Newsmedianews | Editorial comment

reference links take you to the item and a return link

COMMENT ARCHIVE

INDEX

archived : Sunday, 30 December, 2007

archived : Sunday, 16 December, 2007

archived : Monday, 12 November, 2007

archived : Sunday, 11 November, 2007

archived : Saturday, 15 September, 2007

archived : Tuesday, 21 August, 2007

archived : Tuesday, 3 July, 2007 1:07 AM

archived : Thursday, 15 March, 2007 10:51 PM

archived : Friday, 16 February, 2007 12:43 PM

archived : Monday, 5 February, 2007 0:02 AM

archived : Friday, 12 January, 2007 9:25 PM

archived comment from January 2009—February 2013

archived comment from 2006 and earlier

Comment on any item on this page

archived on Sunday, 30 December, 2007

Civilisation & What Future…?
As Christmas again approaches it is customary to reflect on the past year and to think of friends and loved ones and those less fortunate than ourselves. As John Lennon penned: And so this is Christmas, And what have you done? Another year over, and a new one just begun.
  The reality is that friends and loved ones are dying in wars across the globe—wars that have been orchestrated not by the people but by politicians and despots who remain further removed than anyone from the scenes of conflict, suffering and death. And the less fortunate are often left to die by the roadside as thought their ill-fortune is their own fault.
  There are those who continue to plan for the future as if everything is dandy and rosy and Father Time is standing waiting with open arms for their progress.
  But where and what is that future? Regardless of the pussyfooting vocal appeasements currently being practiced between armed nations around our planet while those very nations are in states of active war, we are probably closer to the onset of global war and the very real threat of the wide scale use of nuclear weaponry than at any time in our modern history, including the Cuba missile crisis of 1962.
  And then there is global warming and climate change. Over the past decade we have witnessed its growing dramatic effects and these effects will increase in both frequency and severity, much like an avalanche that begins from a relatively small impetus but which develops calamitous side effects in its passing.
  The question of whether civilisation and humanity—or life as we know it—has a future is not an idle nor a scare mongering one. It is about our very survival.
  Perhaps this should be the overall focus of our Christmas reflections.
  Perhaps too we should give thought to the wars being waged by empirical powers in countries beyond their borders and waged under the pretext of combating ‘terrorism’. Empirical powers throughout history have enjoyed but one end result alike—the destruction of their empires.
   If someone forced their way into your home and started telling you what you should and should not do, with the underlying threat of violence against you if you did not comply, would you sit back and welcome them with open arms? Or would you mount a defence against your own liberty?
  It is easy to visit the colourful Christmas shops and forget about the realities around us in the world of today.
  But unless we do so, Christmas may one day be a thing of the past for us all and not just for those forced to live in oppression and denial of freedom.

archived on Sunday, 16 December, 2007

Iraq—What Possible Answer?
Occupation service personnel, armed opposition personnel and civilians continue to be maimed and killed in the ongoing war against ‘terrorism’, publicised by the main coalition administrations as a war to bring ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ to Iraq and Afghanistan.
   Service personnel within the occupation coalition believe they are part of a liberation crusade bringing the west’s defined ‘freedoms’ to the countries they serve in.
  The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have now continued longer than Word War II and there is still no clearer vision of such freedom to those living or deployed in either country, although the administrations of the western coalition broadcast a different story. Meanwhile the roadside bombs and suicide bombings and armed hostilities continue on all sides.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have one aim in common—control of the region to safeguard access to its resources. One can only wonder what might happen should a foreign army invade the United States with a view to removing its administration and replacing it with its own set of values. Would those who took up arms in defence of their way of life be considered ‘insurgents’, ‘rebels’ or ‘terrorists’?
  Short of total annihilation of the indigenous populations of the occupied countries, both wars are unwinnable. Lives will continue to be lost to no avail other than the continuation of the unattainable materialistic dreams of those responsible for pursuing them.
  It appears that the bulk of world leaders today are doing nothing more than inexorably pushing the world to the brink of World War III.

3,485 AFGHAN CIVILIANS KILLED
and 6,273 SERIOUSLY INJURED As of July 2004

Figures vary from 76,662 to 785,957 IRAQI CIVILIANS KILLED
and 1,414,723 SERIOUSLY INJURED June 2007

As of October 1 2007, there were 30,294 military victims of accidents and diseases so serious they had to be medically sent out of Iraq.

r

Nannie’s gonna keep you healthy & clean
The latest UK nannie state laws making it ‘illegal’ to smoke whilst driving beggars belief beyond all description. How long will it be before people are told that drivers cannot speak to passengers and vice versa for fear of ‘distraction’? Or cannot play music, or cannot use the GPS system to navigate on the roads.
  This is not just an affront to anything that hangs onto any remote resemblance to civil liberties in the UK, it is a direct and blatant attack on the freedom of the individual. Do the fat slobs who sit in Government really know anything?

archived on Monday, 12 November, 2007

What PM left out of Queen’s Speech
Gordon Brown has delivered the draft of his first Queen’s Speech setting out his Government’s schedule for ‘reform’.
   Among other things in the speech Mr Brown referes to:

A Bill ... to ensure that young people stay in education or training until age 18, and to provide new rights to skills training for adults; and ‘

My Government wants all children to have the best possible start in life;

There will be a Bill to improve services for vulnerable children and young people, including those in care.

My Government will bring forward proposals to help people achieve a better balance between work and family life; and

My Government will continue to work to build a prosperous and secure European Union, better able to respond to the challenges of globalisation. Legislation will be brought forward to enable Parliament to approve the European Union Reform Treaty.

These matters seem vastly at odds with proposals mentioned by Mr Brown over the previous few weeks. The young person’s proposed Bill will include legislation to fine teenagers under 18 who are unemployed or who are not in education or training. It is hard to see how that equates with providing the foundation to either the best possible start in life or to achieve a better balance between work and family life.
  Regarding Europe, Mr Brown’s moves to make it compulsory for all travellers to and out of the UK to show their passports contradicts the EU’s policy of free movement of people throughout the EU. Britain, it seems, still believes in its defunct Empire days and wants to have its cake and eat it too. It has constantly evaded EU policy that it considers ‘awkward’ while embracing anything that it considers it can benefit by. It will be interesting to see if Portugal’s Minister for Home Affairs, Rui Pereira makes any reference to this when he presidea at the JHA Council's area of Internal Affairs, and is due to address, with his counterparts, the free movement of people in Europe.

archived on Sunday, 11 November, 2007

Freedom’s just another word…
No longer should there be any doubts in anyone’s mind that individual freedoms in the so-called free world are under greater attack and erosion than ever since the end of World War II. Laws have been passed in the US giving US security services powers to intercept all telephone calls, internet traffic and emails made by foreign citizens across US-based networks. There have been no objections raised by foreign authorities, including the EU.
  In the UK, where the world’s largest collection of individual’s DNA data is already on record, a judge has called for the entire UK population including foreign visitors to be put on the database. The suggestion has been supported by members of Government.
In the majority of democratic countries citizens must ask local or national authorities for permission to stage demonstrations or protests for even the simplest of complaints or objections. It all makes George Orwell’s 1984 appear almost juvenile in scope.
  And as we remember another anniversary of the World Trade Centre attacks, this is now all being promulgated in the name of post 9/11 security. It is an insult to and nullifies the brave actions of the many men and women who in earlier times gave their service and often their lives in the belief that they were safeguarding the freedoms of their own and future generations.
  Yet perhaps the most obnoxious attack on free speech is the closing down of former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray’s website by UK hosting company Fasthosts after the company was threatened with legal action by Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov in a bid to silence any negative portrayal of his person.

archived on Saturday, 15 September, 2007

Right Winge Liberalism
There should not really be any accusation of discrimination or even any issue over whether a practicing Sikh should be entitled to wear a turban as part of the uniform of any national state body such as the military, police, fire or medical services.
  If someone wished to wear a purple fez as part of his or her police uniform that person would be surely and politely informed as to the realities. A designated uniform is just that.
  Those whose inherited customs contravene the customs of the country of their residence should either accept the customs they live within or relocate to a country where those customs serve as the norm.
  To make an issue of this is to draw liberalism to a ridiculous level.

archived on Tuesday, 21 August, 2007

Granny’s Monster Mash
The British nanny state is well on track, it appears. The fact that a 16-year-old schoolgirl should be banned by her school from wearing a purity ring symbolising her commitment to her own religious beliefs is itself stupid enough. The fact that a High Court ruling then upheld the ban on appeal drives an already inane ruling to an even higher level of absurdity. Those behind such stupidity should be walking the streets with heads bowed in abject shame.
  But then, George Orwel’s ominous predictions of the future were glorified as imaginitive writing and little more, with no real attention to the realities enshrined in the thinking.

r

Shell & Profit v ?
The on-going fiasco of the Shell pipeline development in County Mayo, Ireland is a stark reminder of just how ruthless the impact of greedy profit-motivated conglomerates can be.
  It has become increasingly difficult for the ordinary citizen to learn how the oil and subsequently pipeline and refinery companies were granted access by government to residential, farm and EU designated protective land without any financial profits from the process earmarked for the benefit of the local community or the citizens of the country itself.
  A report by an international fact-finding delegation documents serious misdoing in how civil protests were handled by the authorities and makes a number of recommendations. However, it is difficult to see how any recommendations may be implemented without the intervention of an independent, external agency empowered to enforce its deliberations on the issues.
  Aside from the environmental issues arising from the proposals, people will be forced from their homes by the project and others will lose their livelihood with no recompense being offered by the companies or others set to profit or benefit by the scheme.
  Where is any offer of fair financial settlement to those whose lives will be inescapably interfered with should the proposals go through to completion?

r

The Rules Of The Road
Over one third of all European motor accident deaths are aged between 18 and 25, according to figures released by the European Union during the past month. Ireland—with one of the lowest populations of EU states—has the highest number of annual road accident deaths throughout the EU.
  Ireland's Green Party has said that it wants to introduce driver safety lessons in schools. This is all well and good for introducing basic theoretical knowledge but alone is insufficient to increase driver safety with noticeable effect.
   Cars are now much speedier and many young drivers are attracted to the dreamlike thrill of owning such a vehicle and speeding around cities, towns and villages as well as countryside roads. Add the growing popularity of turbo boosted cars and the recipe is ripe for disaster. Young drivers lack the necessary on-road experience to handle such cars, despite their belief and confidence that they can.
  The only way to make drivers and the roads safer is to restructure the whole approach to the driving licence.
  Any driver must become familiar with a particular vehicle's operational qualities before he or she can be said to be capable of safely driving that vehicle. Making it compulsory for new drivers to spend a significant number of hours behind the wheel of different cars, at a suitable location such as an abandoned airfield where they might come to understand the operational qualities of vehicles before ever being allowed onto the public road system would vastly improve driver quality.
  And this alone is also not enough. What must also be tackled is the attitude of young drivers. No amount of schooling will change a hotheads desire to race behind the wheel or to think that they are ‘good drivers’.
  The only sure way towards nurturing safer new drivers is to limit the type of vehicle they are permitted to legally drive until they can demonstrate their ability to safely handle their vehicle and remain within legal driving boundaries.
  Like maximim engine cc limits are placed on learner motorcyclists in some countries, similar restrictions should be enforced on all new car drivers, with the relaxation of such restrictions dependant on a set number of driving hours reached and a demonstrable level of safe driver ability.
  There must also be a much greater importance given to ensuring that drivers’ knowledge and application of the enforceable legalities of the Highway Code is of sufficient standard.
  To attempt to tackle driver safety in any other way would be half-hearted and foolhardy.

archived on Tuesday, 3 July, 2007 1:07 AM

Where the system fails
Nothing is a given right in life except our right to freedom providing that our actions do not cause intentional or unintentional harm to another or others.
  The murders of two young girls in Wexford and the deaths of their mother and father, Ciara and Adrian Dunne in what appears to have been a suicide pact demands the question why no-one acted on things said to police or social services.
  The fact that the young father and mother both went to a funeral parlour and made arrangements for a family funeral—facts also know to his own mother—should spark the questions as to why neither police or social services took action over this, particularly since Mr Dunne’s brother James had committed suicide in recent weeks and so the family would have been known to social services. It is reported that the undertaker had contacted police after the mother and father made their visit to make the funeral arrangements.
  Mrs Dunne was found strangled and Mr Dunne was found hanging in the hall of the family home. The two daughters Shania and Leanne, had been suffocated.
  It is reported that members of the mother's family had earlier travelled from Donegal to Wexford because of their concerns for the safety of the family and had reported their concerns to police and “others in authority”.
  Any investigation into the tragedy will be meaningless unless full attention is given to address these questions.

archived on Thursday, 15 March, 2007 10:51 PM

Star Wars = Rats Wars
Anyone with a basic level of intelligence might reasonably conclude that the human race is still entrenched in a dark age of its own creation.
   Money spent throughout the centuries by nations to arm themselves either for hostilities or for defence against the hostility of other nations could have transformed this world into a paradise for all who live upon it.
  Wishful thinking, yes. Reality, yes.
  It is recognised that any important scientific invention has been used in war before in the majority of instances it has been used to benefit the population through peaceful deployment—although there is the argument that use through war has been for the progress of peace.
  With the move towards the European deployment of the US anti-ballistic missile defence system—Star Wars 2—the lunacy moves another step onwards.
  Nations are now beginning to dramatically wake up to the reality of global warming and its awful consequences. Be it caused by human activity or natural events—one scientists theorised that the world is moving out of a mini-ice age—global warming is real, rising sea levels are happening and the world terrain is altering.
  Severe water shortages are forecast for the middle east regions and despite the wealth of some of those countries no desalination plants have been, or are planned, along the coasts. Water will become a scarce commodity.
  Perhaps we will never pass out of our infancy as a species.

r

Of Crime and Punishment
There is something starkly unpalatable in the announcement by UK home secretary John Reid that two new prisons are to be built to cope with the worst ever overcrowding of UK jails. Britain now has the highest per capita prison population in Europe.
   We would expect more from a developed nation than knee-jerk reactions built upon unsubstantial comments such as the “public wanted more people in prison for their own safety”.
  More and more we are seeing the use by government of innacurate use of ‘fact’ to justify an end. A perfect example of this is the forthcoming smoking ban—built upon the unproven yet postulated possibility that passive smoke is harmful. The truth is far from this distorted version of reality.
  The end can never justify the means if those means are deployed purely to accomplish a given end that is built on uncertain foundations.
  There are thousands of people in prison in the UK who should not have been sent to jail in the first place. Unless and until such issues are dealt with the associated problems will continue to grow.
  And this does not tackle the fact that in a growingly unequal society more people will be pushed into situations whereby they will be categorised as criminals and dealt with as such.
  To help straighten out such distorted circumstances we require a mainstream media that is once more capable of impartially examining issues of the day and not kow-towing to and redistributing propaganda.

r

When Freedom turns Sour
Forty-five years ago in the UK of the mid-60s puzzled conversations revolved around the erosion of civil liberties in the UK and that talk was interspersed with worry that Britain was sliding into a police state.
  Since those days of blossoming flower power and hippies, the drift towards nanny-state indoctrination and control has inexorably outpaced the development of real civil freedoms.
  The erosion of those freedoms has multiplied many dozen-fold in the last decade and has been explained away through reasons that attempt to extol upon us that such things are being done for our own benefit.
  In the last six years, many observers had drawn attention to the overseas military action of the UK—and other nations—and how the motive for that action has been designated as in the cause of peace, despite the loss of countless lives through war.
  It remains unequivocal that neither Afghanistan nor Iraq declared war against the rest of the world and yet dozens of nations are now continuing to commit troops to an armed invasion of those countries.
  When Iraq, under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, invaded Kuwait, other countries, including the UK, reacted by fighting a war of freedom and pushing the invaders from Kuwait. The motives for that reaction might be oilier than clear cut.
  Oil is needed because as a species we simply have not devoted adequate resources to providing an alternative. Enough cash has now been committed by western nations to wars in the middle east over the past 20 years to provide luxury homes for every living person in the world.
   Those who are fearful of looking this fact in the face will often blindly immerse themselves in their own sense of security, not realising how false its foundations have become.
  Where such people are part of an administrative system, that sense of security rests on the control of those whom they fear might be a threat to their security. And so we have the growth in the erosion of civil liberties and freedoms.
  It really is a matter of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

archived on Friday, 16 February, 2007 12:43 PM

Firmly on the Road to Hell
"It has enabled China to create a cadre of experts that will be building ever more advanced aircraft over the next 50 years."
The above statement was made by Rick Fisher, an ‘expert on the Chinese military’ and vice president of the International Strategy and Assessment Centre, a research institute based in Alexandria, Virginia, US. His comment related to China’s unveiling of its new fighter jet, the J-10.
  But wait. With the way things are developing in our world today, does anyone seriously believe that we will still be around as a cohesive species in a further 50 years? And perchance that we miraculously are, that we will be at all interested or even able to make more advanced aircraft?
  We are continuing to hear people throughout our world glibly talk each day of nations that are building up their military to be on a par with their financial status in the world.
  In the same breath and on the adjoining columns of our newspapers war is spoken of as if it is just an inconsequential aspect of our days.
  The individual has in reality become less important to the blasé beasts of materialism than a piece of dirt picked up on a shoe. Such beasts even fail to recognise that they too are, just like all of us, one of us.
  Can there seriously be a positive future for such an ill-inclined species?
  Unless we are as a whole species prepared to heed the words of wisdom that yet remain available to us, we will irrevocably lock the door to our own prison cell in Armageddon.

archived on Monday, 5 February, 2007 0:02 AM

Just who is the EU?
The EU has recently issued a statement condemning China for launching an anti-satellite missile that destroyed a Chinese satellite in space.
It may be pertinent for the conscientiously minded to question just who the EU is and what, or rather whom, it represents. The EU cannot be voted in, neither can it be voted out. Individual politicians, or MEPs as they have become known, can be put into or out of office through their national constituency votes. However, should they be voted out, their vacancy will immediately be filled with another EU political representative. In essence, the EU has become an autonomous body certainly beyond the reproaches and possibly the influences of the national origins of its elected members.
  While condemning China for its actions the EU is progressing daily towards a multi-national European military defence in addition to a unilateral European police force.
  Nobody can or should expect to be able to retain their cake intact and eat it too, or to burn the midnight candle at both ends without something going amiss.
  Hypocrisy is a widespread denominator in our world today and the word hypocrisy means stating a belief in one thing whilst practicing the opposite.
  Such actions will not reap rewards. They will only broaden the minds of those who remain committed to true development in our world.
  Perhaps the EU could learn something from an old English saying.
  Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
  We all live in a glass house. It is more commonly known by the term planet earth.

r

America’s cosmeticized Auschwitz
The free world should no longer tolerate the existence of Guantanamo Bay. It should no longer tolerate the lies of the current US administration with regard to the on-going wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  In February 2001 General Powell assured America—and the watching world—that Iraq had not developed weapons of mass destruction, nor was Iraq in a position to use long range missiles.
  In July of the same year Condoleezza Rice made the same comments on national US television.
  Yet following the events of 11 September 2001—events themselves made possible by the previous support of Saddam Hussein’s regime by the US and Britain—the earlier statements of both Powell and Rice were buried in obfuscation.
  We are being led to believe that the bombing of nations by a coalition acting in the name of ‘peace and democracy’ and the resulting horror though violence is acceptable while similar acts by ‘terrorists’ is unacceptable. We are being led up the garden path, but instead of a homely garden shed at the end there is an asylum housing the sane and staffed by the insane.
  We are indeed witnessing a march to madness by those who lack the courage to admit to wrong and to acknowledge the damage being done as a result.
  Politicians who nonchalantly speak of and sanitize war to support their own goals and who send their citizens to fight in them are the enemies of the world. Until we learn to differentiate between peace and war we will be on a continuing downward spiral

archived on Friday, 12 January, 2007 9:25 PM

When Lies Face Reality
So Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has now issed as statement warning countries which have criticised the hanging of Saddam Hussein that his government could review relations with them. Well, let him. Let him also remember that he is there in his country’s parliament by the grace of God—something his country forgot in the execution of its former leader, as misguided as that man may have been.
  The Iraqi Prime Minister today said Saddam Hussein's execution was a "domestic affair" and warned countries which have criticised the hanging that his government could review relations with them.
   In a speech marking Army Day, Nouri Maliki said that Saddam Hussein had received a fair trial and that his execution on 30 December was for the benefit of Iraq's unity. Leaked footage showing images of Shia officials taunting Saddam on the gallows has angered his fellow Sunni Arabs and increased sectarian tension.
  This website disputes the realities of official versions of the news. If Iraq’s Prime Minister fails to heed that message, then so be it. There is nothing more telling than the Truth.

r

Ring out the old...
As we move into 2007, we can only hope that the coming 12 months bring greater measures of peace, security and happiness into the world than we have witnessed during the closing year.
  However, until humanity as a whole accepts that we are all of one origin and all born to the one God;, that violence, greed, indifference and inequality are the enemies of us all, we cannot hope to see real progress.
  Until we are somehow able to tackle these fundamental issues that divide humanity, our troubles will continue unabated, exacerbated by the realities of global disintegration brought about by devastating issues such as global warming and AIDS.

r

Britain’s Paranoia Culture
Britain’s Hazel Blears, the Labour Party chair, has said that she does not believe that loosening the licensing laws would “halt Britain's drinking culture”. She has suggested Britons “enjoy getting drunk because they enjoy risk-taking”.
  Britons have been drinking beer for centuries. It is a national tradition on a par with Norway and the other Scandinavian countries, with whom Britons have ties going back to the Viking invasions of the eighth century AD and later the Norman invasion and conquest of 1066—the Normans themselves descendants of the Vikings who had settled in the northern reaches of France, hence Normandy.
  To suggest that Britons enjoy getting drunk because they enjoy risk taking is sheer balderdash and an insult to every ordinary citizen who enjoys spending time at a pub—which remains the most common form of socialising in the UK.
  Blears’ comments reflect the Nanny state mentality of the current government of the UK, which appears hell bent on dictating how people should, according to the government’s preconception, live their lives with scant regard for individual freedom.
  But then this vision of Britain’s so called “drinking culture”, together with the witch hunt against smokers, both have their roots in common territory—the perceived loss of GNP and the detraction to the economy and well being of the nation as a result.
  However, the well being of the nation no longer provides well being to its mass population, rather it succours the rich and has long done so.
  What this, and future governments should wake up and realise is that the normally placid and somewhat malleable Briton will only stand up to so much dictatorial nonsense before revolting. And when that happens, ruling politicians will have but two choices—to call in and instruct the military to turn and bear arms against their own people, or to kiss their manipulative control goodbye.

r

The clock stops for ousted Iraqi President
The death sentence imposed against former Iraq President Saddam Hussein at his trial for gross violation of human rights was carried out within hours of the former dictator being handed over to the Iraqi authorities by the US. He was executed by hanging shortly after 6am (0300 GMT).
  “In a final moment of defiance, he refused a hood to cover his eyes”, said an Associated Press report. Yet surely “defiance” should read “bravery” for a human being standing facing the gallows with a rope around his neck.
   His trial however cannot be said in all honesty to have been conducted by an Iraqi court where that country is currently a state occupied by foreign forces.
  Hussein was convicted of human rights abuses in relation to the killings of 148 Shias in Dujail, north of Baghdad, after a failed assassination attempt against him as former Iraqi leader in 1982.
  In the Ohio Kent State killings on 4 May 1970 of four anti-Vietnam war students who were taking part in a protest against the bombing of Cambodia, no-one was ever charged or brought to book, from the State Governor James Rhodes who called in the National Guard to the then President Nixon who would have had to give his authorisation for the presence of the troops. There is clearly a contradiction here in terms of morality. And it matters not if the State murders one or 1,000 citizens—murder is murder.
  In a sane world, someone as globally influential as President Bush would acknowledge that in ousting Saddam Hussein, he acted out of what he believed was correct at the time. He should have then rejected the execution of Hussein out of humanitarian principle and urged his imprisonment. To do otherwise is to act the same as those accused and sentenced.
  This comment will not explore the background to who put Saddam Hussein into such a position whereby he could wield such barbarism against his fellow men. Instead it calls upon readers to exercise their thoughtful analysis of the realities of what is taking place in our world today.
  “The charge of which Hussein has been convicted—a reprisal for an attempt on his life—is standard operating procedure for the US military in Iraq, which has mercilessly bombed and strafed buildings and villages suspected of harbouring anti-occupation insurgents”.
  In an ironic twist given the circumstances and reason for the court; the trial and its outcome have both been criticised and condemned by human rights watchdogs. Before the sentencing session began, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who was a member of Hussein‘s defence team, was ejected from the courtroom after handing the judge a note in which he called the trial a "travesty".
  The White House declaration of the sentence as “a milestone in Iraq's transition to a democracy” displays a travesty of thinking within the current American administration.
  In a comprehensive report last month, the New York-based Human Rights Watch condemned the verdict as unsound, saying the court had been guilty of so many shortcomings that a fair trial had been impossible.
  The EU had urged the Iraq government not to carry out the execution and issued a carefully worded statement through the Finnish news agency on Saturday.

r

The criminal as the scapegoat
Speaking this week of a leaked government report, UK shadow home secretary David Davis said: “This secret report demonstrates what the government has been denying for years, that there is a massive shortage of prison places. That will mean more short prison sentences, more early releases and more dangerous criminals on our streets — and as a result more crime caused by the government’s inaction.”
  Mr Davis’s reference to “more dangerous criminals on our streets” displays the lack of grasp that politicians have towards the realities of our society. Rather that focus on searching for a victim to blame, energy might be better spent on questioning why in our society we have people who in the first place are driven to commit crime.
  In a world of equality, the motive factors behind by far the majority of crime would be absent. There will always be those who are greedy for more and will pursue the avenues of criminal activity to achieve their goals. It is such people who could be described as criminals.
  Mr Davis should himself spend a few weeks in prison and get to meet and properly understand some of the people who are locked behind bars in the UK.

Pay attention - before, during and after you do anything