less.

Anyway, the findings:



Note that Bayrou's Liberals are the most inclined to blame Hamas, and the Left the most inclined to blame Israel (oh quelle surprise). However, it is the appalling 31% of Gauls (including non-partisans) who either did not know or were actually unaware that there was a war on.

Credit again to Bayrou's fan club, as they were the most able to express an opinion albeit at a still pretty dreadful 80%. It is not as though they were asked the ontological question, is it?

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posted by Croydonian

And so the squawking begins

Thursday, November 20, 2008
From the Los Angeles Times:

"Antiwar groups and other liberal activists are increasingly concerned at signs that Barack Obama's national security team will be dominated by appointees who favored the Iraq invasion and hold hawkish views on other important foreign policy issues.

....

Aside from Clinton and Gates, the roster of possible Cabinet secretaries has included Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), who both voted in 2002 for the resolution authorizing President Bush to invade Iraq, though Lugar has since said he regretted it.

"It's astonishing that not one of the 23 senators or 133 House members who voted against the war is in the mix," said Sam Husseini of the liberal group Institute for Public Accuracy".

You would need a heart of stone not to laugh.

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posted by Croydonian

A very brief observation on the Lords' vote on 42 days

Tuesday, October 14, 2008
To adapt Gerald Ford:

"Our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works; our great nation is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule".

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posted by Croydonian

Conspiracy corner

Thursday, September 11, 2008
Worldpublicopinion.org has been asking who carried out the 9/11 atrocity, and an absolutely appalling 43% of my fellow countrymen do not say Al Qaeda / Islamofascists etc etc.

Five per cent finger the US government, one per cent the Israelis, 12% 'other' ("Those who simply characterized the perpetrators as "Arabs," "Saudis," or "Egyptians" were included in the "Other" category"). 26% could not muster an opinion.

Still, it could be worse. 23% of Germans blame their Uncle Sam, as do 15% of Russians, Ukrainians and Italians.

And that is before we get onto the Middle East....

31% of Jordanians blame Israel, with only 11% blaming AQ. 36% of Turks blame the US, as do 27% of Palestinians.

Two cheers for Kenya and Nigeria, both bettering 70% for the right answer.

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posted by Croydonian

Taking jelly & ice cream with Osama Bin Laden

Thursday, August 28, 2008
Not my idea, but our Swiss and Norwegian chums seem to think it is a cracking idea:

"[Foreign secretary Raymond] Johansen told the website for newspaper Dagsavisen Wednesday afternoon that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has also called for reconciliation among the various groups in Afghanistan. That would include Osama bin Laden's followers.

"We support that," Johansen said. "Engagement and dialogue have a lot going for them." He also stressed that "negotiations are not the same as weakness."

...

Johansen's remarks come in the wake of a visit by Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey to Iran, and her call for dialogue with Osama bin Laden. "We have no military forces (Yes, they do - and I'm not going to make any tired jokes about the SAK. C) we don’t have anything other than the power of the word to influence other states or to influence decisions in a multilateral setting".

One of Johansen fellow Norwegians, legal philosopher / sociologist Vilhelm Aubert devised a bi-partite model for analysing conflict - conflicts of value and conflicts of interest. The latter lend themselves to a splitting of the difference after negotiation, the former decidedly do not. Given that the short form version of OBL's wish list includes the restoration of a Caliphate ruling rom the Atlantic to the South China Sea, the Swiss and Norwegian foreign offices do not really have the power to offer up that on a plate, negotiation with OBL is at best a waste of time, and at worst, well no detail is required.

However Johansen, sensible fellow that he actually is, has gone on to note the following: "I don't think Osama bin Laden or the forces around al-Qaida want dialogue," Johansen said. "They prefer rather to take the lives of infidels." Well done Raymond, ten out of ten.



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posted by Croydonian

The Britons thinking 42 days detention without trial is just way too liberal

Thursday, June 26, 2008
They want torture. Four per cent of those polled want torture to be generally allowed. Yes, really. 16% like the idea of putting thumbscrews to 'terrorists' (and how will they know that they are, eh?), while the remainder are against torture full stop.

The UK's 82% opposition is equalled in Spain and France, but it falls to 53% in the Land of the Free. And I thought Americans actually read their constitution - the 8th Amendment, perhaps?

On the other side of the coin, majorities think torture of terrorists is just fine - Turkey (52%), Nigeria (54%), South Korea (51%) and India (59%). All of those countries are signatories to the UN Convention on Torture, although India has not ratified it. Iran, a non-party, is 43% anti, and 36% pro. So 21% of them are mouth breathers that have never heard of SAVAK.

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posted by Croydonian

The elephant in the room

Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Exciting news from Pravda Central: "£12.5 million to tackle radicalisation and help prevent extremism in communities".

And I wonder which communities the government is concerned about, and what manner of radicalisation it might be thinking of? Have you guessed yet?

OK, the press release has just under 1000 words in it, and just after the half-way point, someone - La Blears - actually points at Jumbo:

"work to strengthen governance in mosques and the capacity of imams and Muslim women beginning to take a stronger role".

And thereafter, no mention of the M word at all.


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posted by Croydonian

Life imitating art

Friday, May 23, 2008
This unfortunate business in Exeter does rather smack of the plot of Conrad's 'The Secret Agent', doesn't it?

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posted by Croydonian

We're winning the war on terror

Thursday, May 22, 2008
"Contrary to “expert consensus”, the threat of terrorism -– however defined -– was declining, Andrew Mack, Director of the Human Security Report Project said at [UN] Headquarters today". Source

"Mr. Mack, a former Director of the United Nations Strategic Planning Unit before starting the Human Security Report Project, said all three data sets included civilians killed by non-State actors in civil wars, but not consistently so. Some 81 per cent of terrorism victims were from Iraq since the 2003 invasion, but the data sets did not include victims of civil wars in sub-Saharan Africa or Darfur. If the Iraq situation were removed from the data, there would be a 40 per cent decline in the incidents covered in two data sets, with the third still showing a small increase. However, new data from the National Counterterrorism Centre for 2007 showed a decline.

He said part of the decline was due to tactical successes in the “war on terror” -- sanctuary denied, leaders killed and networks disrupted -– but mostly because Islamist terrorist organizations had “shot themselves in the foot”. Al-Qaida in Iraq, for instance, had angered even Sunni Iraqis by its indiscriminate violence against civilians, and some recent polls showed that “100 per cent” of Iraqis thought the attacks were unacceptable.

Just 1 per cent of Afghans felt strong support for the Taliban, and in north-west Pakistan, Osama bin Laden’s popularity had dropped from 70 per cent in 2007 to just 4 per cent in 2008, he said. That could lead to the conclusion that, as terrorism went up, support went down. The fact that about 2,000 people a year were killed in terrorist acts should be put in perspective. An estimated 500,000 people were murdered annually and one million died from traffic accidents. The threats of Al-Qaida were real, but terrorism posed no threat to civilization.
...

Stressing that the drop in terrorism was a net decline, he said incidents in Algeria and Pakistan had gone up, but terrorist activity in Algiers was small compared to what it had been in the 1990s. Islamist terror groups lacked the support they had enjoyed in that decade as they had alienated the population to such an extent that it had started to cooperate with the authorities. He said he did not know whether or not the Iraq war remained a recruiting tool for terrorists, but the flow of foreign fighters into that country had declined. The diaries of captured or killed jihadists had mentioned a lack of morale for some years now and it had become increasingly difficult to recruit people for what seemed a losing cause. Asked about 'Palestine', he said that was the only area where support for suicide bombers stood at 50 per cent, simply because the bombers did not target fellow Muslims".


So, good news. Not that I expect to see this reported by a certain state controlled broadcaster, even though the study was part funded by DFID. More once I've read the report, and not just the UN press release.

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posted by Croydonian