Sunday 24th of November 2024
Home » Blogs » John Richardson's blog

"aussie tony" in trouble .....

‘Des Browne, the defence secretary, conceded yesterday
that the deployment of 3,300 British forces into the Taliban heartland of
southern Helmand has "energised" the Taliban.

His sombre assessment came after
a week in which a sixth British soldier was killed in the province, and as he
prepares to announce next week the dispatch of reinforcements to the country,
including extra air cover and engineers.

Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Tootal,
the officer in charge of British troops in the region, also admitted the
resistance was proving unexpectedly tough. He said: "If we were honest, we
didn't expect it to be quite so intense. But at the same time, we have trained
for it. "

In an interview with the
Guardian, Mr Browne said: "It is certainly the case that the very act of
deployment into the south has energised opposition, and the scale of that
opposition and the nature of that opposition became apparent when we were
deploying". But he insisted the attacks on British troops were foreseen,
and the original package had been an impressive fighting force, including
artillery, Apache helicopters and paratroopers.

In the first sign of a crack in
the effective all-party consensus on the Afghan deployment, the former defence
minister Doug Henderson called for British troops to be confined to barracks
until the purpose of the mission was clarified.’

UK Has
Boosted Taliban, Admits Defence Chief

Peace, man

Actions engender reaction... This is not new. It is well known in the psychological world for individuals or group to survive... When under attack you defend or flee, one does not just die or give up on the spot. One does not applaud the change of rule with open arms, although history is full of it... But as we know history is written by conquerors and victors. If one flees, one harbours resentment, hate and revenge... New dynamics are formed...

So whenever a show of force is done, one can expect a matching response... It's called matching energy. Individuals who are good at it can then instil energy... They know the process. It allows them to become rulers by manipulation rather than brute force...

At the moment, since manipulation of mind is difficult, we use stupid force and meet the same reactive force... albeit with the limited means of the enemy, but the resolve to fight is more ingrained... We are "invaders" although we impersonate liberators... Thus we are out of place in their space... We might win but that will mean the destruction of the last enemy fighter. But as we fight and kill more of them than they kill of us, new ones are born or made... and our mission becomes blunt... Mission accomplished? In your dreams...

Time to bring out the peace pipes... and start a new form of reaction... a new process in which peace can be negotiated properly...

“aussie tony” & the value of identity …..

‘Identity cards have not been included in the
government's definitive account of Britain's counter-terrorism strategy,
fuelling speculation that Tony Blair's controversial scheme is in serious
trouble.

The Home Office's Countering International
Terrorism: The United Kingdom's Strategy report released this week lists all of
the ways the government is responding to threat of extremism.

Plans for "biometric" visas and
passports are included, but the proposed ID card system has been given no place
in the strategy, despite repeated claims from the Prime Minister and the Home
Office that the cards will enhance national security.

The omission of ID cards from
anti-terrorism strategy came to light as the Home Office admitted that the
timetable for the entire project could slip, sparking further doubts about its
future.

"This ID card project continues to crumble
as doubts about its effectiveness, technology and cost pile up," said
David Davis, the Tory shadow home secretary. "It is becoming ever clearer,
even from the government's own perspective, that they should abandon this
expensive plastic poll tax which, far from improving our security, may well
make it worse."’

ID Card Scheme In Doubt
After Omission From Terror Report

"aussie tony" & the value of censorship .....

‘The government is threatening to
sue former ambassador Craig Murray for breach of copyright if he does not
remove from his website intelligence material that was censored out of his
newly published memoirs.

Mr Murray has posted full texts
of all passages the Foreign Office ordered deleted from the book version of
Murder in Samarkand, the former Tashkent ambassador's account of alleged
British complicity in torture by the despotic Uzbekistan regime. His book contains
links to the website.

The passages detail CIA
intelligence reports that Mr Murray says were false, and accounts of US
National Security Agency intercepts and conversations with John Herbst, the US
ambassador in Uzbekistan at the time. The Foreign Office says release of the
material is damaging.

One previously censored passage
describes how numerical codes on intelligence reports revealed they came from
the Uzbek secret police, via the CIA, who shared them with MI6. These included,
he says, "nonsensical" claims that Islamist militants were ready to
swoop on the town of Samarkand from hilltop camps, and that Uzbek dissidents
were linked to al-Qaida.’

Former
Ambassador Posts Censored Passages From Memoir On Website

"aussie tony" & the value of terrorism .....

‘The Government was accused last night of hoarding
information about people who pose no danger to this country, after it emerged
that MI5 holds secret files on 272,000 individuals - a staggering one in 160
adults.

MPs and civil-rights campaigners
said resources should be concentrated on combating genuine threats - such as
Islamic terrorism - rather than storing personal and political data about
innocent citizens.

Figures released by the Home
Office last week reveal that another 53,000 files are held about organisations,
but 110,000 files have been destroyed since Labour came to power in 1997.

The information was obtained by
Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker, who believes he was the target of MI5
surveillance in the Eighties because of his activities as an environmental
protester.

Five years ago he won a High
Court ruling giving him access to his file, which ended the security services'
blanket exemption from the Data Protection Act. 

Last night, Mr Baker said: 'I
don't believe there are 272,000 people in this country who are subversive or
potentially subversive. It suggests to me that there are files being held for
not very good reasons.’

MI5
Has Secret Dossiers On One In 160 Adults