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.

democracy

I note with interest the inputs of various political journalists, politicians and pundits since last Thursday’s election. Experienced political commentators like Bell, Macwhirter and Frith I found most enlightening.

It seems we made a grave mistake on that fateful day. We appear to have misunderstood democracy. We trooped out to our allotted polling station, in our hundreds of thousands and innocently put our cross in the wrong box. If we had any sense we would have learned the Egyptian lesson. You cannot simply vote for who you like. No, that is not democracy. 

So, next time we have the temerity to think we have a choice, could you help us and tell us which candidates will be acceptable. It will save us all time and anguish.

May I also suggest the remarks attributed to the actor Frances Barber, Sunday Herald 10 May ( Maxine Frith article ) could be seen as an incitement to racial hatred.  

destroy the scottish labour party - election day 7 may 2015

We are on the eve of heading to the polls and Scottish Labour still do not get it.

For a good many people in Scotland, in particular the old industrial belt across the centre, a new game has hit town. Forget your policies, it is deeper than that.

For many years the majority of the working class across the central belt

has been born into Labour families, generations of them. 

Hell would freeze over and they would still drag themselves to the polls to defeat the hated Tories. That meant, in the main, voting Labour, in their droves. Margaret Thatcher simply reinforced that whole movement and her 'influence' as the years passed only served to strengthen the hatred of Tories. Illogical or not, she was hated and still is in many quarters, as is the whole Tory movement.

So what has changed? The polls are predicting a complete Labour meltdown and they seem at a loss as to why.

I am not a pollster, but I am connected and I listen. Today I listened to five died in the wool socialist and lifelong Labour voters. Just ordinary folk, not political activists, just folk, who coincidently would never, in any circumstances, bring themselves to vote Conservative.

The first thing that struck me was that every one of them said that for the first time in their lives they were excited about voting. Yes, excited, could not wait to get to the polling stations. Why?

Everyone of them said they wanted to destroy Labour in Scotland. I have heard a lot of these same sentiments this last few months.

It is as if they have stumbled out of the unthinking darkness, blinking, but not for long.

• Years of listening to various Labour politicians berating the house of Lords, committed to destroying that unelected house of privilege. McConnell, Prescott and more. So where are they now, jings, is that them and their pals wearing ermine robes? It is you know.

• Then there was the expenses theft. “ Oops, sorry folks, just a mistake, didn't understand the system”. Will try not to let it happen again. Well, just to remind you, it was not confined to greedy Tories, a few 'confused' Labour members had their noses in the same trough. A Labour Home Secretary managing to mistakenly claim a hundred thousand, another Labour cabinet member snaffling £30,000, mind you she did apologise and eventually paid it back. Another buying a house on the grant, our money, then renting it out for a fortune and moving into an hotel to stay. Oh, forgot to say, at our expense. And on and on. Lest I forget, we are still waiting on the £100k being paid back, but don't hold your breath.

• Then Labour cheerfully supported the Tories vote through their various austerity measures. But how could they do otherwise, they were in Government when our economy went down the tubes in the first place. Not only that, but the then Chancellor screwed thousands of working people out of their pension rights. Yes, a Labour Chancellery.

• In many of Labour's west of Scotland fiefdoms the employment rate is woeful and the life expectancy is lower than many in third world countries.
  
  
  
  
• Then there is the whole issue of invading and bombing our way across the East.

• And they sold off huge tracts of our land, our family silver, to international corporations so these corporations could develop the land they had been given. What did we get in return, oh the schools and hospitals that had been their and in our ownership were demolished and rebuilt and leased back to us. And we borrowed £50 billion to pay for that and by the time we pay it back in twentyfive years it will have cost in excess of £300 billion. Oh and that is called PFI or to give it its more modern name PPP. And so we have been bought and sold for some shiny baubles. Hmmm! Is that not what we did when we invaded the Americas two or three centuries ago? By the way, we won't own any of the schools or hospitals and will have to seek new leases.

So the penny is slipping out of their hands and dropping to the ground and not before time.

But despite all that, the ordinary Labour supporting folk stuck by them because their was nothing else, because their grannies and grand dads would turn in their graves if they considered putting their hard earned cross anywhere else.

Then last September, a glimmer of light, was it hope, was cast across them. Their was an other option, another choice and they awakened from their slumbers and looked forward with anticipation of a new day. And on the eve of that new day, out from the barricades came the old guard, Brown, Darling, Blair and more and they warned them to get back and stop dreaming. Then the old guard was joined by more 'old guard', but these were Tories and they stood shoulder to shoulder with their 'old guard' and together they were warned to forget the dream, their will be no new day. Trust us, you are valued and we will look after you. And time past and their anticipated new day, their hopes and the light were quashed.

But under the ashes there was still an ember and it grew and it was ignited and the folk, yes the ordinary folk, the ones who had been weaned on Labour, gradually and with increasing confidence emerged from the ashes and a peaceful revolution was afoot. And they looked back and realised, we have been duped we have been used and we are sick of it. And there was only one cry, and Labour did not hear it, because they were not listening, because they are arrogant, they had forgotten where they came from and they preferred ermine robes and they had become unworthy, and the cry was simple and unequivocal, 'Destroy Scottish Labour'. 

And tomorrow they will.

sleepwalking into a police state

A recent correspondent to the letters page of the Glasgow Herald newspaper is correct in his understanding of when police have power to require a breath test. His concern that officers of police Scotland are acting outwith their powers is also correct. Not only in terms of use of the breathalyser should he and others be concerned. Their loose interpretation of stop and search powers require examination. Your own journalist Paul Hutcheon has done a good job in this regard, however it seems to little avail as the practice continues. In fact one supervising officer recently told me that they, police officers, are to use the term consensual search and if a person does not consent they are to be pressurised by suggesting they must have something to hide.

Centralisation of the police service has brought about the foregoing and worse to a service that, until the change to a single force, was centred in and answerable to communities. That is no longer the case and I can evidence that by reminding you of the following:

We were hardly into the new single service when the Chief Constable informed us that the days of solving the communities problems are over, the new service is about control. Is that change of direction based on listening to the communities he serves?

Officers routinely arrest and commit to custody at least one person from every domestic violence incident. Evidence is not the deciding factor, no it is a directive from the centre.

Recently a pensioner was arrested and committed into custody for an offence it took the police four days to attend to. The three elements that need to be considered before deciding to bring a person before a court the next lawful day are as follows:

1. seriousness of the crime ( the fact it took the police four days to take any action suggests it was not that serious ),

2. continuing threat / danger to the public ( the four day gap before police acted with no other incident negates that 'arrest' element ),

3. finally, the likelihood of avoiding justice by absconding ( the accused was 71 years of age and had resided at his house for in excess of forty years )

It is oppressive policing, supported by political dogma and it is no consolation that many serving officers recognise it as such, however are so intimidated by the ruling regime they simply get on with it.

The strength of our police service lies in a simple triangular principle;

• the law,

• discretion,

• the power invested in each officer through their warrant card.

Each serving officer, from constable to chief constable, is invested with the same power to carry out her or his lawful duty. Rank is not invested with any more power to discharge lawful duties.

Centralisation, well certainly that being carried out by police Scotland, has and is further eroding that simple principle. Officers are not trusted to make decisions, these are made at the centre. There is no discretion and the concept of the warrant card and each officer having equal powers to discharge lawful duties is history.

Allow me to quote a more learned person on this subject:

Lord Denning, in the English Court of Appeal, while accepting that the police are answerable to the law, reiterated the cardinal principle of police independence:

'No minister of the Crown can tell ( the commissioner ) that he must, or must not, keep observation on this place or that; or that he must, or must not, prosecute this man or that one. Nor can any police authority tell him so. The responsibility for law enforcement lies on him. He is answerable to the law and to the law alone.'

In short, while referring to the Commissioner, he was talking about every police officer being individually answerable to the law for her or his actions.

We are sleep walking into a police State and whilst each step may seem benign it is not until you have travelled the path for some time that you realise you have forgotten where you started. Then you are lost.

scottish pillar box blown up

In the early 1950's just before the Queen Elizabeth's coronation, the Post Office in their haste to keep ahead of the game and following tradition, set about erecting new pillar (post) boxes throughout the United Kingdom. They decided to erect the first of these iconic bright red post boxes at a place called the Inch in Edinburgh, Scotland's capital city. It bore Her Majesty’s royal cypher: E II R, standing for Elizabeth II Regina.

Red Royal Mail Pillar box complete with E11R logo

28 November 1952, a group of officials and other dignitaries unveiled the 'E ll R', post box at the Inch, Edinburgh. My goodness what a national stooshie then developed. To some it seemed reasonable that Royal Mail should recognise the new head of state in this fashion.However not everyone agreed and the situation quickly descended into national outrage with wide scale media coverage, debates in the House of Commons and intense police surveillance.

To the uninitiated, Elizabeth may well be England's second ruler bearing that name, however she was only the first to so do in Scotland and therefore any reference to Elizabeth in Scotland should reflect that fact and to do otherwise would be disrespectful to the Scottish nation by taking it for granted.

In fact, so enraged were some Scots that the Pillar box with the offending insignia was blown up and had to be replaced. The manager of the iron foundry where the post boxes were made was warned, under pain of death, that all boxes manufactured forthwith and destined for a Scottish location had to be innocent of the number ll (two). Yes, he received death threats.

So, why do I recall this piece of Scottish history so vividly? My first job after leaving school in 1961 was as on officer junior at Carron Ironworks in Falkirk, to be more precise, Mungal Foundry, which was part of the foundry complex and had once been a separate foundry. The main items manufactured in Mungal Foundry were, Telephone Kiosks, Lamp Letter Boxes and the free standing Pillar Boxes, the subject of this tail. Part of my job was arranging the shipping for said items, along with the correct keys. I was under no illusions about my responsibility to ensure ER to Scottish locations and EllR to all other parts of the UK. I was reminded on a regular basis by the, under threat, foundry manager. I did not let him down.

This whole episode saw a few ditties penned and sung in appropriate watering holes throughout Scotland; 
'Sky High Joe' by Thurso Berwick, sung to the tune, Ricky Do Dum Dey
'Billet-Doux' by Thurso Berwick, sung to the tune, Corn Rigs
'Sky High Pantomime' by Thurso Berwick, sung to the tune Harlaw

N.B. Thurso Berwick's real name was Morris Blythman, a Fifer by birth.

and finally; 'The Ballad of the Inch' (tune - castles in the air ) I do not know who penned it.

"Ah'll tell tae ye a story,
An' ah'll swear tae ye it's true,
A' aboot the Pillar Box -
The ane wi' ER ll.

Chorus:
Fa'll blaw it this time?
Fa'll blaw it noo?
The anes that blew it last time ,
Canna blaw it noo.

They took this mickle Pillar Box,
An' stuck it in the groon',
Wi Edinburgh C.I.D
An' Polis a' aroon.

A noble Lady in the Sooth
Said, 'Let it weel be seen
By a' thae traitrous Scots up North
That I'm their English Queen.

'Sae watch it weel ma merry men,
An' keep it in your care,
For England's nearly bankrupt
An' we hav'nae ony mair.'

They guardit it richt faithfully,
They guardit it fell weel;
But in ahint their backs there nipped
A big black coated cheel.

Ye read it i' the papers,
Ye saw it i' the news-
How he stuck his 'Coupon' in,
Wi' a yaird-lang, fizzin fuse.

As he hirpled back across the road'
Tae the Cops he bade, 'Guid Nicht!'
Ah widnae staun sae near the box,
For yon wis gelagnite.

A minute later aff it went,
Wi' a flashin' an' a thump,
An noo they've taen awa' the bits, 
Tae the Corporation Dump.

The bottom bit they left it there,
A' ragged-edged an' shairp;
Bit the lid wis in St Peter's hands,
Be'in played on like a harp.

It's said that on the next day-
Pit there tae get their rag-
Upon the mound o' rubble
Wis a wee bit yella' flag.

So, there you have it, a wee snatch of Scottish history. 
Not told in schools I bet.

brown vow is empty promise

In a land a long time ago a husband and wife resided in an apartment in a block of similar apartments. There were many such blocks. Then one day the wife thought the family should move on, as did some of the other residents. It seems the conditions were not too their liking. The husband was not sure about what to do.

Then just before decision day the factor of the apartment appeared, along with envoys, the head gardener, the site agent and the rent collector. The owner of some other property also came along because it was not in his interest that people should be unhappy with their lot, because who knows, maybe the unhappiness would spread to his fiefdom. The residents were promised better things, they would be listened to, they would all have better heating installed, more regular servicing and decorating of their apartments and all manner of things good.

And on decision day the residents decided against moving and so did the uncertain husband, because the promises were presented as vows and so were believed.

Time passed, not a lot of time actually and lo and behold the board of directors addressed the factor and the envoys and said, you had no business promising anything to these upstarts. In fact we will now have a look at their rent because they have had it easy for too long.

And so it came to pass and the vows that had been made were seen for what some of the people had suspected all along, empty.

And the factor and the board got on with their other business and took upon themselves 15% of a rise in their yearly gold sovereign allowance and also made sure that their expenses reflected their worth.

But many people had, for the first time in their lives, looked up and they saw and they understood and avowed never to look down again.