Britons and Information Obtained by Torture

The polling organization YouGov has released the results of a UK survey which asked the following question:

Do you think there are ever circumstances where it is justified for the British security services to use information that other countries may have obtained through torture?

46% agreed that yes, there might be circumstances justifying the use of such information. 19% were unsure. And just over a third, 34%, said there were no circumstances that would justify its use.

From these results I conclude that 34% of Britons A) have no imagination, B) are complete and utter morons, or C) both. Regardless of what you think about the use of torture, consider the following hypothetical.

An Al Qaeda terrorist falls into the hands of Afghan security forces who torture him. During his torture-filled interrogation he gives up a large amount of information which may or may not be accurate. He states that Al Qaeda is planning an attack in Britain, and provides the names and approximate locations of two associates who he claims are already in the U.K. The Afghans pass this information to the U.S., which then informs the British. Would these 34% really oppose any investigation by British security forces? After all, they'd be acting on information obtained through torture. I guess they should just turn a blind eye and hope for the best.

Rioting Scum Continue to Rampage Thru London

In an extremely belated and underwhelming response, police in London are warning that they are going to use plastic bullets against rioters. They should have been using real bullets on the first night to kill the firebomb throwers. People who attempt to set others on fire, or who set fire to occupied buildings are attempted murderers. Those observed in the act of such attempted murders should be shot on sight by police, or anyone else. Since the UK has largely disarmed its people, and stripped away the effective right of self-defense, it falls to the police to maintain order and protect the public from these rampaging gangs of human scum. From what I've seen in British news reports, so far they've done a miserable job.

While driving to work yesterday I heard an NPR report on the riots. Their reporter interviewed a woman whose apartment complex was set on fire. She told how while she and her family were fleeing for their lives, their home destroyed, looters were laughing and stealing rugs from a shop on the ground floor of the building. As I've written before about mob violence, these sorts of situations are one of the few times that excessive police force, which would normally be police brutality, is actually called for to restore order. People who act as part of a violent mob or gang, who commit acts of arson, and who think the chaos they've caused is an excuse to appropriate other peoples' property are predatory vermin that needed to be suppressed as quickly as possible with overwhelming force. When a government fails to do so in these situations, its lack of action encourages more vermin to crawl out of their holes and take part in the feeding frenzy.

Britain Decides to Cut Funding for Internal Enemies

It's a sad comedy of just how bad things have gotten in the UK that it took a big cabinet fight for the government to decide to stop funding Islamic extremist groups. Seriously.

David Cameron will emerge as the victor from a bitter cabinet battle over multiculturalism this week as the government unveils a hardline approach to tackling Islamist extremism.

Home Office sources say that Cameron has quashed Nick Clegg's argument for a more tolerant attitude to Muslim groups by insisting on a strategy centred upon the notion that violent extremism is incubated within the ideology of non-violent extremism.

Apparently Clegg and other useful idiots for Islamism within the UK wanted to provide money to Islamic extremist groups as long as they didn't openly advocate violence.

Cameron said it was "nonsense" to fund groups with extremist elements

You might think that would be obvious.

Actor Was Waterboarded for 10 Hours

British actor Trevor Williams, who played a private security contractor in the 2010 movie "Route Irish," recently revealed that he endured 10 hours of real waterboarding during the filming. The experience left him with "weeks of panic attacks." Why would he do such a thing?

to ensure the scenes looked right, he had decided to undergo the controversial torture technique for real on camera. ... to protect him, the film crew had worked out a safe way of waterboarding, but it soon became clear it was not working. ..."So I made the decision, along with Mark and one of the crew, to just do it. ..."I trusted them enough to come up with a scenario where Mark would do it and if I raised my thumbs, the crew would run over and release me."

So let's review. A British actor voluntarily submits himself to 10 hours of waterboarding. He endures a fully authentic version purely in the service of artistic integrity. But U.S. use of this same technique to interrogate a captured terrorist leader and enemy of America such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a horrible war crime that can't be justified. Is it any wonder that I laugh at people who hold that view?

One other point... Although I'm on record stating that I consider waterboarding to be a mild form of torture (as torture goes), I also understand why many supporters of the technique claim that it is just a harsh form of interrogation and not real torture. The case of Trevor Williams serves as a prime example of why those people have a reasonable argument. Would Williams have decided to have electrodes attached to his testicles and undergone ten hours of electrical shocks? Would he have let the film crew strap him to a rack and had them crank it in the service of realism? Somehow I doubt it.

[My response to the waterboarding isn't real torture argument is that certain "things", such as torture, can have degrees. The fact that a "thing" is of a lesser degree does not necessarily render it something other than a "thing."]

Torture Works Again

Yet another criminal has demonstrated that torture can be an effective tool for extracting accurate information. This time the criminal in question used starvation and dehydration to break his victim over a period of six days, leaving the poor man, Neil Varley in this condition:

malnourished, dehydrated and suffering from kidney failure after he was deprived of food and water during his ordeal

So what did this torture accomplish? In addition to forcing the victim to write out checks, the torture also extracted some accurate information.

Police later recovered CCTV of Kizajev using Mr Varley's bank card to top up his mobile phone and withdraw cash.

As in previous cases, torture was used to obtain a PIN number, a type of specific, verifiable information. Unlike some people who claim to be experts on interrogation, criminals are well-aware that torture can be a viable tool for getting accurate information from a reluctant prisoner. Like all interrogation methods, success or failure depends on the who is asking the questions, the subject, the information in question, and various other factors that may differ in each case.

The Ongoing Wikileaks Saga

As everyone probably knows by now, Julian Assange turned himself in to British authorities as a result of his European arrest warrant and will face sex charges filed in Sweden. This could be either a good or bad development. It's possible the charges will stick, he'll be convicted, thrown in jail and essentially discredited as a sex criminal. On the other hand, there is probably a decent chance that there won't be enough evidence for a conviction, he'll walk free, and use the incident to portray himself as a martyr.

Despite the situation with Assange, Wikileaks says it will continue releasing stolen U.S. diplomatic cables. Assange alone is not the problem, and regardless of what happens to him personally, Wikileaks remains a hostile non-state organization engaged in a direct attack on the United States. Along with the Assange situation, there have been some other positive developments. Visa and Paypal have both suspended business arrangements with Wikileaks, and the Swiss closed Assange's bank account. Those are helpful measures, but they don't go nearly far enough.

As I've argued before, Wikileaks has already inflicted significant damage on the U.S. Instead of waiting around for the next attack, the U.S. should take both overt and covert action to destroy this organization. Attacking its finances is well and good, but the U.S. should directly target the key individuals running Wikileaks. It's past time for some of them to start dying or disappearing. Unfortunately it is unlikely that our current president will act beyond the usual strongly-worded statements, and tentative legal tactics. We can wage an extensive assassination campaign in Afghanistan/Pakistan, but we apparently can't act to destroy an enemy that has carried out a successful assault, and caused far more damage than most of the people we are killing.

4 Year-Old Boy Finds 4 Million Dollar Treasure

The BBC reports that a four year-old boy in Britain using a metal detector for the first time found a 16th Century gold pendant worth approximately four million dollars. Last year there was an even more spectacular find in the UK where a man with a metal detector located a huge hoard of over 1300 pieces of Anglo-Saxon treasure. This should be great news for British metal detector sales which will probably experience a big surge.

64% Oppose Ground Zero Mosque in UK Poll

Admittedly it's an unscientific opt-in online newspaper poll. But I was surprised to see that level of opposition at the Guardian of all places, a newspaper that is well on the political left. It seems that even many people in the UK recognize that the project is in poor taste. As of now the poll is running 35.4% approve, and 64.6% disapprove. 

UK Atheist Calls for a Debate with the Pope

Geoffrey Berg, author of "The Six Ways Of Atheism," has challenged the Pope to debate the existence of God during his visit to Britain.

It is very appropriate for the Pope (who is also a noted theologian) to argue the question of whether God exists at all upon a visit to the United Kingdom as the United Kingdom has historically generally led the way in rejecting religious belief in terms of the leading freethinkers who have lived here.

Berg argues that since the Pope often attacks atheism/secularism, he should welcome such a debate.

Rather than just complain about the growing secularism in the world, as he and his predecessor have tended to do, isn't it time he debated the core case that God simply does not exist which actually leads to secularism?

Although the chances of the Pope accepting such a debate are slim and none, it would definitely be interesting to see him take on a prominent atheist in a formal debate. Unlike the ridiculous calls to arrest the Pope when he visits Britain, Berg's challenge makes sense. The Pope is a theologian, he wants to persuade people to accept Christianity, and such a debate would probably be a high profile event where he could put forth his best arguments in favor of the existence of the Christian version of God. He should accept the challenge. But I'd be willing to bet he'd rather just continue demonizing atheists, instead of engaging in reasoned debate.

Gladiator Remains Found in York

The British newspaper The Independent has an interesting article today regarding an important  historical find.

Eighty skeletons have been unearthed at the site in Driffield Terrace, south west of the centre of York, over the past decade. One man appears to have been killed by a large carnivore – almost certainly a lion, tiger or bear. Others have weapon impact damage and many of them have specific features, including marks on their bones, consistent with tough training regimes.

It appears that they have uncovered a Roman gladiator cemetery containing the "world's best preserved remains of gladiators and other arena fighters." Some of the findings may change common beliefs about certain aspects of gladiatorial combat, particularly the method of execution used to finish off defeated combatants.

One of the most puzzling aspects of the cemetery is that most of the men were decapitated. Although some may have sustained injuries in the period immediately before death, in most cases decapitation appears to have been the act which killed them.

It is known that defeated gladiators were often "executed" in the arena by their opponents – but scholars have always thought that it was done by a sword stab to the throat. The York decapitations are from the back of the neck, suggested that a wider range of arena coups de grâce were employed.

The whole article is fascinating for anyone interested in that historical period, and how  the study of human remains can illuminate events which happened long ago.
 

British Terrorist Rights Supporters Even More Insane Than the US Variety

Today's headline in The Guardian: "Two Pakistani students pose 'serious threat' but can stay in UK." What?!

Britain's counter-terrorism strategy was thrown into turmoil today when a judge ruled that two Pakistani students posed a serious threat to national security but could not be deported because of the risk that they would be tortured or killed in their own country.

According to the court, one of the men is actually an "an al-Qaida operative." Yet they can't be deported because something bad might happen to them. Enemies who want to kill British civilians have to be protected. This is what happens when you listen to the blind legalism of morons who like to bleat about the so-called "rule of law."

Rational people might think that foreign students residing in a host country are there as a privilege on the sufferance of the host nation. If those students turn out to be terror supporters, let alone actual members of Al Qaeda, they should be expelled, and have to take their chance with whatever happens in the country they are returned to. Rational laws are designed and used to protect society, not enemies who wish to destroy it. But terrorist rights supporters are much more concerned with protecting foreign enemies than the society they live in. They have a blind, almost religious veneration for "the law," as if it was a mystical force detached from reality.  

Terrorist Rights Supporter Sees the Light

A high level member of Amnesty International, a major terrorist rights supporter, has leveled harsh criticism against the organization.

A SENIOR official at Amnesty International has accused the charity of putting the human rights of Al-Qaeda terror suspects above those of their victims.

She finally realized that. They've been doing it for years.

Gita Sahgal, head of the gender unit at Amnesty’s international secretariat, believes that collaborating with Moazzam Begg, a former British inmate at Guantanamo Bay, “fundamentally damages” the organisation’s reputation.

Along with his various terrorist ties, Begg is an Islamist, an open supporter of the Taliban, and an advocate for imprisoned Al Qaeda members such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Amnesty International has collaborated with him, and even paid the expenses for his propaganda events. This was too much for Sahgal.

“I believe the campaign fundamentally damages Amnesty International’s integrity and, more importantly, constitutes a threat to human rights,” Sahgal wrote in an email to the organisation’s leaders on January 30. “To be appearing on platforms with Britain’s most famous supporter of the Taliban, whom we treat as a human rights defender, is a gross error of judgment.”

It's good to see that there is someone at Amnesty International willing to speak out and state the obvious. 

Pope Not a Big Fan of Equality

The Pope is planning a visit to Britain and published a message to Catholic bishops in the UK. In it he made some interesting statements. He's not happy about equal rights for gay people, because that violates what he sees as the Church's right to discriminate against them.

Your country is well known for its firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of society. Yet as you have rightly pointed out, the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs. In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed.

Here we see one of the biggest problems of natural law arguments. Because natural law doesn't actually exist as anything other than a philosophical concept, it can mean whatever the person citing it wants it to mean. The Christian demonization of homosexuality as a sin, and their desire to discriminate against gay people isn't based on ancient texts and bigotry, it's rooted in natural law. Treating homosexuals equally is the wrong thing to do, because it's a violation of natural law -- a natural law that gives Christians the right to discriminate purely on the basis of their religious beliefs. This is prime example of religious "reasoning." And there's more.

Fidelity to the Gospel in no way restricts the freedom of others – on the contrary, it serves their freedom by offering them the truth.

According to the Pope, discriminating against people based on the words of ancient religious texts somehow doesn't restrict their freedom. The freedom of Christians to inflict their superstitions on everyone else is the only freedom that actually matters. And if you dispute that, it's because you don't understand the TRUTH. 

Britain Attempts to Reign In Rogue Courts

The British Foreign office has proposed that the UK Attorney General be given the power to approve arrest warrants for suspected war criminals. This comes in the wake of an embarrassing incident, where a British court actually issued an arrest warrant for former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livini for supposed "war crimes," causing her to cancel a visit to the UK. The government of Gordon Brown was forced to apologize for the idiocy of this court.

Things are pretty bad in the UK, but even the British government has to be appalled at the shameful behavior of one of its courts, trying to arrest a former minister of a civilized country on behalf of terrorist supporters. Naturally those terrorist supporters aren't happy that the government is interfering with their jihad against Israel.

News of the prime minister's intervention provoked a furious response from lawyers and pro-Palestinian groups.

"I feel honest revulsion at the idea of a case where a judge has granted an arrest warrant and a politician gets on the phone and apologises," said Daniel Machover, a solicitor. "They have got to stay out of individual cases and legal decisions."

Unlike here in the U.S., where we have terrorist rights supporters, over in the UK they have actual terrorist supporters, working diligently on behalf of Hamas. Hopefully the government will be able to put some regulations in place to squelch the activities of courts that issue ludicrous warrants for political reasons, particularly when they act in support of terrorist objectives.

Why We Shouldn't Give Money to the Third World, Reason #483789788

If you need any more reason why U.S. taxpayer money should not be given to third world countries, look no further than the recent British experience with Kenya.

The British government has issued a travel ban to more than 20 Kenyan citizens accused of corruption, and frozen funding for the ministry of education over the disappearance of US$1.3 million.

The UK was helping fund education, but the money intended for that purpose just vanished. But if you read further in the article, that scandal is just the tip of the iceberg.

Reports said Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) had dropped its investigations earlier this year into the "Anglo-Leasing" affair, in which contracts worth some $100m were awarded to firms which did not exist.

The SFO said it was dropping the case because of a lack of co-operation from Kenyan agencies.

A hundred million dollars of corruption, and the British can't get any cooperation from the government of Kenya. They just have to write it off as a loss.

Kenya is hardly the most corrupt third world country out there. The sad fact is that aid money sent to so-called developing countries, with the best of intentions, often disappears into the pockets of corrupt officials. As seen in Kenya, this is not a small scale problem or an aberration; it is the rule not the exception.  I recently wrote a post called, "Wasting Money in Afghanistan," about how over fifty percent of our aid money doesn't reach its intended targets. I'm not an isolationist, and there are rare occasions where aid is warranted. But it should come with major strings attached and be carefully monitored, not be handed out like candy to enrich corrupt local officials.

Really Bad Timing

According to a report in the Times of India, the city of Mumbai bounced back to normal faster than either New York or London, when it suffered a major terrorist attack last year. You might ask who is qualified to make such an assessment. Amazingly enough, it rests on personal anecdotal impressions. Jason and Jenny Cairns-Lawrence, a couple from Britain, somehow managed to be present in New York on 9/11, in London during the 7/7 subway bombing, and were on vacation in Mumbai when terrorists struck the city last year. The report didn't say, but I have to wonder if they've been investigated for terrorist connections. As paranoid as law enforcement usually is, I'd be surprised if such a startling coincidence didn't raise some eyebrows.

Religious Nonsense Combines With Environmental Hysteria

This potent negative combination is illustrated by an article in the Guardian, in praise of a recent speech by Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury. It's an open call to promote environmental hysteria through religious means.

For Rowan Williams the "ecocidal" moment we are experiencing reveals a profound impoverishment of our human lives. We have forgotten what it means to be human. This is a religious issue, not just an environmental one. His speech serves to express a growing tide of religious environmentalism

Try reading that without rolling your eyes or laughing. And there's more!

the "foremost casualty of environmental degradation" is the human soul

Really? Then I guess those of us who don't believe in souls don't have to worry about it.

For many new religious movements the natural world is a sacred space where humans are merely guests at the table. And many theologians urge us to rethink our picture of God – as not so much pie in the sky, but grounded in the earth, present in the world around us

Translation: we should substitute new nonsense for old nonsense.

something has gone wrong in our relationship with the earth and with one another. Although they have diverse ways of expressing it, the assumption is that material solutions cannot be the answer.

We supposedly have a "relationship" with the earth, but material solutions aren't the answer to our relationship problems. No, that doesn't sound like complete gibberish does it?

Perhaps this is why those who find it hard to believe in any God are beginning to recognise the importance of religion in these debates

Oh no we aren't.  

purely political reasoning has never proved a powerful enough force to change habits of a lifetime. Any such change depends on deep transitions of the human spirit that religious people have called conversion.

Let's forget about facts, science, and soberly assessing the problems of climate change and their proposed solutions, and instead make it some sort of religious crusade. Environmental hysteria is hard enough to take seriously without investing it with mystical nonsense.

Naked Scanners

The UK has deployed a new type of airport security scanner in trial runs. The scanner removes the need to take off articles of clothing or submit to a pat-down search. But instead, along with detecting weapons

the full body scans will also show up breast enlargements, body piercings and a clear black-and-white outline of passengers' genitals.

The article has a picture that demonstrates what a scan looks like.

According to the report, such scanners have already undergone trials in New York and Los Angeles, and are "being gradually rolled out at airports across the US." I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, the scans are pretty intrusive. But then, so are body searches. Given those two options, I'll take the scan. 

Releasing Terrorists to Prevent Terrorism

Britain is reaching new heights in legal idiocy as it prepares to grant early release to up to 30 "high risk" terrrorist convicts, including "some of the most dangerous men in Britain ." Why are they doing this, you ask? Well, according to the UK's "most senior" judges,

long sentences for terrorist crimes could “inflame” rather than deter extremism

That's right, keeping terrorists in jail too long inflames extremism.With that sort of logic, maybe criminals shouldn't be imprisoned at all. A good scolding may be all they need, and maybe a fine. I don't know, that might be a bit harsh. If the fine is too great it could inflame extremism. 

Racism Against Birds

Wildlife experts in Britain have upped the ante in the ongoing effort to render the word "racism" meaningless. Just when you thought misuse of the term couldn't get more ridiculous than the constant attempts by Obama supporters to label any criticism of the president racist, comes Dr. Ian Rotherham, Director of the Environmental Change Research Unit at Sheffield Hallam University and his fellow experts. Reacting to an official designation of the ring-necked parakeet as a "pest" species, Rotherham had this to say,

"If there is a problem - for example with the birds taking fruit - then we have to take steps to deal with it. If you start to label it as alien then that is some sort of racism. Eco-xenophobia is the label I would use.

Since it's a foreign bird, labeling it as a pest, or actually noting that it is an alien species is a type of racism according to Rotherham. With this in mind it might be necessary to start an affirmative action program for the ring-necked parakeet and all other birds that are victims of racist discrimination. According to the report, it is now "possible to shoot the birds without a licence." This is an outrage! Because of racial profiling these parakeets are now subject to summary execution. It sounds like someone needs to bring a lawsuit against the UK on behalf of the oppressed and persecuted parakeets.