Spleen
March 2004 archive
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The Pentagon was not hit by an airliner on 11/9.
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Sadman Hussein
Old
news. Bogey Man captured by Superpowerman
Bringing 'em on
Civilian deaths in foreign wars are just so many statistics. The numbers easily obscure the human tragedies and suffering that are the result of the crude exercise of power.
Famously, the US military does not keep track of the number of people it kills or the circumstances in which they kill. Very pragmatic."We do not do body counts," says General Tommy Franks.
Here is a site that tries to put the numbers to the US atrocities, and tries to put names to the cold statistics.
Iraq Body Count More necessary reading for those people who are fond of saying you have to break eggs to make an omelette.
March 23, 2004
Suck it through Straw
Tuesday the 16th, Spain absorbs the shock of the Madrid train bombs and mourns the 201 dead.
Tuesday the 16th, the chief of London's Metropolitan Police John Stevens said that a terrorist attack in the city is inevitable.
Tuesday the 16th, London's mayor Ken Livingstone said that it would be "miraculous" if London escaped an attack.
Tuesday the 16th, cabinet minister Peter Hain said the UK was a "frontline target" for attack by international terrorists.
Monday the 15th, Home Secretary David Blunkett said it was "quite likely" a terror attack was being planned now against the UK.
Tuesday the 16th, UK Foreign Minister Jack Straw tells us "I do not believe we are less safe as a result of the activity we have taken [in Iraq]".
EXCLUSIVE
PSI-SCOOP
|
Butler Inquiry Results: Preview
Tory Blair recently announced an inquiry
into the accuracy of UK military intelligence before the Iraq war.
We can give you an exclusive sneak preview of those results right here.
Using our international network of janitors, we succeeded in obtaining
an advance copy of the report, whose findings will be announced later
this year, right off Lord Butler's desk. And here are the findings
of this behind-closed-doors inquiry:
So now we know.
Spain
Today's announcement by the Spanish prime minister elect that he is going to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq is not quite the good news it seems to be.
Firstly, a qualification attached to the announcement has gone largely unremarked upon. Zapatero actually said he would consider withdrawing the troops after June 30 if the situation in Iraq had not changed, meaning that he is leaving a open a means of backtracking if realpolitik decides he wants to keep the soldiers there. Source: BBC lead story today.
Next — and putting myself in uncomfortable company — look at this from Al Quaida's point of view (assuming it was them that planted the Spanish bombs, which hasn't been proved yet).
With one audacious and horrible act they have changed a Western government and extracted an apparent resolution to remove part of the occupying force in Iraq. They will now be pumped and looking for the next target. A sufficiently violent act could send home the Polish or Japanese or Bulgarian contingents. This means more death. Peaceniks cannot be against death when inflicted by the US and UK and indifferent to it when inflicted by others. Sending home the Spanish contingent may encourage more extravagant acts of violence such as the string of bombings that started in Bali and includes the recent Spanish bombs.
Al Quaida will look at Japan whose government is a keen supporter of the Bush lunacy but whose population, like Spain's, is instinctively against the war and occupation.
An attack on the mainland of Japan is unlikely. There is no Islamic community to blend in with. Foreigners stand out a mile. Unlike Europe, there is no politicised body to act as support for an attack here. Al Q may choose to attack Japanese people abroad or go for an airliner in another country where the security isn't so tight.
Britain is an obvious target. The deployment on London's tube trains of undercover marshals will do little to prevent determined attackers, and let's face it, the tube is a disaster waiting to happen with or without bombs.
Moreover, Britain has a large number of radicalised youngsters ready to throw away their lives, as recent suicide bombings by British citizens in Iraq and Palestine demonstrate.
Zapatero is in a very shitty position: maintain an unjust occupation and risk further attacks or pull out and guarantee attacks on other countries.
And we are in a shitty position whichever way Zapatero swings: we are all targets, as the Spain and Bali bombs illustrate.
Of course, the invasion of Iraq should never have happened, and let's be clear, it went ahead for the most craven reasons and our leaders should be in the dock in the Hague alongside Milosevic. They should remove their troops because that is the right thing to do, not because they were bombed out by a rival gang of psychotics — that way lies yet more violence.
March 15, '04
More Kennedy bollocks
Well, your long wait is over. You can now get some sleep at night. Charles Kennedy, leader of the UK's LSD party finally replied to the letter I sent him on January 24th this year.
And what a mealy-mouthed lot of rubbish it is too. Mr. Kennedy, considerate enough to reply, was apparently not considerate enough to read the message Psipook sent him because the form letter he sent fails abjectly to address the question I posed and in fact digs himself deeper in.
Mr. Kennedy in his reply quite rightly condemns "the use of terrorism and suicide bombings which target and kill innocent people." I am not sure why he sees terrorism and suicide bombings as two separate things, but the point is he seems to be unconcerned about the killing of innocent people by the Israeli armed forces, which endorses my original objection to his treatment of Jennifer Tonge. Or does he consider all Palestinians to be terrorists and suicide bombers? Is that really what the leader of the UK's third party thinks?
And to think I once voted for these guys twenty years ago. I guess I was beguiled by the name of the party and anyway, there was no Monster Raving Loony Party candidate standing in my constituency on that occasion.
In posting this, I have noticed a further irony. Ms. Tonge was the party's spokesperson for children, and as Mr. Kennedy was sacking her it was children that were being shot by the Israeli army. Hands up all those who are going to vote LSD at the next election!
You can read the original Psipook letter and Mr. Kennedy's reply by clicking here.
You can find the original story by scrolling down to the entry on this page for January 25.
To be honest, Mr. Kennedy replied to my letter on February 12, but since he didn't bother to address the issues, I didn't bother quickly to address his reply.
March 9, '04
Doomed and buggered
Yes, I know, you all saw it last week, but here it is again, just to remind us what real fear and outrage is all about. Here's the Observer story about the Pentagon report that says we are all going to hell in a globally warmed hand basket. The report was suppressed by George Bush and his crew who apparently don't want us to know that they are not only doing nothing to combat the threat, they are actively creating it. Click here to read — incidentally, there is nowhere to click if you want to hide.
March 7, '04
A tale of two standards
I can't reveal the names of the magazines in this story because I could
get into hot water, possibly of the legal kind. I shall refer to the
magazines as A and B. The story is a behind-the-scenes wrangle involving
staggering hypocrisy. And I will confess at the outset a personal interest.
Magazine A in its current issue printed a photo provided by the editor
of website C to accompany a story he wrote for A. The photo had apparently
been used on website C and was properly credited to the photographer.
Website C had a contract with A to provide stories for a certain period
of time which provided content for A and promoted C. This issue of A
carried the last story from C.
Today, the photographer, who also works for B emailed A to complain in
no uncertain terms about what he considered unauthorised use of his photo
and demanded money. A referred B to C, since it was C that provided the
credited photo in the first place.
Within the afternoon, the email row had escalated to drag in a top wig
of an association of periodicals in Japan who happens to be a friend
of the photographer and there were threats of some kind of action or
other. Whatever.
What struck me as the story infolded is the hypocrisy of B who have attempted
to
To get specific, a photographer once approached B with some shots she
thought the magazine might like to use before she left the country. B
said no thanks but kept some of the slides she offered for their files.
The photographer changed her plan to leave the country and was surprised
a couple of months later to see her work adorning the cover of magazine
B.
An illustrator was commissioned to do some stuff for the same magazine
and had a bit of an undignified tussle to extract payment from them after
publication. Two years later, the same illustrator was surprised to see
his work reappear in the pages of the magazine. His surprise was less
than the surprise of the editor when he called to claim payment. As with
the photographer, the editor seemed to have made the assumption that
the copyright owner of the work was out of the country and would not
notice.
The same illustrator, years later, put aside his aversion to B to write
for them a short article. His enquiry about payment terms was curtly
dismissed with a referral
A graphic designer found work he had done for another client mysteriously
appear in B without credit or remuneration.
To the photographer from B, I would like to say A received the photo
in good faith and used it in good faith. I would like to say that in
each of the cases above, people submitted work to B work in good faith
and were treated in bad faith.
March 18, 2004