Shaphan

An Iraqi 9/11

On Sunday, Coalition forces in Iraq killed about 250-450 'cult members', at the behest of the Iraqi government.  We, the British, contributed to the massacre, which, in relative-population terms, was equivalent to an Iraqi 9/11.

American Apache attack helicopters and F-16s, as well as British fighter jets, flew low over the farms where the enemy had set up its encampments and attacked, dropping 500-pound bombs on the encampments. [NYT]

Women and children are believed to have lived and died at the encampment.  Reports yesterday suggested the leader, who was believed to be a herald of the Imam Mahdi, had been killed along with this followers - but the NYT is not so sure.

Iraqi officials said Monday that they had killed the leader of the militia in the weekend fighting, identifying him as a man who went by the name Ahmed Hassan al-Yamani, but whose real name was Diyah Abdul Zahraa Khadom.  However, a Shiite cleric who has had contact with the group said the real leader was Ahmad bin al-Hassan al-Basri.  The cleric said he believed that Mr. Basri was alive and probably hiding near Karbala.

I would have thought that, when faced with an apocalyptic cult, the last strategy to try would be to wreak apocalyptic violence upon its followers - it sort of reinforces the beliefs of the survivors.  In addition, targeting religious groups, such as the Soldiers of Heaven, is considered genocide under international law.   I'm lost for words.

Nuggets

* Take a bow, Andrew Pierce!  Pierce is a conservative English journalist who was already out as a gay man and, brave soul, as a Catholic.  Now, with the row over Catholic adoption agencies, he comes out also as an adoptee. 

This is going to get me into trouble with the vocal equality lobby, as all gays are supposed to be outraged by the Roman Catholic Church's stance on adoption.

Well, I'm gay and I'm not.  I don't agree with it, but I can live with it.  To hear some of the arguments of the last week, you would think it was the most important battle between Church and State since the Reformation.

But what I do find difficult to accept is that the Catholic adoption agencies will shut if they refuse to accept the law requiring them to treat same-sex and straight couples as equal.  And yes, I am biased.  I spent the first two years of my life in a Catholic orphanage in Cheltenham.  Then I was Patrick, born in Bristol, the son of Margaret Connolly.  Father's name: unknown.

I won't say 'read it all' but I was moved by his courage in speaking up.

*  Some klutz at Slate has been blogging the Bible since May last year - I wish I'd noticed sooner.

Genesis, Chapter 1

You'd think God would know exactly what He's doing, but He doesn't. He's a tinkerer. He tries something out what if I move all the water around so dry land can appear? He checks it out.  He sees "that it was good."  Then He moves on to the next experiment. How about plants?  Let's try plants.

Etc.  So far it works for me.

*  And a necessary but disturbing first-person account from a returning WaPo NYT correspondent, of Iraq then and now.

Bunker mentality

“The real rulers in Washington are invisible to exercise power from behind the scenes”

~ Felix Frankfurter [US Supreme Court Justice, 1939-62 - Wikip.]

"After 9/11, The Washington Post reported that President Bush had set up a shadow government of about 100 senior civilian managers to live and work outside Washington on a rotating basis to ensure the continuity of national security.  Since then, a program once focused on presidential succession and civilian control of U.S. nuclear weapons has been expanded to encompass the entire government."

~ Washington Post (2006.06.02)

"On Monday, June 19 [2006], about 4,000 government workers representing more than 50 federal agencies from the State Department to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission will say goodbye to their families and set off for dozens of classified emergency facilities stretching from the Maryland and Virginia suburbs to the foothills of the Alleghenies.  They will take to the bunkers in an "evacuation" that my sources describe as the largest "continuity of government" exercise ever conducted, a drill intended to prepare the U.S. government for an event even more catastrophic than the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks."

~ ibid.

"Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has left the Pentagon, but not the Defense Department.  On Jan. 4 [2007], Mr. Rumsfeld opened a government-provided transition office in Arlington and has seven Pentagon-paid staffers working for him, a Pentagon official said.  The Pentagon lists Mr. Rumsfeld as a "nonpaid consultant," a status he needs in order to review secret and top-secret documents, the official said."

~ Washington Times (2007.01.25]

Iranian president toppled by the Mossad - claim (by me)

I've no idea whether or not the rape allegations against Israeli president Moshe Katsav are true or not.  He alleges a conspiracy against him and few believe him.  But I can't help reflecting that having an Iranian-born president must have grated upon those within Israel and the US who have Iran firmly in their sights. 

President Katsav was born in Yazd, Iran, as Moseh Qassab [Link], his parents emigrated to Israel when he was five years old, whence his name became Hebraicized. 

According to Ha'Aretz:

The four women whom Katsav is accused of sexually assaulting include three past and present employees of the President's Residence and one who worked under Katsav during his tenure as tourism minister, in 1998-1999.  Mazuz also plans to charge the president with giving away items that belonged to the President's Residence at private events, as well as with obstruction of justice and harassing a witness, for trying to pressure one of the President's Residence employees to retract her complaint against him.

Should Katsav be convicted of all the charges in the draft indictment, he is likely to spend many years in jail...

Past and present employees of the President's Residence would have to be government employees with high-level security clearances.  Now, if they were told that the Iranian-born president had become a national security problem, they might well agree to accuse the man of rape, given that their identities would remain secret.  My guess is that this case will never get to a full hearing in court, but the man's reputation has been ruined nevertheless.  For being an Iranian head of state?

* The photograph is of Katsav and former Iranian president Khatami at John Paul II's funeral.  According to search.com, from where I copied the photo:

On April 8, 2005 Katsav sat near Iranian President Mohammad Khatami (also born in Yazd) during the funeral of Pope John Paul II, due to the fact that all world leaders present were arranged in alphabetical order by the name of their state.  President Katsav would later claim that he shook Khatami's hand and spoke to him in Persian.  He also greeted Bashar al-Assad during the funeral service's traditional "exchange of peace".  That was the first political contact between Iran and Israel since 1979.  Khatami, however, denied that such a meeting ever took place.

In praise of... discrimination

[The third in an occasional series championing unpopular causes.  Previous subjects have been Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ariel Sharon.]

The misconceived Equality Act 2006 is indicative of a prevailing belief among the ruling classes and in much of the country that discrimination per se is an "evil" (AC Grayling) that must be stamped out.  According to Charlie Falconer:

The view about discrimination [that it must be banned] is one that's been taken by the country as a whole. [Today programme]

By the whole country?  When did we take that view?  If I'd been asked, I'd have favoured greater discrimination.  Here are some definitions and etymologies:

dis·crim·i·nate

–verb (used without object)  1. to make a distinction in favor of or against a person or thing on the basis of the group, class, or category to which the person or thing belongs rather than according to actual merit; show partiality:  The new law discriminates against foreigners.  He discriminates in favor of his relatives.  2. to note or observe a difference; distinguish accurately:  to discriminate between things.  –verb (used with object)  3. to make or constitute a distinction in or between; differentiate:  a mark that discriminates the original from the copy.  4. to note or distinguish as different:  He can discriminate minute variations in tone.  –adjective  5. marked by discrimination; making or evidencing nice distinctions:  discriminate people; discriminate judgments. 

[Origin: 1620–30; < L discriminatus separated, ptp. of discriminare. See discriminant, -ate1] 

[Dictionary.com Unabridged]

The first definition informs the Act's understanding of 'discrimination'.  But note its examplary phrases - they imply that it's unmerited to distinguish between nationals and non-nationals, and between one's family and non-family-members: yet, a political, moral and social collapse would ensue if those distinctions were not drawn, at least some of time.  Anyhow, here's more on the etymology:

dis·crim·i·nant    

–noun Mathematics.  a relatively simple expression that determines some of the properties, as the nature of the roots, of a given equation or function.

[Origin: 1830–40; < L discriminant- (s. of discriminans) separating, prp. of discriminare to divide up, separate, v. deriv. of discrimen, s. discrimin- separating line, distinction, equiv. to discri-, var. s. of discernere (see discern) + -men n. suffix; see -ant]

Discernment and discrimination are exactly the qualities required of legislators in a well-functioning democracy.  But, unfortunately, our parliamentarians have been brainwashed to believe, and would brainwash the country into believing, that discrimination, in all its forms, must be eradicated from British behaviour, even at the expense of common-sense.

Proponents of the Act try to cast this as a religion vs secularism conflict.  The (shockingly unphilosophically minded) AC Grayling has written several articles in this vein.  For example, his latest diatribe begins thusly:

Emboldened by its victory over the government in the matter of keeping faith schools discriminatory and exclusive, the Roman Catholic church in England is now again flexing its biceps to preserve its tradition of discrimination and prejudice against gay people.  Just as active in keeping its own paedophile priests safe from the law, it is determined to secure exemptions from anti-discrimination legislation too.  Evidently, Roman Catholicism thinks of itself as above the law.  Of course it would: it is obedient not to earthly law, but to a higher law: its own convenience, its own mentally and morally corrupt ways. [Guardian]

Instead of focusing on the needs of the infants put up for adoption, or of the gay and lesbian B&B owners who don't want to invite straights into their house, thank you very much (and for whom nobody speaks up, because the gay NGOs have lobbied for this law), Grayling attacks the messenger, the Catholic Church, of which he's obviously not a fan.  But the church's argument is about children, earthly beings, not about higher laws, and Grayling ignores that.  His ideology, on the other hand, extols a higher law, 'anti-discrimination', to be superimposed indiscriminately upon us earthly beings, whose rights and needs are to be trampled by the heavy boots of its fanaticism. 

(In case the reader wonders - no, I am not a Catholic nor call myself Christian.  If I were to become a Catholic, I hope I would be sufficiently discriminating and discerning to become a sedevacantist, which would then mean I'd be excommunicated, which would sort of defeat the object of it, so I won't.  But, increasingly with age, I tend to agree with its ethical stances on such things as this legislation, IVF and embryonic stem cell research.)   

Supporters of the Act argue: discrimination laws should be applied indiscriminately; gays are like blacks, women and the disabled, and they should be similarly protected from discrimination; it would be wrong to stop a straight black couple from adopting a child on the grounds that they were black, and gay couples should have equal rights as black couples.  But this is a categorical error.  The black couple, who for whatever reason are unable to conceive a natural child, entered into their relationship with the hope of the gift of a child - Nature sometimes gives, sometimes not - whereas the gay couple never could have conceived of a natural child.  The black couple do not have a right to a child but do have a relationship within which it is conceivable that the conception of an infant could have taken place - the gay couple, also, have no right to a child, but, additionally, their relationship always precluded the possibility of natural children.

I'm not an absolutist on this - many gay couples would be far better parents of adoptees than many straight couples I've known in my time - but the needs of the infant should be the main criterion for the adoption agency.  Ceteris paribus, it may well be that agency's consciencious judgement that an infant put up for adoption would be better off in a home in which it is conceivable that it could have been conceived, rather than in one in which it is inconceivable that it could have been conceived.  That agency's judgement would be criminalized under this law and that's wrong.

Adoption agents should discriminate in favour of infants, even if that upsets the sensibilities of some adults.  Being discriminating, not treating everything as if it was the same thing, recognizing differences, celebrating differences, allowing differences even if we don't like them - I only wish I were more discriminating and discerning than I actually am.

Discrimination rules

There's an incredibly stupid piece of legislation, the Equality Act 2006, that's soon to be rolled out. 

The Equality Act 2006, which comes into force in April, bans discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities and services on the basis of sexual orientation...

Lord Falconer told BBC television's Sunday AM programme: "We have introduced laws which prevent discrimination against people on the basis of their sexual orientation; those laws should be given full effect.

"We do take the view in this country that you shouldn't be discriminated against on that basis and think that applies to everybody, whatever your religion." [Telegraph]

As I wrote in a comment on the Guardian blog, appended to a piss-poor article by faux philosopher AC Grayling, "discrimination is the beginning of wisdom, which is the object of philosophy".  Charlie Falconer, you don't speak for me - I believe a lesbian couple should be allowed to open a B&B 'for lesbians only', without fear of prosecution.  Their civil liberty, to discriminate against me and invite only single and coupled lesbians into their house, is being sacrificed on the altar of indiscrimination.  It's not the sort of Britain I want to live in.  And it shouldn't be left to the followers of religions to oppose it.

Paget Report: Methodology (re Khashoggi)

As I see it, there's a fundamental flaw in the methodology of the Paget Report.  Its original terms of reference - decided upon by the then Coroner, Michael Burgess, "and the then Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, Sir John Stevens, now Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington" - were, rightly so, drawn quite broadly.  Its third term was:

• To identify allegations which would suggest that the deaths of the Princess of Wales and Dodi Al Fayed were caused other than as a result of a tragic road traffic accident and assess whether there is any credible evidence to support such assertions and report the same to the Coroner. [p.4]

But the opening sentence of the Report indicates how narrow its final parameters had become.

This police report documents the findings of the criminal investigation into an allegation made by Mohamed Al Fayed of conspiracy to murder the Princess of Wales and his son Dodi Al Fayed.

The Report does address some other allegations - those by Diana, Tomlinson and Shayler, especially - but these are secondary to the Report's primary focus, which is Mohamed Al Fayed's.  I would submit that MaF is too close to the matter, too unreliable, to justify the attention given to his allegations by Paget.  It's not just that some of his allegations are wild or overstated; it's also that he seems structurally unable to mention that his Dodi also belonged to the Khashoggi clan and that that fact might be significant.  (As mentioned in 'Collision or Collusion', Dodi's late mother was Samira Khashoggi, the sister of Adnan.)  According to the post-crash edition of "Time" magazine,

Adnan Khashoggi told a Saudi newspaper last month, "We welcome Diana into our family." [Time]

I doubt the British establishment would have welcomed such a thing, especially not having the princes so closely linked to such a notorious arms-dealer.  But, because MaF doesn't mention the Khashoggi angle, the possibility that it might have been a motivating factor is not addressed by the Operation Paget detectives. 

The website Namebase has a short review of a biography of Khashoggi, which succinctly if unflatteringly describes the man.

One example of wretched excess in the twentieth century is wheeler-dealer Adnan Khashoggi.  He liked to throw extravagant parties for beautiful people and classy prostitutes at one of his twelve fully-staffed residences, on his $70 million yacht, or on one of his three commercial-size airplanes.  His wealth, estimated at $4 billion in 1986, came from hefty commissions for arranging deals between U.S. defense contractors and the Saudi royal family.  For years our mass media favored him with fawning reports on his lifestyle.  Author Ronald Kessler does some of this, but fortunately this book is redeemed with a significant amount of investigative material.

Kessler wrote this at the peak of Khashoggi's career.  Soon Khashoggi found himself in the middle of the Iran-contra scandal because of his work with Manucher Ghorbanifar in setting up several of the arms-for-hostages deals.  Some of these deals were connected with BCCI, where Khashoggi was a major client.  In 1988 he and Imelda Marcos were indicted in Manhattan for helping her late husband hide assets that belonged to the Philippine people. Khashoggi was arrested in Switzerland and extradited, but he and Imelda were acquitted in 1990.  At last report (March 1992), Khashoggi sold his yacht and creditors impounded his jet.  He lives mostly in Spain, is still fighting his legal battles, and was down to his last $54 million.  [Review of 'Kessler, Ronald.  The Richest Man in the World: The Story of Adnan Khashoggi.']

I'm not suggesting that the possible presence of Adnan Khashoggi in the lives of Diana and her sons would have been a sufficient motive for the British establishment to act against Dodi.  I am suggesting that Operation Paget's focus on investigating Mohamed Al Fayed's allegations meant that the Khashoggi question is not even aired in the Report, because MaF has been unwilling or unable to mention it.

If the Paget team had been serious about identifying and investigating the allegations surrounding Diana and Dodi, it would have gone beyond the subjective testimonies of MaF, Diana, Tomlinson and Shayler, all of whom, coincidentally, had been in serious conflict with the British establishment prior to Diana's death.  If the detectives had bothered, for example, to search the internet, they'd have found the alleged 'CIA document' and might have identified it as pertinent to their inquiry - they could even have gone to CIA and asked, 'Tell us about DCI Case 64376'.  If they had put some energy into uncovering the whereabouts of the missing letters sent by Edinburgh to Diana, they'd at least have given an impression of trying.  But, instead of testing the evidence, they test the credibilities of four known enemies of the Establishment and, to no one's surprise, find them wanting. 

I'm reminded of two things: that the words politics and police both derive from the Gr. polis, and I reckon the Report is more a political document than a scientific one; and that, with delicious irony, on the same day as the Report was published, Downing St overrode the SFO and halted its investigation into corrupt Saudi arms deals with BAe, thus proving that the rule of law is subservient to the national interest.  (Come to think of it, could Khashoggi have been involved with that scandal as well?  See Slate's Timothy Noah's entertaining Six Degrees of Adnan Khashoggi.)

 

Paget Report: DCI Case 64376

Before Christmas I wrote an initial response to the Operation Paget inquiry report [hereafter "the Report"] on the deaths of Diana, Dodi and Henri (titled "Collision or Collusion").  It was a bit jumbled and muddled but covered my main concerns.  Having re-read it, I decided to write more on the subject, this time breaking it down into separate topics.  This entry focuses on the 'CIA telex', which I link in my mind with the request from the Special Branch officers.  I intend writing later on various other problems I have with the Report.

'b' wrote in the comments:

Very interesting that you were asked or told by Special Branch to watch, presumably including on Usenet, as early as October-November 1997, for material suggesting it was murder by the British secret state. Can you possibly say more about this?

I can only delve into my memories again.  When I first saw the 'CIA document', it seemed real, and when I saved it to my hard-disk I think I felt a frisson of fear.  But, then, the more I looked at it, the less I believed it.  As previously stated, I thought that points seven and eight looked to have been typed by a different machine and I, for some reason, therefore suspected forgery.  And everyone was talking about a Fiat Uno having been involved, whereas this document mentioned a Fiat Turbo.  I also wondered whether Mohamed al-Fayed mightn't himself have had it forged...

So, by the time the SB officers called, I was agnostic about the document.  My memory of their request was that they were serious about wanting me to look for something but that they struggled to specify what - I believe I may even have helped them out by filling in the words for them, delicately.  But I was left in no doubt about the general area of their interest - 'unusual' internet allegations about the death of Diana, especially of British-intelligence involvement. 

I saw no good reason to reveal to them my possession of the document.  If the CIA document, whether authentic or fraudulent, had provoked their enquiry, then in all likelihood MI5 already possessed a copy.  If they didn't, I wasn't going to do their job for them.  If it was a forgery, why get involved?  If it was authentic, I definitely didn't want to say anything.

I think that, by the time the Oswald LeWinter matter became public, I'd already had to re-format the hard-disk and had lost the original copy of the document.  Or it may have been later.  Whatever, I meant to find it again but never got round to it - I'd seen that its text had been copied on to various websites, so I assumed the original file would be easily found again.  Now, I don't remember where I found it nor know whether or not it still exists online.

----------

Now, when I look at the 'CIA telex' again, I'm struck again by its verisimilitude.  Sure, there are its implausible bits - the quote by Edinburgh, and the unlikeliness of an internal CIA document becoming public, for example.  But other parts still intrigue me.  Here follows some thoughts on the actual content of the document, with quotations from it in this colour.

----------

The headings look genuine enough.  There is, or rather there was, a 'DOMESTIC COLLECTION DIVISION'.  According to this website, it was once, in JFK's time, called the Domestic Contact Service and is now known as the National Resources Division.  The Domestic Collection Division gets variously mentioned on the web and my impression is that it existed as the DCD in 1997.

SOURCE: CASParis/CASLondon/COSGeneva/CASKingston/UK citizen Ken Etheridge

CAS stands for 'controlled American source', meaning agent or informant (see, e.g., here).  Dunno about COS - it could mean 'consulate' or, and I'm guessing, 'controlled other source', or such like.  (Please, God, let it not be the Church of Scientology!)  Dunno who Mr Etheridge is nor which datum he provided to CIA.

1. Relationship initiated between Diana POW and Dodi aF according to reliable intel sources in November 1996.  Intimacy begins shortly after they meet.  (Report filed)

If the Report is to be believed, Diana and Dodi first met on the 14th July, 1997.  Yet the CIA telex indicates otherwise.  According to the Report:

It was on 14 July 1997 that the Princess of Wales spoke to the press gathered nearby and made her comment quoted in the press as, ‘You’re going to get a big surprise, you’ll see, you’re going to get a big surprise with the next thing I do.’ (Operation Paget Other Document 546)  Subsequent speculation and comment about this remark has suggested that it was a foretelling by the Princess of Wales that she was going to announce her engagement to Dodi Al Fayed.  The comment was made around mid-day, before the Princess of Wales had met Dodi Al Fayed that summer and before he had even arrived in St Tropez.

Mohamed al-Fayed's memory tells a different story.

Diana and Dodi met long before the summer of 1997 and during their romance had more time together than people knew.  When her sons were very young, the Princess went to Turnbull & Asser, the celebrated gentleman’s shirt maker in Jermyn Street, St James’s.  She wished to order pyjamas and a selection of shirts for the Princes William and Harry.  There was a board meeting in progress when she entered T & A, but the Managing Director, Ken Williams, left the meeting to serve the Princess.  “What are you doing upstairs, Ken?” she asked.  “Come and see”, he replied.  Diana joined the meeting.  “Ah”, she said, “so this is how you waste your time”.  The Princess was introduced to the directors, including Dodi.

They got on well and saw each other from time to time at film premieres and fashion shows.  Dodi played polo at Smith’s Lawn, Windsor, and the Princess attended the tournament for the magnificent silver gilt Harrods Trophy.

In this instance, for once, I'm inclined to believe Mr al-Fayed.

3. Request from highest circles to DEA attache UK for 6 on Dodi re: Cocaine.

If MAF had forged the document, it's unlikely he'd have mentioned the cocaine.  Dodi's alleged cocaine use later emerged in the press (see USA Today).  (For UK readers, DEA is the Drug Enforcement Administration.)

4. US liaison to MI6 requested by David Spedding for assistance in providing permanent solution to Dodi problem.  Blessing of Palace secured  (Twiz filed)

The notes 'report filed' and 'copy filed' I understand, but what the hell is a 'twiz'?  Whatever, it reads as a genuine shorthand for something.

5. WHuse (White House -ed) denies Spedding request.  Harrison authorized only to arrange meeting for MI6 representative with K-Team Geneva.  (Twiz on file)

The name of the US liason to MI6 would be a secret, and who knows whether in 1997 he or she was named Harrison, but the casual use of the surname seems to me to have the ring of truth.  Dunno about K-team Geneva, but there's a company in Switzerland called K-Team that deals in 'mobile robotics' (website).

8. COBGeneva reports that on May 28, 1997 heavily weighted Fiat Turbo...  (end of page text)

First, I reckon COBGeneva is a typo (for COSGeneva).  Second, I'm not at all knowledgeable about cars, and when I first read this nine years ago I thought 'the forger' had got the model of car wrong.  But now, with hindsight, I realize that Fiat Unos came in 'Turbo' editions, more powerful than the usual type.

----------

All in all, I'm not convinced that the 'CIA document' is a fake.  Its appearance in the LeWinter affair, for me, added to its credibility (see previous post).  Its non-appearance in the Paget Report does likewise.   

Sharon and On

Some months ago, when I thought Ariel Sharon was close to death, I wrote in praise of him.  It's typical of the man that he still stubbornly clings to life.  Now, his thoughts on the Iraq invasion have been revealed in the liberal American-Jewish magazine "Forward".

... Olmert’s predecessor, by contrast, was anything but an amateur in Israeli-American relations, and more broadly in dealing with America’s policies in the region.  When it came to Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq and to democratize the Arab Middle East from within, Ariel Sharon took a far more sophisticated position.

Publicly, Sharon played the silent ally; he neither criticized nor supported the Iraq adventure.  One reason for his relative silence was Washington’s explicit request that Israel refrain from openly backing its invasion of an Arab country or in any way intervening, lest its blessing damn the United States in Arab eyes.

But sometime prior to March 2003, Sharon told Bush privately in no uncertain terms what he thought about the Iraq plan.  Sharon’s words — revealed here for the first time — constituted a friendly but pointed warning to Bush.  Sharon acknowledged that Saddam Hussein was an “acute threat” to the Middle East and that he believed Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Yet according to one knowledgeable source, Sharon nevertheless advised Bush not to occupy Iraq.  According to another source — Danny Ayalon, who was Israel’s ambassador to the United States at the time of the Iraq invasion, and who sat in on the Bush-Sharon meetings — Sharon told Bush that Israel would not “push one way or another” regarding the Iraq scheme.

According to both sources, Sharon warned Bush that if he insisted on occupying Iraq, he should at least abandon his plan to implant democracy in this part of the world.  “In terms of culture and tradition, the Arab world is not built for democratization,” Ayalon recalls Sharon advising.

Be sure, Sharon added, not to go into Iraq without a viable exit strategy.  And ready a counter-insurgency strategy if you expect to rule Iraq, which will eventually have to be partitioned into its component parts.  Finally, Sharon told Bush, please remember that you will conquer, occupy and leave, but we have to remain in this part of the world.  Israel, he reminded the American president, does not wish to see its vital interests hurt by regional radicalization and the spillover of violence beyond Iraq’s borders... [Forward]

Given that, in Bushworld, you're either with them or against them, Arik Sharon was clearly an evil-doer.  Luckily for the Americans, in December '95 Sharon suffered a minor stroke and, unluckily for the then most important man in Israel, he was prescribed the wrong drugs, which caused him to have a massive brain haemorrhage in January '06, which put the more US-pliant Olmert in the PM's chair.  Poor Arik - he had been able to diagnose the weaknesses of US 'plans' for Iraq, but his own doctors were unable to diagnose that he, like many people of his age, suffered from cerebral amyloid angiopathy.  Some irony there, I think.

"More primitive than torture"

David Hicks, who has been imprisoned without trial at Guantánamo Bay for over five years, is was a British citizen, until Home Secretary John Reid revoked his citizenship last July. 

... Mr Hicks is an Australian national whose government has refused to press the Bush administration for his release. He fought a long legal battle in the UK courts which ended with senior judges ordering the home secretary to grant Mr Hicks citizenship.  His mother was born in the UK and his grandfather fought for the British during the second world war.

On July 7, Mr Reid granted Mr Hicks British citizenship, only to use special powers to take it away just a couple of hours later.  Mr Reid's decision came despite criticism from the government, from the prime minister down, of Guantánamo and demands for its closure...

... In his letter to Mr Hicks, Mr Reid wrote that he "poses a threat to the national security of the United Kingdom and that to deprive you of your British citizenship is conducive to the public good". [Guardian]

Given that Hicks would probably, if freed, live in Australia, it's difficult to see what threat to national security he could possibly pose, except perhaps as a source of friction between London and Washington.  I'm reminded of the Trop vs. Dulles (1958) case in American law.  The majority opinion of the Supreme Court was that depriving someone of their citizenship was against the eighth amendment, which bans 'cruel and unusual' punishments.

We believe ... that use of denationalization as a punishment is barred by the Eighth Amendment.  There may be involved no physical mistreatment, no primitive torture.  There is, instead, the total destruction of the individual's status in organized society.  It is a form of punishment more primitive than torture, for it destroys for the individual the political existence that was centuries in the development.  The punishment strips the citizen of his status in the national and international political community. [Trop v. Dulles]

Hicks does still have his Australian citizenship.  But given the Howard government's refusal to help their citizen, given the UK's alleged influence over the Americans, and given that the other British citizens have been returned, Blair and Reid, for once, could have done the right thing.  Instead they've overridden the courts and washed their hands of him, but the stain remains. 

I sometimes, but not often enough, think of Hicks, stuck in that prison without hope of release, abandoned by his mother countries.  And I wonder whether him being of Anglo-Saxon stock somehow makes him more dangerous in the eyes of his captors - if his name had been Aziz Abdul, would he still be there, five years on?

Anyway, I'm disgusted by our government's primitiveness and I hope that the tin man, John Howard, may be given a heart by some wizard in Oz and gets David Hicks home soon.