Rolled-up Trousers

GB football team for 2012

Controversy has been caused by the decision to press ahead with an all-British football team for the 2012 Olympics.

The Scottish and Welsh football associations have refused to cooperate with it, but the British Olympic Association are going to continue regardless.

My view - it doesn't matter because we'll be independent by then anyway.

MPs must do the party funding

The past week has seen more calls from the Labour Party for them to receive state funding.

They should grow up and learn to manage themselves like any other institution in this country. Spend within your means. If you can't, then go out of business.

It's frankly stupid enough of them to have racked up millions of pounds of debt, but then to turn round to the taxpayer and ask us to foot the bill takes a consummately brass neck. As Davide says, next they'll be asking us to serve their jail terms on the back of the cash-for-peerages scandal.

The first thing these MPs must to do is get their own chequebooks out. The Scottish Socialist Party requires its Parliamentarians to donate half their salary to the party. If the 356 Labour MPs at Westminster were to donate even a sixth of their £59,000 salary (they get allowances and expenses on top of this), they would raise £3.5million this year. This is the amount they were getting from loans/donations out of General Election time anyway.

Nasrallah on Jews

The most famous opinions about Jews ascribed to Hizbullah's leader are:

‘If they [the Jews] all gather in Israel it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide’

and

‘They [Jews] are a cancer which is liable to spread at any moment.’

Charles Glass, the journalist who specialises on Lebanon and was once held hostage by Hizbullah, says both are likely fabrications:

The first (‘If they [the Jews] all gather in Israel it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide’) was circulated widely on neo-con websites, which give as its original source an article by Badih Chayban in Beirut’s English-language Daily Star on 23 October 2002. It seems that Chayban left the Star three years ago and moved to Washington. The Star’s managing editor writes of Chayban’s article on Nasrallah, that ‘I have faith in neither the accuracy of the translation [from Arabic to English] nor the agenda of the translator [Chayban].’ The editor-in-chief and publisher of the Star, Jamil Mrowe, adds that Chayban was ‘a reporter and briefly local desk sub and certainly did not interview Nasrallah or anyone else.’ The account of Nasrallah’s speech in the Lebanese daily As Safir for the same day makes no reference to any anti-semitic comments. Goodheart’s second quotation – ‘They [the Jews] are a cancer which is liable to spread at any moment’ – comes from the Israeli government’s website at http://tinyurl.com/99hyz. For the record, a Hizbullah spokeswoman, Wafa Hoteit, denies that Nasrallah made either statement.

Hat tip JSF

Pakistan cleared of ball tampering

But why is it always the reaction to injustice that has to get the headlines? Click below.

Shouldn't it be about what's going to happen to Darrell Hair now?

Saudis get in bed with Israel

An Israeli newspaper has reported that secret talks have taken place between Ehud Olmert and high-ranking Saudi officials (hat tip JSF).

The agenda included the Iranian nuclear programme, and the obligatory topic of peace with the Palestinians whenever anyone does meet the Israelis. Olmert all but confirmed the existence of the meetings:

"I am very impressed with different processes and statements that are connected to Saudi Arabia, some that have been stated publicly and others as well. I am very impressed with King Abdullah's wisdom and sense of responsibility," Olmert said.

Asked if Israel was holding secret contacts with Saudi Arabia, Olmert replied: "I do not have to answer every question."

Reason for the talks? "The [Israeli] prime minister was impressed by the moderate, positive stands that the Saudis expressed during the summer when Israel was fighting Hezbollah," the Israeli official who leaked story told The AP.

Now, one can look at this charitably for the Saudis and say we can't trust Israeli reports. But the fact that they can be used in such a way says it all about their recent actions. The reason for their siding with the Israelis against Hizbullah, and now Iran, is simply due their concern at the rise of Shia influence.

The folly of their position is clear. Iraq aside, it is interesting to see that the Sunni-Shia divide is being put to one side in the fight against occupation in Palestine. The people of the Arab world see Hizbullah as heroes. If the Saudis want to be loved, being the subservient wife of Israel isn't going to do it. Iran has rose to prominence because of their willingness to stand up to US and Israeli hegemony.

The dividing lines in the Muslim world are not Sunni and Shia anymore. There are now the occupiers and their friends, and those that are resisting them.

Muriel Gray: Islam is the problem

Muriel Gray in the Sunday Herald:

Equally, John Reid telling devout Muslims to watch out in case their children become, oops, even more devout Muslims was bordering on the ridiculous. (...)

These brainwashed young men threatening us are not coming from liberal, Westernised homes full of moral relativism and then suddenly turning psycho. If they come from observant Muslim families, which the 7/7 bombers all did despite all the nonsense about them being 'ordinary Westernised boys', then the priming started long ago. They would have been brought up to genuinely believe that Allah intended women to have a single purpose in life as subservient wives and mothers; gay people are perverts; freedom of speech does not apply to any kind of criticism of their belief; democracy is a man-made sham; and the values of the West are inferior. If the family are devout then TV, cinema, theatre and art will be banned, and the children's lives will resemble the upbringing of 1950s Presbyterian children, with school, prayer and chores being their lot.

There are a great many Muslim families in Britain today although, of course, obviously not all living such lives of their own choosing. Their children have little information about the wider world, its wonders and possibilities, where America is reduced to a crusading, moronic George Bush, with all the kaleidoscopic richness and beauty of the country's culture erased. Awareness of their own British culture is confined to drunken girls puking in gutters while they remain defiantly ignorant of everything from Dickens to David Bowie.

The leap to "radicalism" from such a narrow background is not exactly over a chasm. (...)

Reid and the government are, of course, struggling to find a dialogue with the section of society from whence the murderers come, but the problem is that you cannot expect, or indeed force, a free people to stop believing and passing on their faith to their children. And since many devout, law-abiding Muslims have publicly expressed agreement with a great deal of the bombers' philosophy - except the killing part - what possible help can they be in this war?

'Sexing up' the intelligence to ignoring it completely

Tony Blair's on terrorism at yesterday's conference speech:

"This is a struggle that will last a generation and more.  But this I believe passionately: we will not win until we shake ourselves free of the wretched capitulation to the propaganda of the enemy, that somehow we are the ones responsible.

This terrorism isn't our fault.  We didn't cause it. It's not the consequence of foreign policy. It's an attack on our way of life."

Virtually at the same time a US intelligence report has concluded:

"The Iraq conflict has become the 'cause celebre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement"

We'll bomb you to Stone Age, US told Pakistan

Parvez Musharraf's claim that the US threatened to bomb Pakistan "into the stone age" if they didn't cooperate in the war on Afghanistan is a sign of how much pressure he has been under since that decision.

US diplomacy may well have sunk so low, but I doubt Musharraf would have needed that much convincing. There is no way the US would have attacked Pakistan like that. And if there was such a  threat, why didn't Musharraf use that as an explanation at the time?

If we think Tony Blair is a poodle here, the Pakistan leader is known as Busharraf. The calls in his country were for him to adopt the same position as the Iranians - no use of our airspace for an attack on our neighbours.

Muslim schools 'more liberal and tolerant'

Muslim pupils are more liberal and tolerant than their white counterparts, according to a study released today.

Nearly a third of white youngsters questioned in Burnley, Lancashire, - the scene of race riots in 2001 - believed that one race was superior, compared with 10% of Asians who thought the same.

Almost half of the white pupils felt that respecting others regardless of religion was not important and a quarter did not feel it was important to tolerate people with different views.

The research was carried out as part of the Burnley Project, a Home Office-funded investigation in the wake of the riots.

More than 400 15-year-olds were surveyed about their attitudes towards race, religion and cultural integration earlier this year. The research was conducted by Lancaster University's religious studies department.

The pupils came from three unnamed non-religious schools, all in deprived areas. One in Burnley, attended mostly by white pupils, and two schools in Blackburn, where one had mostly Indian or Pakistani pupils and the other was ethnically mixed.

Study author Dr Andrew Holden said a "disturbing" finding of the survey was the response to the question of racial superiority.

Nearly a third of the white pupils believed one race was superior compared with a tenth in the Asian school and under a fifth in the mixed school.

Dr Holden said: "The greater degree of racial tolerance in an overwhelmingly Asian/Muslim populated school again calls into question the common sense assumption that mixed schools represent the most tolerant environments."

Catholic Church in England question Muslim presence in Europe

Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Conner, head of the Catholic Church in England, speaking about Turkish entry to the EU on BBC Radio 4's Today programme:

"There may be another view that the mixture of cultures is not a good idea.

"I think the question is for Europe: will the admission of Turkey to the European Union be something that benefits a proper dialogue or integration of a very large, predominantly Islamic country in a continent that, fundamentally, is Christian?

"I speak also in a sense for the people of this country, who 70 per cent say they are Christian, whether they practice or not, because they realise although we are a secularist country, at the same time, I believe, there is a deep yearning for God."

Hopefully a quick final word from me on the Pope affair. I can well understand that Catholics will not condemn the Pope for his view that Islam allows converting by force.

What I'm sad to see though is embracing of it. It will be interesting to see what this means for interfaith relations moving forward. Up till now these gatherings have meant nice cups of tea with biscuits and much muttering about how much we all agree about. Differences have been put to the side. If we are to take the Pope's lead, all bets are off. There is much that Muslims can also say about Christianity, but we have not. Maybe these meetings will be more interesting now.

Reality: Muslim parents are clamping down on any political activity

Yesterday the Home Secretary could be accused of grandstanding when he used the Sun newspaper to tell Muslims to watch their children.

Today he stepped into a mosque. He was given a fairly heated reception during the Q&A, though Muslims really must learn about the art of questioning. Heckling came from the Anjum Chowdhury/Abu Izzadine axis. I do wonder who invited them. Visits like this are not publicised in advance. Who told them? George Galloway puts it thus:

The man who harangued you - Abu Izzadine - is a well-known and violent extremist from an organisation your own government has proscribed. Yet he was allowed within punching distance of the British Home Secretary. How ? Why ?

... There are only two conceivable explanations as to how this man, at this sensitive time, was allowed to hijack your Potemkin Village performance today.

Either our police and security services are so fantastically incompetent that Bin Laden himself might have slipped in to beard you at your podium. Or someone somewhere wanted to engineer precisely this confrontation to show you in a certain light and to portray the Muslims of Britain in the most aggressive violent and extreme way possible, as a justification for the utterly counter-productive policies you are following.

Reid did take it all in his stride. He's a smooth public performer, and I doubt anyone else in the government would have been able to pull that off. Totally unflappable. What the headlines tomorrow will all be about though is the insinuation that Muslim youth are planning terror outrages, and their parents aren't doing anything about it. As such this is libellous.

British soldier admits war crime

Cpl Donald Payne has become the first British soldier to admit carrying out a war crime in Iraq.

His victim was Baha Mousa, father of two, who died after receiving 93 injuries during a 36 hour ordeal.

It gives the lie to the idea that the British were running a popular occupation in Basra. And it also raises the obvious question about how thin this wedge is (see this Guardian article from Feb 2004 for more). Others must have at least known what Payne was up to:

"The shouting, bawling, screams, must have been heard by numerous soldiers and officers in the camp and yet no one seems to have raised it as a concern." - Prosecuter Julian Bevan QC

At least we have some progress on the war crimes front - remember earlier this year, three British soldiers were cleared of drowning an Iraqi boy, despite it being not disputed that they threw him in the river.

Let's see tomorrow if there's more righteous indignation from the British tabloids about the idea that our troops could be engaged in war crimes.

Nafeez Ahmed has information from a military source that the idea of mixing together liquids on a flight and denonating it with an MP3 player is complete "fiction".

Home Sec: Muslims must JOIN extremism fight

Regular visitors will know of my repeated requests to find out what more it is that Muslims can do to fight terror. As Atif Imtiaz has said, there are only really two things we can do, and are doing.

However, Home Secretary John Reid has finally added another. He has today proclaimed from his pulpit, The Sun, that Muslims need to be watching their children:

So I appeal to you to look for changes in your teenage sons — odd hours, dropping out of school or college, strange new friends. And if you are worried, talk to them before their hatred grows.

...

Terrorism can be defeated only when we all work together to defeat it. That’s why it is so important that Muslims join us in exiling extremism from our country — and from their communities.

Note the weaselly Muslim must "join us", implying ever so unsubtly that we're not doing enough. Our children are going to carry out bombings, but we do nothing about it.

Hat tip to the ever-excellent Islamophobia Watch

Woman attacked for wanting to pray in mosque

MPAC highlight the disturbing story of a Muslim woman who was "physically attacked" for having the cheek of wanting to pray at a Blackburn mosque.

It was the same mosque that invited the female Condoleezza Rice for a visit earlier this year, and if I'm not mistaken, the same mosque that we saw MPACers being attacked on TV at the last General Election for distributing leaflets. Obviously, on top of the individual issue here, there is the wider one of female access to mosques.

Our mosques in this country are by and large gathering places for elderly males. What is the point of Islamic rules on hijab and keeping a modest gaze if our women aren't going to be allowed out of the house? Did women pray in the mosque of the Prophet, peace be upon him, or not?

What would constitute a real apology

I have to confess that I've found it difficult to warm to the new Pope since he aired his opposition to Turkey's membership of the EU on the grounds that it was a Muslim country. The implication to Muslim communities already living in Europe is not good. The meeting with Oriana Fallaci, of "Muslims have been told to come here and breed like rats" fame also sent out all the wrong signals, to say the least.

Which is why it's difficult to believe that the latest statements are entirely out of sync with his views. He's apologised, but only for the "interpretation" of what he said, not what he said in itself.

And then he only mentions what the media have latched onto - his quoting of Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus. Let's put aside the irony of a quote about the violence of Islam at a time when Christian Crusaders were rampaging through the Holy Land. This wasn't all that Ratzinger said. In his "apology" he said people wouldn't be complaining if they had made a "complete and attentive reading" of his text. Well, I have, and it's on my blog if anyone else wants to as well.

Background on Pope Benedict and Islam

Well worth reading this article by Abdul Hakim Murad about Pope Benedict. It was written a year after he took up the position, and not after the recent controversy.

He points to a number of early indicators of the Pope's intent towards Islam - and it's not good. There was the meeting with the extremely rightwing Oriana Fallaci.

There was the insistence at a meeting with German Muslim leaders that he only wanted to discuss terrorism, and not discrimination that Muslims were facing. He opposed Turkish entry into the EU as it is a Muslim country.

During his time as a Cardinal, there is his "Islam is not simply a denomination that can be included in the free realm of a pluralistic society" comment and others airing his belief that Muslims cannot be "assimilated". Time report that in 1997 he said Islam features "a very marked subordination of woman to man". He's also on record saying that Islam "simply does not have the separation of the political and religious sphere that Christianity has had from the beginning."

Then there is the shuffling of key staff, including pro-Israeli appointments:

John Ware has responded to points made at Pickled Politics again. This time though he's not included any of my serious criticisms of his documentary.

Maybe he sees it as part of the "personalised invective" against him. I don't think I was personal - I'd attack any lazy journalism. Maybe he just can't answer the points.

Undeterred, hopefully the BBC themselves will finally speak about this soon, rather than just Ware and Panorama defending their work.

Last chance to protest against Blair

23 September, Labour Party Conference in Manchester, be there.

The slogan of the demonstration is "Time to Go". For our troops, and indeed for Tony.

People have been asking what the point is if Tony is on the precipice anyway? Well, wouldn't it be nice to push him off?

We're not jumping on the bandwagon - we created this bandwagon. It now falls us on us to bring it to its conclusion and send a message out to the Labour Party that it's time for a fresh start in our foreign policy approach.

Pope on forced conversion in Islam

Pope Benedict stepped into the controversy over Islam and violence Tuesday, citing historic Christian commentary on holy war and forced conversion. The German Roman Catholic Pope quoted from a book recounting a conversation between a 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and an educated Persian on the truths of Christianity and Islam.

In the seventh conversation (*4V8,>4H -  controversy) edited by Professor   Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must   have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion".    According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when   Mohammed was still powerless and under threat.  But naturally the emperor also   knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning   holy war.  Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment   accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his   interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the   relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just   what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil   and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".

According to the Herald, pressure is being applied to NATO members to send more troops to Afghanistan:

It is believed that diplomatic pressure is being used on some, including Poland, which is contributing just 10 people, and Spain, which is contributing 650. Britain, with 5000 men and women, is contributing the most to the International Security Assistance Force followed by Germany with 2600, Canada with 2500, The Netherlands with 2300 and America with 2050.

I can't understand why other countries would want to put themselves on the front line like that. Especially when America, whose war it is, has only 2050 troops there.

Should they be listening to Blair - a man who is criticised by his own former Labour Friends of Israel Middle East Minister? Kim Howells has said the prime minister's position on Lebanon was "difficult to defend" and that a "dual approach" of calling for a ceasefire while looking for a longterm solution should have been possible.

Children fingerprinted at Scottish schools

THOUSANDS of Scots children are being fingerprinted before they can check out library books as part of a controversial initiative.

Around a dozen schools are already using new computer systems which require them to scan thumbprints against biometric readers before borrowing or returning books at school libraries.

Another wave of schools in the south-west of Scotland is preparing for the "imminent" launch of the project.

The initiative has been met with concerns from parents, human rights groups, and politicians who believe such technology "treats schoolchildren like criminals" and will lead to a generation "surrendering their civil liberties".

Read the rest at The Herald

One of the teachers at the school Tony Blair visited last week has been suspended for protesting:

The school management suspended Robin Sivapalan, a Unison union activist and teaching assistant at the school, after the demonstration. Unison is defending Robin.

He told Socialist Worker, “The demonstration was brilliant. It gave a chance for disenfranchised Muslim students, and others, to make their voices heard.

“It was a disgrace to invite Tony Blair to a school which has refugees from Iraq and Lebanon."

More at Lenin's Tomb

Million cluster bomblets fired on Lebanon

IslamOnline - The Israeli army has rained Lebanon with more than one million cluster bombs and used internationally banned weapons like phosphorous shells and imprecise weaponry during its 33-day war, a senior Israeli army officer has revealed.

"What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs," the head of the Israeli army's Rocket Unit said in a letter to Defense Minister Emir Peretz cited by the daily Haaretz on Tuesday, September 12.

He said the army fired around 1,800 cluster bombs, containing over 1.2 million cluster bomblets, quoting estimates from his battalion commander.

No Muslim orgs on Commission for Integration

"The government is marginalizing major Muslim organizations, including the MCB, and it seems that new organizations are being brought up in the house of parliament where they don’t have any base," Muhammad Abdul Bari told IslamOnline.net in an exclusive interview...

He said the government is now reaching out to obscure Islamic organizations and shunning the representative one.

"So the government now is talking to something called Sufi Muslim Council founded a month ago," Abdul Bari said.

The MCB leader, a specialist teacher in behavior support, added that the newly established Commission for Integration and Cohesion included unknown Muslim faces.

"Not a single Muslim rep was taken from any of the national Muslim organizations," he said, noting that the Hindu representative is the secretary general of the Hindu Forum UK.

From IslamOnline

Much has also been made of the Abdul Bari's "warning of 2 million British terrorists" in the Sunday Telegraph. Except that he didn't say that, with the newspaper distorting his comments.

Tony Blair passing through an Israeli chequepoint

Blair not welcome in the Middle East

Tony Blair is in the Middle East trying to bring peace and stability to the region. Except he refuses to meet main players, and to be fair, they don't want to see him either.

As Tom at BlairWatch put it, he's talking about the Middle East but not to the Middle East. He's not going to Syria or Iran and won't be meeting the Palestinians (except Abbas). Instead he's trying to sort it all out with Olmert. Which would actually be fine, if he was willing to spell out some home truths. After all, he's got nothing to lose, he's going in a few months anyway.

Hundreds of Palestinians signed a letter in a newspaper saying that Blair was not welcome in Ramallah:

"[Blair is] completely unwelcome in our country because he was coming to wash the hands that are dripping Lebanese blood with Palestinian water."

Palestinian PM Ismail Haniyeh wrote in yesterday's Guardian that "last decade has witnessed the most unfair and one-sided British policy towards the region since the creation of the state of Israel in our homeland close to 60 years ago". Well worth reading the whole thing.

The CIA's "alternative set of procedures"

The secret CIA flights are officially not a secret anymore. George Bush has for the first time admitted the existence of the policy whereby terror suspects are picked up and taken somewhere else in the world for "interrogation".

He maintains though that no one has been tortured. Why the need to fly them around the world then?

Bush said at the press conference: "We knew that (Abu) Zubaydah had more information that could save innocent lives, but he stopped talking. As his questioning proceeded, it became clear that he had received training on how to resist interrogation. And so the CIA used an alternative set of procedures."

But he said: "The US does not torture. I have not authorised it and I will not."

What made them suddenly start talking then? Maher Arar, who was on one of these flights, says otherwise too. Obviously the President didn't make mention of him at the press conference.

Ding-dong, the Blair witch is dead

Firstly, a salute to the young people who were out protesting at Tony Blair's visit to their school today, with antiwar slogans and Lebanon flags to the fore (lenin was there and has a report, pictures and footage).

One of the most inspirational facets of the antiwar movement over the last few years has been the action of teenagers. They're not apathetic about politics - just political parties.

Blair announced his departure outside the school. The kids must have enjoyed themselves. Their protest neatly encapsulated the reason why Blair has been brought to this point. His name has become a byword for liar, and that's because of his main legacy - Iraq. It is the people that have brought down Blair. The media didn't hold Blair to account before it, and Parliament certainly didn't - before or after. If no one had protested on the streets, Blair would have carried on quite legitimately saying as he does to the Tories: "You didn't complain at the time".

The Labour Party that is finally sticking the knife in would do well to reflect properly on Blair's demise. Yesterday's resignations said that he'd become an obstacle to electoral success. They did not say why - because they also voted for the Iraq war.

Israeli officials 'face war crimes risk'

Israel's public officials have been told to watch what they say in public about the Lebanese and Palestinian conflicts for fear of being prosecuted for war crimes, political sources say.

The sources say the foreign ministry has established a legal team to deal with efforts by foreign groups to arrange the prosecution abroad of Israelis involved in the war against Hezbollah guerrillas and crackdowns on Palestinians.

A ministry memorandum issued to Israel's military and other government agencies urges officials to avoid belligerent remarks that could potentially be used to back up allegations they were complicit in excessive use of force in Lebanon or Gaza.

"The type of language now considered off-limits includes 'crushing' the enemy, and 'cleansing', 'levelling', or 'wiping out' suspected enemy emplacements," a political source who saw the memo told Reuters.

The source quoted the memo as censuring one official who called for Israel to respond to Hezbollah rockets strikes against the strategic port city of Haifa during the 34-day war by "getting rid of a village in Lebanon".

Reuters

So they'll be changing what they say, not what they do.