Poppy or no Poppy

Scotland and its tartan horde will descend on Wembley next weekend. I have no doubt there will be an abundance of poppies on show, if not on the player's kit, certainly amongst the supporters of both countries.

Most, if not all of the supporters wearing poppies will no doubt bear that imitation flower on their breast every year at this time. I would also suggest that the poppy worn by them will be worn in remembrance and the wearer will have no political thoughts.

Also have no doubt however that successions of Governments have 'politicised' the poppy and somehow altered what it was all about, shame on them.

My old aunt has absolutely no political thoughts, in fact she has no time for any politician. She will wear a poppy and attend the remembrance service in her village. Her brother was seventeen years of age when he perished in 1942. She is not imbued with 'pride', no it is simply her way of remembering her brother.

The whole thing is farcical. Eufa recently fined Celtic Football Club when some of it's supporters waved Palestinian flags whilst an Israeli team played at Parkhead in a Eufa competition. Did not Eufa indulge in politics by inviting a team from a country outwith Europe to compete in a European competition? In that case it was supporters who caused the fine, however illogical and unjust.

Back to Wembley, if the Associations succumb to the Fifa ruling about the political symbolism of poppies being displayed and play innocent of said emblem.  Do they then confiscate the supporters poppies. Because, based on the Celtic Football Club experience, supporters are just as guilty of bearing political symbols and getting their club, or in this case their association fined.

Lest we forget, the poppy is not only about remembrance, it is a vital plank in fund raising for a seriously worthwhile cause.

This publicity may well result in an increase of poppy sales. Good.

Sunday Herald 6 November 2016

Don't do it America

If it was not so serious, in terms of the influence the incumbent can and will wield over a huge chunk of the world, it would be laughable, pantomime like. He's behind you, oh no she isn't. No point in rehearsing their many good points. I have failed to find any. Suffice to say, in my opinion, neither is fit for office.

However I see the Sunday Herald picks on Trump as the pantomime baddy and by default that Clinton should be elected. All pantomimes have a baddy, an evil doer of wrong. Usually a man in drag playing a woman. So is it the woman who is evil, not the man? The plot is normally based on some fairy tale or other, although I find it hard to equate this farce of a Presidential election to any fairy tale, although it certainly is grim.

The Sunday Herald pitches it's weight behind Clinton by castigating Trump mostly.

I actually think the Sunday Herald has got into a fankle and has fallen into the trap of not being honest. It takes up a populist position. “Trump is a buffoon, not a lot of our readers will disagree with that so let us hammer him.” They have followed the internal emotionalist line. What can we say that will make me feel good about myself and make others feel good about me.

They show no evidence of rational thinking or external objectivism. They do not seek to understand the problem and properly articulate it honestly, no matter how others perceive them.

I question their values. Are they asking us to agree that tax evasion, misogyny and being a sexual predator, outrageous though they are and certainly enough to have Trump debarred, are somehow worse that mass killing, overthrowing governments and killing children by the thousand and bombing people out of their countries.

In her case, lies, deception, not just in terms of electronic devices and emails. The Clinton Foundation, based in Canada to prevent USA investigation, the acquiring of many million dollars from all over the world, including a whole raft of questionable donors. What are they promised in return? The foundation headed for Haiti at the time the USA effectively invaded that poverty stricken country. The aim of the Foundation to bring aid to the population. Well, have a look at the tens of thousands still in tents, living in squaller. Where is the evidence of aid? What is clear is that many millions were collected by the Clinton Foundation and precious little made it any where near Haiti.

She is one of the elite, part of a political system that has no truck with the ordinary person. Clinton, in 2008 said she would obliterate Iran with nuclear weapons. When Secretary of State she was involved when the USA threw out the democratic Government of Honduras. Later when she was involved in the destruction of Libya, in my opinion akin to a war crime, she gloated over Gaddafi's death in the words, ' we came, we saw, he died. ' One of her closest allies Madeleine Albright once said on live television, about the the death of tens of thousands of children in Iraq, ' it was worth it.' Her, Clinton's, performance over the deaths of the US Ambassador and Embassy staff in Benghazi shown a callous incompetance. She should have been dismissed, as Senator Rand Paul clearly thinks and stated when he filleted her at the subsequent hearing.

Trump, for the faults he has and he has many, is a maverick intent on opposing the 'system'. I am no supporter of Trump either and like Clinton he should, in my opinion get nowhere near the White House. Not that I think he will.

No, the headline should have read, ' Don't do it America.' However there should have been a photograph of Clinton beside Trump.

Malcolm Allan and the MV San Delfino

Malcom Allan was born in 1925 in Glasgow. To be precise he was born and raised in an area to the east of Glasgow city centre called Calton, or to be even more precise, 'the' Calton. Historically the Calton, or as it was previously known, Caltoun, had been in the lands of the Church although it seems to have been through many 'owners'. The lands were full of clay deposits and there are records of early brick making although that changed and it became a centre of weaving.

In 1787 Calton became even more famous because of industrial strife and a conflict forever known as the Calton Weaver's massacre. It is recorded as the first industrial conflict in Scotland and it resulted in the killing of six of the striking workers. Gunned down by government forces. I am sure it was not the first incident of industrial conflict in Scotland, however history emerges from whoever takes the trouble to write it down and even if not quite accurate, once time passes, then it is gospel. Where can I draw that parallel? The incident is also commemorated in a song of the same named, Calton Weavers. While many have sung that song, I like Hamish Imlach's version.

In the days of the weaving the area was reasonably well off, principally because of the wages a weaver could demand. However that situation altered dramatically over the next one hundred years or so and in modern times the poverty in which many Calton residents live was recognised by the World Health Organisation. In 2006 for example a report suggested that a child born in the Calton area of Glasgow, that iconic Scottish city, would have a life expectancy lower than the residents of the Gaza Strip in the middle east. A strip of land where most residents forge an existence in a string of refugee camps and in the main rely on aid from the United Nations to survive. That report put the the lifespan of a Calton resident at 53.9 years.

There were other influences. The predominantly Roman Catholic Irish immigrant population and the sectarian tensions that emerged from that, as well as the more recent phenomenon, the tribal gangland culture of the city from which the Calton was not immune. A culture that gave birth to the Calton Tongs with their war cry, Tongs Ya Bass. So Caltoun became Calton and then 'The' Calton before morphing into an altogether more evocative name, Tongland.

Malcolm was six years of age when, in 1931, in a tenement in Suffolk Street, Calton, Florence Allan, was born. She was raised into that mix of influences; history, conflict, culture and poverty. She was one of a family of nine children and while not from Irish Immigrant stock, one day, in a place she would never have heard of in her Calton days and in a different life, she would marry into Irish Immigrant stock and through that marriage to my mother's brother she would become my aunt.

Florence was eight years of age when war was declared on 3 September 1939.

On the 2 September 1939, the day before war was declared, Florence, her mother Jeanie, her sisters and two of her brothers were evacuated from their home in the Calton. They were not alone. Children the length and breadth of Great Britain were being evacuated from cities identified by the Government as likely targets for enemy air attack. They were taken to 'safer' areas. Many families from Calton were loaded into coaches that day and taken out of Glasgow to a new world. In the case of the Allan family that new world was the village of Bonnybridge in Stirlingshire. It was on the Forth and Clyde canal and was the centre of many iron foundries and the Rayburn Stove. It was also on the forefront of what had been a different and markedly more ancient conflict, between the Roman Empire and the northern Britains as it lay immediately adjacent to and abridging in some spots, Antonine's wall. But that's a conflict too far.

One of her brother's who was evacuated was Malcolm, then 14 years of age.

Her father and her other two brothers stayed on in Suffolk Street.

The Allan family was housed in a barber's shop, or perhaps one should refer to it as a hairdressing salon, in a tenement in High Street, Bonnybridge. So they in fact moved from Tongland to Tongland I suppose? The barber and owner of the shop was Allan Gillespie. He was absent on war duties. The family was informed they would have to move out when the owner returned.

Their new home, according to Florence, was good in so many ways. There was plenty room for the family and it had so many sinks. In fact she had never seen a house with so many sinks. All these years later her abiding memory of the house was the abundance of sinks. It was between McGregor's shop on one side and Marcella's chip shop on the other side, a perfect location.

The Allan family settled in and life moved on.

The war raged on and in June 1940 two momentous things happened. The British Army was routed and the majority had to be evacuated from Europe at Dunkirk. That same month the 51st Highland Division, for strategic military and political purposes, was sacrificed at St Valery en Caux and most were taken prisoner. My father, a Seaforth Highlander, became a prisoner of war. I was not born at that time.

The Allan family, certainly Florence and her siblings, would be unaware of these goings on and continued to create a home in their new world with all the sinks.

In 1942 they became more aware of the war, if even in a child's way. Florence's brother Malcolm was now 17 years of age and had signed up into the merchant navy. Florence has no memory of his first ship or where it had taken him. She was aware however that on his return from that maiden voyage her big brother Malcolm was frightened. He therefore did not go back and after a few days, Florence cannot remember how long, two civilian police officers called at their house and arrested Malcolm and marched him down the hill from the house to the Toll in Bonnybridge and round the corner to the police office. While Florence has only a few snatched memories of that day, she clearly recalls her brother being taken from the house and one of the police officers who took him, Sergeant Fraser. She says she will take that memory to her grave.

That was the last time Florence or any of his family saw Malcolm.

Malcolm was mess room boy on the MV San Delfino an 8,702 ton armed British tanker, en route from Houston to Halifax with a cargo of aviation spirit when she was torpedoed and sunk by U-boat 203 on 9^th April 1942 off the coast of North Carolina, near Cape Hatteras. Out of a crew of 49, they lost 28, including Malcolm Allan the 17 year old mess room boy who was on his second voyage.

He would never return to the Calton nor the new world of Bonnybridge, nor would he see his dad Robert, his mum Jeanie or his brothers and sisters again. Ironically he died close to another new world, United States of America. After the sinking a lone, unidentified body from MV San Delfino was washed ashore at Buxton Wood, Hatteras Island on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. That body now lies, along with a sailor from the HMT Bedfordshire, sunk some time later in the same area, in The British Cemetery, Hatteras Island. Annually there sacrifice is remembered at an annual memorial service by members of the National Park Service, who maintain the graves, the US Coast Guard and the Royal Navy.

Is the unidentified soul from MV San Delfino that of Malcolm, my aunt's brother?

Until three years ago Florence, my aunt and Malcolm's loving sister, had no idea where he perished, nor of the unidentified body from his ship buried on Hatteras Island or that there was an annual service.

Florence was heartbroken when I told her of these things. If she had only known when she was younger and in better health perhaps she could have visited and properly said, 'good bye Malcolm, I love you'.

'Such a long way from Tongland', she said.

Chilcot, Iraq, Blair and Bush

I find it hard to believe Tony Blair's statement made post Chilcot. I will cite the following to evidence my puzzlement of his position.

General Wesley Clark (now retired) was a four star General in the USA military. I have no idea the status of a four star General, however I assume it is senior. I would also add, I have never met the General and have no idea of his agenda, truthfulness, state of mind or otherwise. I am simply recounting claims he has made on You Tube;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw

and in an interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, reported in 2007.

In both he claims that he was aware of plans contained in a Pentagon document within two weeks of 9/11 to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Lybia, Somalia, Sudan and finally Iran.

Amy Goodman asked; 'Did you see a reply on what happened in the lead-up to the war with Iraq – the allegations of the weapons of mass destruction, the media leaping onto the bandwagon?'

This is an extract of what General Clark replied,

“About ten days after 9/11 I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me. One of the Generals called me in. He said, 'sir you've got to come in and talk to me a second.' 'We've made the decision were going to war with Iraq.' This was on or about 20^th September. I said, ' We are going to war with Iraq. Why?' He said, ' I don't know, I guess they don't know what else to do.' I said, 'well did they find some information connecting Saddam to Al-Qaeda?' No, No, ' he said, 'there's nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq. I guess it's like we don't know what to do about terrorists, but we've got a good military and we can take down Governments. If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.'

A few weeks later we were bombing in Afghanistan and I went back to see him. I asked if we were still going to war with Iraq. He said, ' it is worse than that and he picked up a memo that had just come from the Secretary of Defence's office, that day. He did not show me the document but said it described how we, USA, were going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan and finishing off with Iran. I asked if the document was classified and he said it was. He did not show me it. We met up a year or so ago and he reminded me that I was not shown the document.”

The Amy Goodman interview is a lot longer and can be accessed on the internet.

US Defence Secretary Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary Wolfawitz and Vice President Dick Cheney were all close the President and if they were aware of such plans, then I suggest that the President would have been equally aware.

It was not as if all this was not public knowledge. In the Sunday Herald, 10 July 2016, Ron McKay has a seriously good article on Chilcot and Blair. In that article he refers to a Dr Malcolm McIntosh who claims to have been present at a conference in New York a few months after the Twin Towers attacks and listened to General Wesley Clark tell of plans to attack the seven countries referred to earlier.

My puzzlement begins with the mainstream media and their avoidance of making a big deal of Clark's claims. Are they operating to an establishment agenda? Not all I may add, but certainly some and would include the BBC in the latter.

In terms of Blair. If there were USA war plans in place so soon after 9/11 and President Bush knew of them and if Blair was so close to Bush and intent of being with him all the way, how the fuck did he not know of USA's intentions of waging war all over the middle east. Either he did or he did not. If he was aware, then it is my opinion he did lie to Parliament. The USA plans did not care one jot whether or not WMD's existed, they were going to war right reason or none. The lie was simply to beef up the myth to get us, British Parliament and people, off his back.

On the other hand, if he did not know of the USA's war plans and President Bush did not let him into the secret, one has to ask, what the fuck were his intelligence services doing? It seems General Wesley Clark was telling all and sundry. So was Blair just a patsy getting played along by his big friend Bush like a puppet?, A pliable British Prime Minister who would go along with anything the USA said, just to keep in with them?

I think the latter is more worrying than the former.

Clinton and Emails

The FBI announcement this week that former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton will not face criminal charges related to her private email server scandal, I would opine evidenced that the rule of law in the United States of America has been perhaps mortally wounded.

The announcement of the FBI admitted what most Americans already suspected; Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server to conduct official government business endangered the lives of the American people.The FBI Director also made clear that Hillary Clinton was “extremely careless” in handling our nation’s top secrets. He also noted that “no reasonable person” would believe it to be “appropriate or acceptable” to place emails containing said secrets on a private server. The announcement made it clear that Hillary Clinton lied to the American people about the classified nature of the emails, as the FBI spokesman admitted that at least 110 emails were classified at the time they originated, not after the fact, as the Clinton camp has repeatedly claimed.

On top of that, he also revealed that Clinton had deleted work-related emails from her private server before turning it over to the FBI, again in direct contradiction of claims her campaign has made to the contrary. As if that weren’t enough, he also confirmed the likely possibility that Clinton’s private email server had been hacked by foreign government intelligence services, meaning USA's nation’s rivals were likely in possession of critical state secrets that could potentially be used against the interests of the USA.

Lastly, but certainly not least, he also admitted that anyone else caught in a similar situation and circumstances would most likely be punished to the full extent of the law.

Based on the FBI inquiry and subsequent statement it would be reasonable to conclude that the subject of the inquiry is a corrupt, incompetent and untrustworthy person.

So it seems that in the USA, although I guess not just there, laws only apply to those on the other side of the tracks and not the politically connected elite or perhaps if you can afford a lawyer.

It might be reasonable to suggest that the decision to do nothing could be seen as blow to the rule of law and provides further evidence to support those who have absolutely no faith in the system of law and order nor for that matter politics.