wpjf blog

With 15 British sailors still detained in Iran, it’s worth reading what Craig Murray has to say on the matter to balance the moral outrage of the British government and media.

No doubt at all that the sailors are being used as pawns, but at least as much by Britain and the US - who are, we must remember, illegally occupying Iraq - as by the Iranians.

As for all that nuclear hypocrisy being spouted in relation to Iran’s Uranium enrichment programme, our own home-grown Uranium enrichment facility is just up the road in Capenhurst, near Ellesmere Port.

This report from the BBC rather smugly states that "Nations which are signatories to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) have the ‘inalienable right’ to make nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes, through enriching uranium or separating plutonium."

All very well, except our Uranium is not only used for peaceful purposes, and we are in breach of the NPT in any case because we haven’t made any attempts to get rid of our nuclear weapons.   The result of exercising this ‘inalienable right’ is that Uranium from Capenhurst is discharged with the blessing of the authorities into the local Rivacre brook which runs close to schools and houses… the childhood leukaemia rate is four times the national average close to the site.  The Uranium is used in the Trident nuclear weapons programme; it ends up in Uranium weaponry which has polluted forever areas of the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq; the fallout from this pollution ends up all over the place including back here in the UK; Uranium weapons have contaminated parts of Scotland where they have been tested; surplus uranium is dumped illegally in Russia.

• who has been camped in Parliament Square for nearly 6 years in protest at the effect of our government’s foreign policy on ordinary people in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere;
• who, along with his supporters, has been subject to the most appalling oppression by the police;
• who has had a law, SOCPA, drafted specifically to try and get rid of him;
• who has recently won several court battles against the police interpretation of this law;
• whose display was stolen in the night by police and has now been re-created as an art exhibition in Tate Britain

has won Channel 4’s "Most Inspiring Political Figure Award" for 2007 with a massive 54% of the total vote.
 
In his acceptance speech, Brian said:
 
"I would like to say a warm thank you to everyone who voted for me. This is a vote against this government’s killing, maiming, torture, stealing. It’s a vote for the children of Iraq and Afghanistan, for all our children - our future. For truth, justice, peace and democracy for all."
 
Mysteriously (Fix!), Tony Blair was also amongst the shortlisted candidates, but polled just 8% of the vote.  Inspiring political figure?  Don’t make me laugh.

 

 
It’s about time Blair & co. caught up with public opinion.  Put a stop to the ongoing police harassment of Brian and his friends and listen to what they’re saying.  It’s a sad state of affairs when we have a war criminal for prime minister while people who try to draw attention to these war crimes are criminalised.  Freedom and democracy?  You decide.
 
 

I spotted these -

on cartoonist Latuff’s Tales of Iraq War blog.

I can’t think of anything to say about Bush’s decision to send more troops to Iraq that hasn’t already been said, some of it by Republicans too!  Let’s just hope he goes quickly now.
 
Les thought that Pete Seeger’s anti-war song from the Vietnam era would be an appropriate comment.  So, here is Waist Deep in The Big Muddy. 

There’s also Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation by Tom Paxton.  Just replace Lyndon Johnson with Bush, 50,000 with 20,000 troops and Vietnam with Iraq and we’re off "to save Iraq from the Iraq-is".

Milan Rai and Maya Evans naming the dead 

Listening to the Today Programme on Radio 4 often makes me angry, and the other day was no exception.  Radio 4 is running its "Christmas Repeal", where a panel draws up a shortlist of legislation listeners feel should be repealed, and listeners get to vote on the shortlist.  One of the candidates this year is the notorious Serious Organised Crime and Police Act.  Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty was speaking on Today for the repeal of this Act, while Stephen Pound, Labour MP, was speaking against. 

Pound was supposed to be defending the Act, but ended up saying that it should not have been used to convict Maya Evans and Milan Rai for reading out the names of Iraqi civilians and British soldiers who’ve died in Iraq… in essence he was trying to pass off these convictions as a minor aberration in what is otherwise a sound piece of legislation.  But of course it isn’t. 

Maya and Mil’s appeals to the High Court against their convictions have recently been turned down.  Worse still, in spite of widespread condemnation of the convictions - including in the mainstream media - both have now been charged again under the Act for organising and taking part in an "unauthorised" demonstration within 1km of Parliament last October (reading out the names of Iraqi civilians and British soldiers who have died in Iraq).  If convicted of organising the demonstration, Maya and Mil could face both a fine and up to 51 weeks in prison.  The Act has been used (and indeed was designed) to try and suppress the free speech of protester Brian Haw and his supporters in Parliament Square.  Many acts of violence by the police have been carried out in its name.

I have written to the Today Programme and Stephen Pound to ask what he thinks about this, which is probably not going to achieve very much but it did make me feel a bit better.  My correspondence with Steve Pound is here.