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Monday, May 24, 2004

Responses

Thanks for the comments on spam. I don't want to close the comments or make them passport accessable but I may have to if it continues.

Peter, the last thing I would want to do is stop you commenting. Try reading your own entry as though you were a person with an open mind on the issue. I find people are willing to look at the arguments and you assume they are not. That puts people off though it might make you feel better!

Meanwhile talk to Iraqi refugees and you will quickly find out that all of us including you were closing your eyes to what was happening before. In a dictatorship things like that don't get publicised - that is why you were able to sleep soundly thinking it wasn't happening in your name. Unfortunately it was because the UN told Saddam Hussein to stop the genocide and torture and a host of other things as a condition of the 1991 ceasefire.

Just because you don't see things in pictures it doesn't mean it isn't happening!

Clive, you need to consider whether you're the one with the closed mind!

First, you seem to believe that the publication of the Abu Ghraib photos indicates the enlightened nature of the US occupation! The
reality is that Rumsfeld has reacted to them by *banning* all US military personnel in Iraq from having digital cameras. See
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/23/1085250873479.html
He isn't concerned about the abuses - he's bothered by the fact that American soldiers were able to take photos of them, and thus embarass the US.

And your observation in a previous posting that 'Rumsfeld is a disaster' made no sense. Donald Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense when you *voted* for the war! If you thought he was such a disaster all along, why on earth did you vote for a war of which he was the principal architect? Are you trying to tell us that you've changed your mind about him in the interim? Or that back in March 2003, you didn't think the fact that the war was going to be run by a 'disaster' would matter? You need to do some joined-up thinking here, Clive!

Yet again you trot out Saddam's defiance of UN resolutions, and accuse me of ignoring Saddam's human rights violations. I have two questions
for you:
i) Did you talk to any Iraqis who wanted Saddam dealt with peacefully? (because I certainly did). It seems you only wanted to listen to those Iraqis you already agreed with.
ii) Since you were so concerned about Saddam's human rights record, let's look in Hansard and find out when you mentioned 'iraq' in the House:
* a question about the Matrix Churchill affair in 1992. No mention of Iraqi human rights.
* a mention of Iraq with respect to extradition law in Sept 1998. No mention of Iraqi human rights, but you do describe Saddam's regime as 'obviously dictatorial' - hardly a ringing condemnation.
* a statement supporting Blair and Clinton's bombing raid in Dec 1998 - including a mention of Saddam's human rights abuses.
* Then no mention of Iraq until after 9/11.

So the first time you condemned Saddam's human rights record in the House was in order to support Blair and Clinton's bombing raid... do I detect a pattern emerging here? Then, there's a big gap with nary a mention of Iraq until after 9/11. You can hardly claim to have been on the case, Clive.

Readers can run the Hansard search with this link:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/cgi-bin/dialogserverTSO?DB=ukparl&FILE=searchJS&DATETYPE=ANY&SPEAKER=soley&ORQUERY=iraq%20iraqi%20baghdad%20saddam

And a search of the Guardian archives turns up nothing until the Iraq emergency debate on March 18 2003.

That's the link with your silence about Uzbekistan. You only become concerned about these issues when it's politically expedient for you
to do so. Mentioning Uzbekistan in very weak terms in your blog doesn't count. You're an MP and if you really cared about the issue, you would
be raising it in the House. And you won't even discuss Blair's campaign to undermine our ambassador there. Hmmm, I wonder why.

It's easy to predict when you will finally get around to mentioning Uzbekistan in the House... when Islam Karimov has outlived
his usefulness, or has become 'awkward', and the US/UK are making the case for war against him! Clive, you've got to raise your game!

Er, did anyone tell you that the alleged banning of digital cameras actually started as a bad joke? See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/25/iraq-camera_phone_ban/ for enlightenment.. Basic principle: do not assume malice when stupidity offers an adequate explanation, and most certainly don't use the press as an absolute source of truth (I refer you to the 'British abuse' pictures as a good example).

Well, you're right... the camera ban story looks dubious!

As for the Mirror's 'abuse' photos, you're also right.

You see, the genuine photos, are the ones on the film given to photo lab employee Kelly Tilford in May 2003. And those ones will never be printed in the press. I'm sure the relevant authorities have made certain of that! Although she acted honestly and correctly in calling the police when Fusilier Gary Bartlam handed the film in for development, it is a great, great pity that she didn't take a second set of copies when she had the chance. Oh well.

The MOD aren't denying the Bartlam story... and I'm quite sure we'll never see the photos! By the way, isn't the investigation into Bartlam's photos taking a most remarkably long time?

See
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/31/1054177766554.html