Israeli war crimminals

Recent reports suggest that the government is considering giving politicians the veto over international arrest warrants. I didn't blog about this at the time, but a recent prompting by Amnesty gave me a call to action. I got off my arse and emailed Gordon Brown, using the page here.

I don't think it worth rephrasing everything and repeating myself, so I'll just copy what I wrote to Mr Brown, as I think it explains my views quite well.

Dear Mr Brown,

I read with alarm that Mr Ivan Lewis and Mr David Miliband are suggesting that the UK should reconsider our laws concerning the bringing to trial of suspected war criminals.

If a British court using the British justice system has determined that an individual has enough evidence against them for there to be a case to answer, then there is a case to answer and a warrant should be issued. Not allowing the courts to even consider the case would be a worse travesty than ignoring their decisions.

The motivation for the proposed changes appear to be solely concerned with saving the Israeli government some embarrassment. I would suggest that the Israeli government would be better served by the simple expedient of not appointing to government positions any person who has outstanding evidence of war crimes against their name. At least until such time as they have answered the charges in full and have been acquitted after due process.

The Israeli government could save themselves further embarrassment by the equally simple and just measure of handing over investigations of allegations against their armed services to an independent body, preferably from a neutral country, and prosecuting to the full extent of the law wherever it is determined that crimes have taken place.

Britain has a simple choice: we can honour the law, or we can make it clear that we honour the law for everyone except our friends. This is not a just position to take, and should this country adopt it, our reputation would suffer considerable harm - and rightly so.

All ethical considerations aside: at a time when this country is trying to fight a war against terrorists who are claiming that we are complicit in the human rights violations perpetrated against the Palestinian people, is it really wise to announce a policy of disregarding war crimes which have been committed against Palestinians and only Palestinians?

The suggested changes make no sense: either ethically or politically.

The day that a suspected war criminal cannot be apprehended in this country will be the day that every single citizen of the UK will have to hang their head in shame.

Proposition 8

The Times reports that Mr Brian Brown, of the "National Organisation for Marriage" said of the recent court review of the notorious Proposition 8:

"Our founding fathers would be rolling over in their graves if they heard that the Constitution guarantees the right to redefine marriage. This is absurd."

This argument is spurious at best: the Founding Fathers made three references condoning slavery* in the original Constitution, and the original document didn't even contain the Bill Of Rights (the best known of these is the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of religion and of speech, among other things).

Thus the argument against changing what the Founding Fathers wrote is spurious, because it has clearly been amended already. No fewer than 27 times, in fact, including:

• The famous First Amendment (freedom of religion, speech, assembly, press and petition).
• The Seventh Amendment (guaranteeing trial by jury).
• The Eight Amendment (prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment).
• The Thirteenth (abolishing slavery).
• The followup Fifteenth Amendment (black people are now allowed to vote).
• The Eighteenth amendment (alcohol is abolished).
• The Nineteenth Amendment (women can now vote too).
• The Twenty-first Amendment (which repeals the Eighteenth).

So arguing that the Founding Fathers wrote something which cannot be amended suggests that Mr Brown is in favour of:

• Women losing the vote
• Black people losing the vote
• Slavery being re-instated
• Cruel and unusual punishments being reintroduced (hey! Guantanamo! Well, there's one he can chalk up, I suppose)
• Trial by jury being abolished
• The revoking of freedom of speech and all the other First Amendment rights

Hence, it is an obviously spurious argument to anyone who can think clearly. I suspect, therefore, that either Mr Brown is a fundamentalist, or that he hasn't actually read the Constitution.

What interests me, given my current theme, is this: who exactly is Mr Brown? A quick google for "National Organisation for Marriage" throws up a bunch of news stories, but no actual page owned by the organisation itself. Only a blog page (which could be anything and written by anybody) came up.

Is this organisation so poor it cannot afford a website? Why are its views being reported so widely if they can't even get into the google rankings? Who are they? Can anyone tell me? I can well believe that such an organisation can exist, especially in the USA. I just can't find it. How do the reporters find it?

* the references in the Constitution are:

Article 1 Section 2 - "the whole Number of free Persons... and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons" (i.e. slaves count as 3/5 of a person in the census)

Article 1 Section 9 - "The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight" (i.e. the Middle Passage is such an enjoyable cruise that it must be offered to the good folk of West Africa until at least 1808)

Article 4 Section 2 - "No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall... be discharged from such Service or Labour, But shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due." (i.e. escaped slaves must be returned even if they esacpe to a State in which slavery is illegal)

Wootton Bassett Islamist protests

A news story caught my attention this morning. Wooton Bassett is where the coffins of British soldiers arrive from Afghanistan, and the people there have been lining the streets on a regular basis to greet them, and paying their respects. Now an Islamist group called "Al-Muhajiroun" have announced that they are going to protest at the town to engage the British public on: "the real reasons why their soldiers are returning home in body bags and the real cost of the war".

The response has been an outcry from the residents of Wootton Bassett and the Wiltshire Islamic Cultural Centre, who condemned the sect as "deviant".

Al-Muhajiroun claim that 500 people would march, even though The Times reports their membership as in the region of 50.

Alan Johnson (the Home Secretary) said he would have no hesitation in supporting a ban on the march if the council requested one.

Those are the facts. What to make of them?

Firstly, I am utterly opposed to people being prevented from demonstrating. That is disgraceful, and Mr Johnson ought to be ashamed that he has aimed to score cheap political points when the more unpopular (but ethically sound) route would have been to apply the principles of Freedom of Speech. If the group are not inciting hatred and want a peaceful protest, then that is their right, no matter how offended other people may be.

The only reason I can imagine for Mr Johnson's reaction is that it would offend the sensibilities of the people of Wootton Bassett and of the people who support the soliders and their families.

So what? It hurts the sensibilities of the BNP when counter-protests are allowed. It hurts the sensibilities of Government Ministers and their supporters when political rallies are held against them. It hurt the sensibilities of US Servicemen and their families when the first protests against Vietnam were held: protests which helped to change public opinion.

I very much doubt as if this (planned) protest would change public opinion, but they should have as much right to protest against what they see as wrong (as long as they do so within the law): whatever I or anyone else thinks of their views.

Protests are there precisely because they hurt somebody's sensibilities: that's the whole point. They are traditionally held in places which will generate the most publicity.

So yes, the protests should be allowed to go ahead.

But 500 Islamists having a march, and being confronted by much larger number of counter protestors would make a very different story. Al-Muhajiroun know this, and so probably will not follow through.

Especially since those protestors could make the very valid point that the "real reason" that soldiers are returning dead (from Afghanistan at least) is because a foreign state was run as a theocracy based on a right-wing and evil religion* which sponsored and actively promoted terrorism, along with facilitating the mass murder of innocent civilians in other countries.

Counter-demonstrators could even wear bikinis (assuming the protest was held at a slightly warmer time), in order to ram home the point that in this country, women are free - while at the same time managing to offend everyone at the other protest. Now there's an image that the media would lap up. Maybe a counter protest should go ahead, even if the originally planned protest does not? I'll bring me camera.

But the most interesting point on this whole news cycle is this: that the media picked it up at all. Why did they pick it up? A tiny group of people who haven't had a successful protest (as far as I can see from a quick google) announce another planned protest which may or may not happen. What is newsworth about that? Yet they now have coverage in every major newspaper, and

a Facebook group of nearly half a million people discussing them and their views.

That's the kind of publicity which a (planned) protest involving 500 people can't get you unless you're an Islamist and therefore (by default) newsworthy. If the media ignored them, they'd melt away (or at least we'd never hear about them, because 50 people don't make that much noise). But at the moment, this group of 50 people have the headlines at their command.

Interestingly, moderate Mulsims got 62 words in the printed Times article. They were not mentioned at all in The Sun. Their views, clearly, are not nearly as interesting.

* I refer not to Islam in general, but the specific sect of Islam to which the Taleban (and apparently Al-Muhajiroun) belong.