Sunday 2 September 2012

Tony Blair, War Criminal.


Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called for Tony Blair and George Bush to be hauled before the international criminal court in The Hague and delivered a damning critique of the physical and moral devastation caused by the Iraq war.
Tutu, a Nobel peace prizewinner and hero of the anti-apartheid movement, accuses the former British and US leaders of lying about weapons of mass destruction and says the invasion left the world more destabilised and divided "than any other conflict in history".
Writing in the Observer, Tutu also suggests the controversial US and UK-led action to oust Saddam Hussein in 2003 created the backdrop for the civil war in Syria and a possible wider Middle East conflict involving Iran.
"The then leaders of the United States and Great Britain," Tutu argues, "fabricated the grounds to behave like playground bullies and drive us further apart. They have driven us to the edge of a precipice where we now stand – with the spectre of Syria and Iran before us."
But it is Tutu's call for Blair and Bush to face justice in The Hague that is most startling. Claiming that different standards appear to be set for prosecuting African leaders and western ones, he says the death toll during and after the Iraq conflict is sufficient on its own for Blair and Bush to be tried at the ICC.
"On these grounds, alone, in a consistent world, those responsible for this suffering and loss of life should be treading the same path as some of their African and Asian peers who have been made to answer for their actions in The Hague," he says.
The court hears cases on genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. To date, 16 cases have been brought before the court but only one, that of Thomas Lubanga, a rebel leader from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has been completed. He was sentenced earlier this year to 14 years' imprisonment for his part in war crimes in his home country.
Trials under way include those of the Serbian general Ratko Mladic and former DRC military commander Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo. Arrest warrants have also been issued for several suspects, including the Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir, and Muammar Gaddafi's second son Saif.
Tutu's broadside is evidence of the shadow still cast by Iraq over Blair's post-prime ministerial career, as he attempts to rehabilitate himself in British public life. A longtime critic of the Iraq war, the archbishop pulled out of a South African conference on leadership last week because Blair, who was paid 2m rand (£150,000) for his time, was attending. It is understood that Tutu had agreed to speak without a fee.
In his article, the archbishop argues that as well as the death toll, there has been a heavy moral cost to civilisation, with no gain. "Even greater costs have been exacted beyond the killing fields, in the hardened hearts and minds of members of the human family across the world.
"Has the potential for terrorist attacks decreased? To what extent have we succeeded in bringing the so-called Muslim and Judeo-Christian worlds closer together, in sowing the seeds of understanding and hope?" Blair and Bush, he says, set an appalling example. "If leaders may lie, then who should tell the truth?" he asks.
"If it is acceptable for leaders to take drastic action on the basis of a lie, without an acknowledgement or an apology when they are found out, what should we teach our children?"
In a statement, Blair strongly contested Tutu's views and said Iraq was now a more prosperous country than it had been under Saddam Hussein. "I have a great respect for Archbishop Tutu's fight against apartheid – where we were on the same side of the argument – but to repeat the old canard that we lied about the intelligence is completely wrong as every single independent analysis of the evidence has shown.
"And to say that the fact that Saddam massacred hundreds of thousands of his citizens is irrelevant to the morality of removing him is bizarre. We have just had the memorials both of the Halabja massacre, where thousands of people were murdered in one day by Saddam's use of chemical weapons, and that of the Iran-Iraq war where casualties numbered up to a million including many killed by chemical weapons.
"In addition, his slaughter of his political opponents, the treatment of the Marsh Arabs and the systematic torture of his people make the case for removing him morally strong. But the basis of action was as stated at the time.
"In short, this is the same argument we have had many times with nothing new to say. But surely in a healthy democracy people can agree to disagree.
"I would also point out that despite the problems, Iraq today has an economy three times or more in size, with the child mortality rate cut by a third of what it was. And with investment hugely increased in places like Basra."

Thursday 5 July 2012

The Freedom of the English People


Over the last decade there has been a growing unease at the draconian
measures that have been imposed on the English people since 9/11 by the Blair/ Brown and now Cameron/Clegg Government. 80% of the English people that I have spoken to have all agreed that the present system is unfair and that they believe the UK Government are unrepresentative of the English people which make up 86% of the UK population. The three other members of the union all have their own democratically elected parliaments, their elected members are allowed to vote on English matters but not the other way round. It is my Opinion as well as many others that we should have the same advantage as the rest of the union members and be treated as a independent nation with our own Parliament.

It would seem that if and when Scotland devolves from Britain, Britain ceases to exist as a legal Entity, as the original Contract of union was between England and Scotland.
I am no longer in favor of a separate English Parliament under a British Umbrella but as a complete Legal Entity in it's own right, with a written Constitution,and Open Honest Government.

The British Institutions, Judiciary, Financial and Political, have all been found wanting and with the Illegal Amoral Genocidal War against Iraq resulting in hundreds of thousands of innocent people being
slaughtered it is time to put Britannia finally to rest. She is a product of the past and should be viewed as such, an historical occurrence no longer relevant to the English Nation in the present day.

The English may represent 86% of the UK but we represent 100% of the Nation of England.

it's not that it will be completed overnight as there are obvious problems that the British will have left behind that will require cooperation between all the ex member states,
such as Northern Ireland, The British Dependency's, Not to mention the Banking industries on the Cayman Islands Belize and Jersey of which the later is also seeking Independence, there is also the armed forces abroad that will need to be repatriated immediately.
The four Nations would still need a place of discussion for our respective representatives to meet as our nations are intrinsically entwined, but this should not be an institution and have no powers of legislation but simply a place of communication to discuss such things as trade and border security. 

Monday 26 March 2012

Killing babies

Killing babies no different from abortion, experts say
Parents should be allowed to have their newborn babies killed because they are “morally irrelevant” and ending their lives is no different to abortion, a group of medical ethicist's linked to Oxford University has argued.


The journal’s editor, Prof Julian Savulescu, director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, said the article's authors had received death threats since publishing the article. He said those who made abusive and threatening posts about the study were “fanatics opposed to the very values of a liberal society”.
The article, entitled “After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?”, was written by two of Prof Savulescu’s former associates, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva.
They argued: “The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.”
Rather than being “actual persons”, newborns were “potential persons”. They explained: “Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’. We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her.”
As such they argued it was “not possible to damage a newborn by preventing her from developing the potentiality to become a person in the morally relevant sense”.
The authors therefore concluded that “what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled”.
They also argued that parents should be able to have the baby killed if it turned out to be disabled without their knowing before birth, for example citing that “only the 64 per cent of Down’s syndrome cases” in Europe are diagnosed by prenatal testing.
Once such children were born there was “no choice for the parents but to keep the child”, they wrote.
“To bring up such children might be an unbearable burden on the family and on society as a whole, when the state economically provides for their care.”    Read Moor

Friday 23 March 2012

The Secret Life of a Superpower

The Secret Life of a Superpower
This Documentary shows the lengths the American government, Security Services, and Military Complex will go to to achieve there goals.
 

Monday 19 March 2012

St Georg's Day Celebrations.


St Georges Day is on the way but unfortunately we are still unable to call it a national holiday as the bill before parliament has been withdrawn. I have contacted Mr Nadhim Zahawi MP for Stratford on Avon who I believe initially submitted the bill and am awaiting a reply.
The Bill had its first reading on 15 December 2010 through the Ten Minute Rule. The second reading was on 13 May 2011 but was subsequently withdrawn.
On a Brighter not this has not in any way stopped the English from preparing for this coming St Georges day.
In Plymouth (picture above) preparations are well underway for the event on 23rd April and also in many other cities and towns throughout the Nation of England.Birmingham unfortunately dose not seam to be celebrating this year if the website http://livebrum.co.uk/2012/04/21/st-george-s-day-celebration ) has anything to go by.
 The earliest documented mention of St George in England comes from the venerable Bede (c. 673–735)He is also mentioned in ninth-century liturgy used at Durham Cathedral,In 1222 The Synod of Oxford declared St. George's Day a feast day in the kingdom of England.St George's Day was a major feast and national holiday in England on a par with Christmas from the early 15th century.The Cross of St George was flown in 1497 by John Cabot on his voyage to discover Newfoundland and later by Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh.In 1620 it was the flag that was flown by the Mayflower when the Pilgrim Fathers arrived in Plymouth Massachusetts USA.Salisbury holds an annual St George’s Day pageant, the origins of which are believed to go back to the thirteenth century,A traditional custom on St George's day is to wear a red rose in one's lapel, though this is no longer widely practiced. Another custom is to fly or adorn the St George's Cross flag in some way: pubs in particular can be seen on 23 April festooned with garlands of St George's crosses. It is customary for the hymn "Jerusalem" to be sung in cathedrals, churches and chapels on St George's Day.





Sunday 11 March 2012

Sunday 14 August 2011

Atos doctors could be struck off

 Twelve medics at the disability assessment centre are under investigation by the GMC over allegations of improper conduct

    Atos practices concerning welfare and disability assessment have come under intense criticism. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
    Twelve doctors employed by the firm that is paid £100m a year to assess people claiming disability benefit are under investigation by the General Medical Council over allegations of improper conduct. The doctors, who work for Atos Healthcare, a French-owned company recently criticised by MPs for its practices, face being struck off if they are found not to have put the care of patients first. The Observer has found that seven of the doctors have been under investigation for more than seven months. The other five were placed under investigation this year following complaints about their conduct. It is understood that the majority of allegations concern the treatment of vulnerable people when the government's controversial "work capability assessments" were carried out, but the GMC refused to comment on individual cases. The development will add to fears over the pace and radical agenda behind the government's welfare-to-work policy, which led to protests in Westminster in May by thousands of disabled people. It will also raise concerns about ministers' commitment to Atos Healthcare, which was recently granted a three-year extension on its contract. The government has repeatedly publicised figures showing that the "vast majority" of claimants for employment support allowance (ESA), which has replaced incapacity benefit, are fit for work. But four out of 10 of those who appealed the decision by Atos - whose parent company is run by a former French finance minister, Thierry Breton - to deny them benefits are successful on appeal, a process that costs the taxpayer £50m a year. Last month Atos, whose staff assess around 11,000 benefit claimants a week, was savaged by the cross-party work and pensions select committee after it found that many people had "not received the level of service from Atos which they can reasonably expect". MPs further claimed that a combination of the company's conduct and the test itself had prompted "fear and anxiety among vulnerable people". One GP who attended an Atos recruitment fair told the Observer she feared doctors could become "agents of the state" who were deprofessionalised by involvement in a system that did not make patient care its first concern. Campaigners for the disabled seized upon the development, claiming the government needed to go back to the drawing board. Richard Hawkes, chief executive of the charity Scope, said: "If the government wants to get disabled people off benefits and into work then it needs to get its assessment right. The test should be the first step on the road to employment. But disabled people's confidence in the work capability assessment is extremely low – and today's news will send it to rock bottom. "The test is massively flawed. Now it appears that it is being carried out by a large number of doctors who are under serious investigation." Neil Bateman, a solicitor who handles ESA appeals, said on two occasions his clients had been successful because, among other reasons, the doctor assessing them had qualified in Romania and registered with the GMC but had not been licensed to practise in Britain. Citizens Advice told the Observer it was compiling a dossier showing the problems being faced by those assessed by Atos staff, who can be nurses or physiotherapists in cases where there are no potential neurological disorders. It said it regularly found inaccuracies in many of the medical reports featured in ESA appeal papers that could affect people's chances of receiving benefits. It also found a lack of consideration for those being assessed. A spokesman said a barrister who was unable to practise because of cancer and lymphoma had described the assessment as being like an "interrogation" led by a computer. The assessor moved the client's legs, which caused her great pain, even though the client had warned that this would happen. In another case a claimant with learning difficulties who went for an assessment was found fit for work because he had found his way to the assessment centre on his own. When asked about this by Citizens Advice, he reluctantly explained that he had got up very early, taken the bus to the town centre, and then kept asking passersby for directions. He couldn't follow their instructions, so he would show the letter, walk in the direction they pointed, then ask again until he arrived. Two doctors employed by Atos have already been taken by the GMC to an independent panel for adjudication on their fitness to practise. Dr Alexandros Mallios, who it was claimed had not carried out a proper examination of his patient during an assessment, was cleared by the panel last October. Dr Usen Samuel Ikidde, who qualified in Nigeria, was given a formal warning in January, to lay on his records for five years, after he was found to have worked for Atos while on sick leave from an accident and emergency department. An Atos spokesman said: "Atos Healthcare is committed to providing a high-quality, professional service and requires these standards of all its employees. While we cannot comment on individual cases, any complaint made about an employee is taken extremely seriously. "In addition to our own rigorous internal investigations we will co-operate with any external investigation to ensure all facts are properly established and the appropriate action taken." The Labour government introduced work capability assessments in 2008 when it replaced incapacity benefit and income support for new claimants with employment and support allowance. The government has accelerated the changes and started retesting all 1.5 million incapacity benefit claimants to see whether they are eligible for the new benefit. A GMC spokesman said: "We can and do take action to remove or restrict a doctor's right to practise if there have been serious failures to meet our standards."

Wednesday 20 July 2011

Blair/Bush War Criminals

One Million dead and four million homeless, a country devastated, raped pillaged and plundered by the Bush/Blair war machine. Will they ever be brought to trial for their crimes against humanity?
Tony Blair's extraordinary admission  to the BBC's Fern Britton - that he would have gone to war to topple Saddam Hussein regardless of the issue of Iraq's alleged WMDs - is sure to give fresh impetus to moves to prosecute our former prime minister for war crimes.
The case against Blair, strong enough before this latest comment, now appears rock solid. Going to war to change another country's regime is prohibited by international law, while the Nuremburg judgment of 1946 laid down that "to initiate a war of aggression", as Blair and Bush clearly did against Iraq, "is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole".
Blair's admission, that he "would still have thought it right to remove him [Saddam]" regardless of the WMD issue, is also an acknowledgement that he lied to the House of Commons on February 25, 2003, when he told MPs: "I detest his [Saddam's] regime. But even now he [Saddam] can save it by complying with the UN's demand. Even now, we are prepared to go the extra step to achieve disarmament peacefully. I do not want war... But disarmament peacefully can only happen with Saddam's active co-operation."
The view that Blair is a war criminal is now mainstream: when comedian Sandi Toksvig, host of Radio Four's News Quiz, called him one on air, the BBC, according to the Mail on Sunday, did not receive a single complaint.
But while it is easy to label Blair a war criminal, what are the chances of him actually standing trial - and how could it be achieved? Various initiatives have already been launched.
The Blair War Crimes Foundation, set up by retired orthopaedic surgeon David Halpin, has organised an online petition, addressed to the President of the UN General Assembly and the UK Attorney General, which lists 14 specific complaints relating to the Iraq war, including "deceit and conspiracy for war, and providing false news to incite passions for war" and violations of the Geneva Conventions by the occupying powers. 
One of the most insidious insults is the award of the Liberty Medal for humanitarian causes handed out to Blair by the American Government and of course his hypocritical new post as Middle East Peace Envoy. Has the World Gone Mad or is it just run by Insane Murdering Criminals?  


Tuesday 12 July 2011

George W Bush should be prosecuted

George W Bush, whose administration is accused by Human Rights Watch of authorizing use of torture.
A US human rights group has called on foreign governments to prosecute George W Bush and some of his senior officials for war crimes if the Obama administration fails to investigate a growing body of evidence against the former president over the use of torture.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Tuesday that the US authorities are legally obliged to investigate the top echelons of the Bush administration over crimes such as torture, abduction and other mistreatment of prisoners. It says that the former administration's legal team was part of the conspiracy in preparing opinions authorising abuses that they knew to have no standing in US or international law.
Besides Bush, HRW names his vice-president, Dick Cheney, the former defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and the ex-CIA director, George Tenet, as likely to be guilty of authorising torture and other crimes.
The group says that the investigation and prosecutions are required "if the US hopes to wipe away the stain of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo and reaffirm the primacy of the rule of law".
HRW acknowledges the broad allegations are not new but says they should be given fresh attention because of growing documentary evidence with the release of previously classified papers, admissions made in books by Bush and others, and from a leaked International Committee of the Red Cross report that details illegal practices by the former administration.
The author of the HRW report, Reed Brody, says the issue also deserves renewed scrutiny because the Obama administration has all but abandoned its obligations. "It's become abundantly clear that there is no longer any movement on the part of the Obama administration to live up to its responsibilities to investigate these cases when the evidence just keeps piling up. Just this year we have the different admissions by President Bush that he authorised waterboarding," he said.
HRW says Bush and his senior officials are open to prosecution under the 1996 War Crimes Act as well as for criminal conspiracy under federal law.
"There is enough strong evidence from the information made public over the past five years to not only suggest these officials authorised and oversaw widespread and serious violations of US and international law, but that they failed to act to stop mistreatment, or punish those responsible after they became aware of serious abuses," it said.
Among the accusations in the report are that Bush approved waterboarding, ordered the CIA secret detention programme and approved illegal abductions of individuals delivered to foreign countries for torture, known as renditions.
The report described Cheney as "the driving force behind the establishment of illegal detention policies and the formulation of legal justifications for those policies" including torture. Rumsfeld is said to have "approved illegal interrogation methods that facilitated the use of torture by US military personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq", and Tenet "oversaw the CIA's use of waterboarding", and that the agency also "disappeared" detainees by holding them in incommunicado detention in secret locations.
HRW says an investigation should also examine roles played by Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and the then attorney general, John Ashcroft, and administration lawyers in crafting the legal justifications for torture.
HRW calls on foreign governments to act if the US fails to. "Under international law any country has jurisdiction over torture and war crimes," said Brody.
The organisation noted that over the past two decades an increasing number of countries, particularly in Europe, have applied universal jurisdiction laws in prosecuting individuals responsible for crimes in Rwanda, the Balkans and Africa. The US itself used the principle of universal jurisdiction to prosecute "Chuckie" Taylor – son of former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, now on trial before an international tribunal – for torture in Liberia.
Asked if foreign leaders, such as Bush's ally, Tony Blair, were also vulnerable to prosecution, Brody said there was a difference between political responsibility and criminal liability for directly ordering abuses. But he said that the political complicity of some European countries makes it necessary for them to act.

Reported roles

President George Bush: He has publicly admitted that in two cases he approved the use of waterboarding. Bush also authorised the "illegal CIA secret detention and renditions programmes, under which detainees were held incommunicado and frequently transferred to countries such as Egypt and Syria where they were likely to be tortured".
Vice President Dick Cheney: "The driving force behind the establishment of illegal detention and interrogation policies, chairing key meetings at which specific CIA operations were discussed, including the waterboarding of one detainee, Abu Zubaydah, in 2002."
Defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld: "Approved illegal interrogation methods and closely followed the interrogation of Mohamed al-Qahtani, who was subjected to a six-week regime of coercive interrogation at Guantanamo that cumulatively appears to have amounted to torture".
The CIA director, George Tenet: "Authorised and oversaw the CIA's use of waterboarding, stress positions, light and noise bombardment, sleep deprivation, and other abusive interrogation methods, as well as the CIA rendition program".