Wikileaks Three Weeks On!

With the release of Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, on conditional bail, the saga continues.

It is as confusing a situation now, as it was three weeks ago, when the news first broke of Sweden’s desire to have him returned to that country, to answer questions about his alleged sexual misdemeanors from last August.

Of course, we do not know exactly what those misdemeanours are, as no evidence has been produced, and no charges have been brought. There has not even been an attempt by the Swedes to travel over here and question him in this country. That alone seems a very strange thing. The extradition proceedings do, however, keep him inconvenienced and contained for the next few months at least.

This should please the US administration who are said to be investigating ways to have him extradited to America (he is presumably too ‘visible’ for rendition) for breaking laws they have yet to discover in their vast back catalogue of ‘catch all’ offences.

In reality, it seems he has done nothing illegal and certainly nothing different to any media organisation that would have been offered the same material for publication. Why then, is the US government so desperate to demonise him? Is it purely about saving face?

Personally, I don’t know if Assange is guilty of breaking Swedish law; no-one does except Assange and the women who have made the claims against him. Even the UK court that has been deliberating on his bail application has been kept in the dark about the details of the allegations against him. His bail request was opposed not by the Swedish authorities, as was first reported, but by our own prosecution service.

That fact alone sounds a warning bell. Is this case nothing more than an exploitation of our world respected legal process based on fairness and openness, for purely political ends?

The conditions of his bail state Assange has to stay at the same address, wear an electronic tag and report to the police once a day, until at least February next year. He is effectively under house arrest, while never having been charged.

I ask myself: if this situation had occurred in China, would we have been so accepting of the process?

The word ‘hypocrisy’ springs to mind.

Afterthought:

A comment on the Wikileaks story from a reader of the Los Angeles Times makes a good point:

Accusations of sexual misconduct have always been the favorite tool of a person or group seeking to discredit another. People are always willing to believe the very worst when it comes to sexual matters

Political Message Or Just An Excuse For A Snigger?

I viewed the above pic as part of an article in today’s Guardian newspaper about a political rally in the USA.

When I got over my first reaction (having a guilty schoolboy snigger) I started trying to work out what the message from the poster is really supposed to be.

Is it a comment on those who vote? Or is it a comment on those who we elect into public office? It seems it could be either, or both!

All theories would be welcome. But in the meantime, I really just wanted an excuse to share a guilty snigger!

Islam, World Peace and the Spark of Common Sense.

The state of world peace is maintained by a delicate balance. It is also maintained by a tolerance of the actions of others and an acceptance of beliefs that may not be your own. It is, often, as simple as respecting other people’s feelings.

Nothing seems to demonstrate this more than the recent publicity given to a small time US ‘preacher’ who threatened to burn copies of the Koran, outside of his church, in a demonstration against the 9/11 attacks and the Muslim faith. He is someone who has a tiny following but who has found headline status across the globe due to the reaction of the press, and public criticism of him made by the US president.

On the other side of this balance is the plan to build an Islamic Centre near the site of the fallen World Trade Center in New York. When so many died at the hands of people who claimed they were fighting in the name of Islam it is understandable some in the US are genuinely outraged.

The Imam responsible for the New York project claims it will supply facilities for all religions and support reconciliation of all faiths; critics claim it is an insult to the memory of those killed in the 2001 attacks.

There lies the balance.

If the preacher had carried out his threat, the repercussions would have been felt across the globe as Muslim radicals carried out reprisal attacks on Americans and American interests. The US would then be forced to respond in kind and the whole thing would escalate from such a small beginning to affecting a large part of the world.

Maybe, I missed out one of the most important ingredients in maintaining the balance of world peace - common sense!!

From a small spark comes conflagration!

Does Anyone Really Want To 'Find' Osama Bin Laden?

Unquestioning support for the presence of both our own and US forces in Afghanistan is rapidly dwindlng. As the number of troops returning from the country in coffins is increasing, our realisation of the difficulty of achieving a quick exit strategy is finally sinking in.

In the US, President Obama is, at present, deciding whether he can sell the idea to the American people, of sending another 30,000 troops to the region. It is a political 'hot potato' and a decision that I am sure is causing him many sleepless nights.

It seems, therefore, with somewhat fortuitously good timing, that a report from the US senate has been released stating that the world's most wanted terrorist figure, Osama Bin Laden, was allowed to escape capture from US troops in Afghanistan back in 2001. Of course, the report blames the previous administration for this unlikeliest of errors.

Suspiciously, the release of the report seems timed to re-light the fire in people's minds about the so-called leader of the dreaded Al Qaeda; the man said to be responsible for the 9/11 attacks and numerous other shocking terrorist outrages in various parts of the world.

What I have often wondered, is does anyone really want to catch this man? Does he even really exist?

It seems almost inconceivable, that in the age of the highly sophisticated and often secret technology freely available to the various security agencies, they have not been able to pinpoint the location of one mere mortal.

It raises the question of what they would they do with him if they did manage to capture him? He is the figurehead of an organisation with huge and sophisticated resources; he is not just the tribesman he is made out to be. His capture and trial would only increase his profile and would provoke huge terrorist outrages across the globe and increase the recruitment figures of the so called terrorist organisations.

Alternatively, if he were to be killed 'in battle' it is likely the same result would occur.

It is worth remembering that Osama Bin Laden has been a very useful tool for various governments over the last few years. He has become the world's 'Bogeyman'.

Both his name and the organisation he is said to lead, have been used by various western governments to promote a fear in our populations and allow them to introduce more control and restrictions on our personal freedoms. Without promoting such a fear, these measures would have been greeted with outrage.

Here in the UK, you are lucky to be able to go to the bathroom without being monitored by some nosey government employee following your every move on a surveillance camera.

In reality, the fear of any of us being involved in a terrorist incident far outweighs the probability. However, the perception is constantly promoted that we are all in imminent danger. Faced by this perception, we have knowingly allowed our democratic rights and personal freedoms to be taken away on the basis of what is really just a myth.

So I guess I really have to ask....does any government really WANT to 'find' Osama Bin Laden or is he of more political use remaining 'free'?

Make up your own mind!!

EU The Heck Is Catherine Ashton?

Mention the name Catherine Ashton and you could be forgiven for receiving a blank stare in response.

From today, though, all that is likely to change, for she is not only a little known (outside of the political world) Baroness who had been working as the Trade Commissioner for the EU but she has just been named as the person who will be its newly created foreign affairs supremo.

In a similarly surprising move, EU leaders have chosen the Belgian Prime Minister, Herman van Rompuy to be the first permanent European Council President.

Of course, there had been much lobbying for the above post to be awarded to one Anthony Blair, (our ex PM but now multi-millionaire after dinner speaker) and for the foreign supremo role to go to Blair's protege David Miliband (our own Foreign Secretary) but thankfully, the EU's 27 leaders have shown they have a greater vision.

All credit must go to them for turning their collective back on 'celebrity politics' in favour of people who will be able to negotiate with the world on a fresh footing and relatively untarnished by their immediate history.

The EU has taken a lot of criticism in the past but, just maybe, it is now starting to show it could be a good deal for all of us after all!

The jury is still out!!

Afghanistan - The History Of Failure.

We are not an occupying army," Gordon Brown told the BBC on Friday. "It's not like previous interventions.... We are actually creating the conditions by which the Afghans themselves, and not an occupying army, can run their own affairs."

The words above are quoted from an excellent article in today's Independent by author James Fergusson. Within it, he explains why the PM's words are so misguided

The full article can be read here.

Director Of The FBI Is A Hypocrite!

Predictably, the outcry over the compassionate release of the only person convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, has been loud and spoken malnly with an american accent.

Poor old Kenny MacAskill, Scotland's justice secretary, has been the main target. He claims to have made the decision to release Megrahi all on his own but as we all know it is very unlikely to have been allowed to proceed had it not been part of a much bigger political picture.

Poor old Kenny has, today, received a scathing letter from the director of the FBI in the US, Robert Mueller. In it he writes:

"Your action gives comfort to terrorists around the world who now believe that regardless of the quality of the investigation, the conviction by jury after the defendant is given all due process, and sentence appropriate to the crime, the terrorist will be freed by one man's exercise of 'compassion'."

Hmm now where do we start on that one?

Megrahi's trial is generally accepted to have been, at best, controversial and was not tested in front of a jury but in front of a panel of three Scottish judges sitting in a 'neutral' country. Proof of the quality of the investigation normally rests on the evidence presented to the court and again this has been disputed with claims that some of the 'proof' was fraudulent or fabricated.

Sadly, Megrahi's release stopped his scheduled appeal, which would have tested all of the above and hopefully brought a more balanced judgement on the guilt of the accused.

But what could almost be the funniest part of the letter, if it was not so serious, is the part saying:

"Your action in releasing Megrahi is as inexplicable as it is detrimental to the cause of justice. Indeed your action makes a mockery of the rule of law."

Remember this was written by a senior law officer in a country that has brought the word 'rendition' into the English vocabulary, where anyone suspected of actions that could be even remotely related to terrorism, were flown around the world while hooded and chained, were tortured by water boarding and worse, were mentally abused and held in a prison camp on foreign soil without due process of law or being formally charged with any offence - all for years on end.

If this is the definition of justice to which Mr Mueller refers then it is hard to know who is the greatest danger to the 'rule of law'.

To be able to criticise Mr MacAskill, the distinguished director of the FBI should first have made certain he was writing from the lofty peaks of the moral high ground.

If the recent behaviour of the US intelligence services is now seen as a benchmark for 'justice' then... stop the world..I want to get off!

Lockerbie Bomber Leaves More Questions Than Conviction!

The only man convicted over the Lockerbie bombing 20 years ago, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, has, as expected, been released from his life sentence on compassionate grounds.

Megrahi is said to be suffering from prostate cancer and is not expected to live for more than a few months.

No one can deny the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988 was a terrible act. The deaths of the 270, both aboard the plane and in the town, was unforgivable and the sheer audacity of the attack rightly shocked the world.

It is only natural that the families of the victims have been vocal in their criticism of Megrahi's release.

However, I am one of several people who has severe reservations about the legitimacy of his conviction and the circumstances of his release - it all seems to be a little bit too neat.

The evidence against him at his trial in the Netherlands was said to be mostly circumstantial. Indeed, one of the UN observers openly expressed his concern over the fairness of the proceedings and spoke of the possibility of a spectacular miscarriage of justice.

Despite such reservations, the governments - and their intelligence agencies - on both sides of the Atlantic needed someone on whom to focus the blame. Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to life in a Scottish prison. He has been there for the last eight years.

The timing of his compassionate release, therefore, seems to be a little convenient coming at a time when he had served so little of his sentence and just before his second appeal was to have been heard by the court.

His defence team were convinced they could present new arguments proving that much of the evidence at the original trial had been fabricated.

No one has ever explained how Megrahi managed to carry out such an attack on his own, his motivation for carrying it out or who financed his action. Surely those three questions would have been the first asked in the original investigation?

He just does not seem to fit the accepted profile we have come to accept of a radical terrorist.

Perhaps, it is because an appeal could have proved embarrassing in certain quarters, that a deal was done for him to drop his action in return for an early release.

Perhaps, the need to quench our thirst for Libyan oil is seen as being more important than the incarceration of a terrorist bomber whose conviction raises questions.

The fact is, a doubt has been left that makes me ask those questions

Megrahi has, throughout, been consistent in maintaining his innocence and today said:

"The remaining days of my life are being lived under the shadow of the wrongness of my conviction. I have been faced with an appalling choice: to risk dying in prison in the hope that my name is cleared posthumously or to return home still carrying the weight of the guilty verdict, which will never now be lifted.

Sometimes, the overwhelming need to see justice done overcomes the need for truth.

I hope that today's events will not mean that the full and complete story will now be buried with the deaths of both Megrahi and his appeal!

Iraq - The War of The Vanities!

Today, saw the official ending of our six years of military presence in Iraq.

Only future generations will be able to provide a clear answer as to whether we should ever have been in the country in the first place; many of the official documents recording the decision to take military action are still classified as secret.

Countless lives have been needlessly lost, both of our troops and the Iraqi people. The benefits achieved from the 'liberation' are still not completely obvious.

The reasons given to the UK population for such a drastic show of force, have been proven to be false. Our leaders betrayed our trust and that of the military personnel who were sent into battle on their orders. No-one has been charged with misleading us all.

It seems ironic, that the man who made the ultimate decision to go to war in Iraq, is now prancing around, with his usual air of self-importance, as an envoy for peace in the Middle East.

His successor, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, has said:

"Today Iraq is a success story. We owe much of that to the efforts of British Troops"

Opposition Leader, David Cameron disagrees and has called for an official enquiry into the war. He said:

"There are vital lessons to learn and we need to learn them rapidly and the only justification for delay can, I'm afraid, be a political one."

Whoever is ultimately judged to be right, it will be too late to be of much comfort to the families of those troops and Iraqis, whose lives were sacrificed for what appears to have been nothing more than a war of vanity.

President Flies Into Trouble In New York!

As stupidity goes, it must be right up there at the top of the table!

The decision to fly Air Force One - the US presidential plane - at low altitude over New York, accompanied by a fighter escort, understandably, caused a minor panic among some of the city's residents.

The horrific events of 9/11 are still fresh in the minds of most people and it is almost unbelievable that the US Air Force and the presidential staff, had not allowed for this obvious fact when planning such a flight.

The Mayor of New York was angry and stated that had he been consulted on the plan, he would have suggested it was a very bad idea.

So what was the purpose of a fly-past which caused so much concern? The US airforce wanted to photograph Air Force One flying against the New York backdrop.

Officials at the White House have now apologised and it has been confirmed the president was not on the plane.

It is, however, good to know that tax dollars are being seen to be spent so wisely!!

Beyond The Summit!

Well, the G20 summit has finally ended.

It has been hailed as a success, with our own Prime Minister saying the measures agreed on, would shorten the recession and save jobs.

I have only read the details briefly, but I am still trying to get my head around how many zeros follow the 1 in a trillion. Amazingly, $1 trillion is the figure that the G20 countries are going to make available through the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to boost the world economy.

Where is that money going to be found? Does each of the G20 countries throw into the hat and if so, where do we find our share? Does this mean we have to borrow even more than we already have and who do we borrow it from? Surely, the banks are claiming to be broke?

I am confused, for if borrowing beyond our means is the wisest way out of this financial mess, am I wrong in thinking it was just such an act that got us to this position in the first place? Surely, borrowing will just postpone the final pain of having to balance the books again?

I know that any business in this country would not be permitted to act in such a way; they would be declared bankrupt without a second thought.

I only hope the G20 leaders and their advisers, have a better understanding than the majority of their voters.

My worry is that the air at the summit was so thin they have all been hallucinating.

If so, we are the ones who are going to be very sick!!

UK Reaches The Summit!

In case you had not heard, London is now the capital of the world - well only for another day!

We have the honour - and expense - of hosting the G20 summit of world leaders.

To call it a 'summit' sounds very impressive; it is really just an excuse for the 'club' to meet and share food and drink while meeting the new US president for the first time, since his inauguration.

It is supposed to be about reaching common agreement over the present financial mess that has befallen the world, but as we already know, the only common agreement we are likely to witness is that everyone will be appearing in the official photo.

The summit itself is not going to be long enough to discuss anything more than who has tea and who has coffee. All the real negotiation will, of course, have been done by the back room staff.

Be that as it may, I feel a sense of pride that President Obama has decided make his attendance in London his first official overseas engagement. The rest of the world's leaders must be green with envy.

Of course, there are the usual demonstrations by those who usually demonstrate and the press are having a field day comparing the president's wife to the wife of our very own PM but we can only hope that when the summit has reached its conclusion tomorrow evening, we can all feel reassured that things will start to improve.

Somehow I doubt it, but then.....I am a cynic!!

More to follow.......!