BLOG POSTS

A nation state can assassinate a human being with impunity, and on a whim, yet when a man chooses to end the unbearable suffering of one he loves, he is arrested for murder.

The brutal killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a Hamas leader, in Dubai last month was undoubtedly carried out by Mossad, the Israeli ‘secret service’. No recriminations will result. Britain, and a few other nations whose passports were forged by the Israelis, will mumble and moan and demand inquiries that get nowhere, but Israel will shrug its shoulders, commend its agents for a job well done, while raising an index finger to the rest of the world.^[1]

I remember Ray Gosling as a young, regional TV reporter for our local British news service. I was only a lad at the time and he was beginning a career that never made him an international star, or even a great national personality, but he did present hundreds of documentaries on UK television and radio, many championing the causes of common people.

Ray was homosexual and much of his life was spent campaigning for gay rights. When his partner was diagnosed with AIDs, he made Ray swear a pact that he would not allow him to suffer. Later, in the hospital and in terrible pain, and when the doctors could do no more for him, Ray took a pillow and smothered his partner. It was his last act of love for the person who, in his own words, ‘he loved to bits’.

Ray Gosling is now seventy years old. Following his admission on the BBC’s Inside Out program on Monday, of his act of euthanasia, he was today arrested and charged with murder.^[2]

We are, at best, a strange species.

^{[1] “Israel says no proof it carried out Hamas Dubai killing” BBC, February 17th 2010}

^{[2] “Murder arrest over Ray Gosling’s BBC confession” BBC, February 17th 2010}

Filed under: Thou shalt not kill?

There’s a saying somewhere in the Bible, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” I’m sure there’s plenty of holy bods out there who could quote me chapter and verse. I was reminded of it yesterday when I read two articles, one by a professional journalist whom I have no compunction about naming and shaming, and another by a UK blogger, who generally writes quite sane stuff, so must be allowed the occasional aberration, and will remain anonymous.

Bruce Anderson is not the sort of writer with views one would expect to find expressed in ‘The Independent’. However, it is one of the better journals and as such must remain open to all points of view. Anderson’s first sentence expresses his disgust for torture. “Torture,” he writes, “is revolting.”

He continues in similar vein:

Torturers set out to break their victim: to take a human being and reduce him to a whimpering wreck. In so doing, they defile themselves and their society.”^[1]

There is nothing I would disagree with in his first paragraph, but sadly the next twelve hundred or so words set out exactly why Anderson believes modern day societies should use torture to elicit information from their enemies.

“Men,” he proclaims, “cannot live like angels.”

Presumably, in Bruce Anderson’s world, that frees them to behave as barbarians?

Or, is he perhaps merely more astute than the rest of us? Have we, as a species, already reached our limit of respectability, and begun the inevitable descent back into animalistic barbarism?

Only this morning the BBC News announced a major Taliban chief had been captured in a joint Pakistani/American venture on the Afghanistan border. According to the BBC, the gentleman concerned was “providing valuable intelligence”.

Presumably, he wasn’t sitting down taking tea with Asif Ali Zardari and Stanley A. McChrystal, sharing a joint, and happily spilling the beans over Taliban positions, so we can safely assume he was “being reduced to a whimpering wreck,” to coin Anderson’s own phraseology.

The author himself unknowingly stifles his own argument. Torture is not a ‘one-off-for-a-unique-set-of-circumstances’ option. It isn’t being held in abeyance pending the remote possibility a terrorist, having planted an atomic weapon in New York, will fall conveniently into the hands of the CIA.

Anderson is quite specific: those who use torture defile themselves and their society. That fact alone is reason never to use torture under any circumstance. As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are proving, a ‘one-off’ gravitates to ‘routine’, and ultimately torture techniques are rewritten into the codes of war.

“As ye sow, so shall ye reap.”

Yesterday, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament reared its head in Britain by blockading a nuclear weapons site where warheads for Trident submarines are made. This prompted the author of one of my regular blog-reads to comment on the matter:

In an age where the boundaries between the goodies and the baddies are no longer clear-cut or identifiable, when countries filled with people who have not only made it pretty clear that they hate anything Western and will happily die in the process of taking a few Westerners down with them are slowly acquiring the technology that will enable them to build their own nuclear weapons and when there’s never been a time when nuclear material has been less clearly accounted for, then it might be argued that it’s probably sensible to ensure we’re at least on something of a level playing field…………….the countries that have their own weapons at least have the capacity to make the aggressors stop and think. And that may be all we can hope for.”

The writer is entitled to the opinion he expresses, and puts forth sane and sensible arguments, though in his reference to terrorist organizations, I doubt they would ‘stop and think’, and even if they did it’s unlikely to deter them from any action, martyrdom being such a valuable asset to these religious cranks.

My reason for quoting from his article is simply to make the point that we wouldn’t have this nuclear dilemma if power-hungry governments hadn’t rushed to develop the atomic bomb in the first place.

A strong movement arose after WW2 demanding the end to nuclear weapons. It resulted in various agreements, not least the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968, that opened the road to eventual nuclear disarmament, if only nations had cared to venture down it.

None have; instead, a free-for-all has developed and everyone now wants to be nuclear armed. The NPT is dead in the water.

America developed the bomb for short-term gain at the end of WW2. The world is now reaping what it sowed sixty years ago.

Similarly so, with less obvious weapons of destruction such as the internal combustion engine, rampant industrialization, the short-term wealth advantages of deforestation, chemicalized food production, and the myriad of other planet harming projects with which we’ve contaminated ourselves and this planet over the last one hundred years.

“As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” is not just a religious quotation, it ranks with some of the greatest laws of physics.

I see an increase in the use of torture as the inevitable result of escalating war. Shortages of food and water due to climate change, produced by our own ineptitude, will create further conflicts throughout the globe. That is inevitable.

There was a time man at least aspired to be as the angels; it was inherent in all religious creeds. But, like the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Geneva Conventions, and the words of US presidents – “We do not torture!” – that, too, is now dead in the water.

^{[1] “Bruce Anderson: We not only have a right to use torture. We have a duty” The Independent, February 15th 2010}

Filed under: Declining standards

“Ladies and gentlemen……announcing the boxing match of the decade……the fight of the century……a bout to not be missed. Our two contenders for the heavyweight boxing title of the U-nited States are Joe ‘Basher’ Bandylegs and Dick ‘the Dynamo’ Dunderhead. Joe Bangylegs will fight in the St Louis Stadium, Missouri, at 9.00pm, and simultaneously Dick Dunderhead will seek to bring down his opponent at the Long Island Athletics Center in New York. This momentous boxing event will be judged by a plethora of half-baked media pundits who think they know a thing or two about the sport of kings, but who’ll be hampered by that most dreaded of diseases – raging verbal diarrhea……”

What the F***! What is all this rubbish?

Two boxers attempting to fight each other in different stadiums nearly a thousand miles apart? It’s hardly likely to attract a record crowd, now is it? No doubt a few hard-bitten fans of their particular hero would turn up on the night, but most sane individuals must realize you can’t have a proper boxing match when the opponents are in different parts of the country.

Yet this is exactly how the US media set out to portray Sunday’s political programming: one cute little pit-bull terrier, otherwise known as former US vice president Dick Cheney, snapping at the heels of his political opponents on one network, while the resident VP, Joe Biden, chomped away at his opposition on another.

It was always going to be a non-event. But then, American politics is invariably a non-event. On the only occasion both sides actually meet in verbal combat – the later stages of a presidential election – the resulting debate is so tightly scripted and controlled by the corporate media that sparring continues for twelve rounds with hardly a punch being thrown.

In other parts of the world, opposing politicians frequently meet on the TV screen, slugging it out to the finish in a match usually easy to score and occasionally resulting in a knock-out.

Why is this not the case in America?

Could the reality be simply that in this country politicians are, by and large, on the same side? After all, it’s easy to pretend to slag off one’s opponent when he’s not there to defend himself, and no-one’s the wiser when both parties meet up for a friendly drink in the Congressional bar afterward.

It’s all staged for the entertainment of the masses, and to reassure the great unwashed there are still political differences between parties, even though the real truth is, there are not.

Both sides serve the same masters. Only the modus operandi differs.

Still, it was something for Americans to watch, and argue about, after the gloom and depression that inevitably follows on from the Super Bowl.

And, after all, we can always look forward to next week’s exciting non-event.

Filed under: Political indifferences