Abu Hamza Can Be Extradited
I’m not going to comment on the legal reasons, as it does seem to me, that the verdict of the European Court to allow the extradition of Abu Hamza may create more problems than it solves.
After all, it’s unlikely he’ll get a slap on the wrists in a United States court, so what will be the reaction of his apologists here in the UK, when they realise he’s not going to come back? I think it might be better for everyone here if he was kept in a nice warm cell and released when his time is up.
But then I don’t have to get elected in a few years time.
The EU could put a whole cap on it, by passing a law that says that no-one could be extradited to a country with the death penalty on the statute book.
The Tragic Death of two Hostages in Nigeria
Italy and the UK seem to be falling out badly over Britain’s failure to give warning that they were taking action. Read about it here on the BBC.
Robert Fox in the Standard says we are right and takes a strong line to say so.
This is an except from his report.
To have given advance warning of the rescue raid would have been to court further disaster.
The smuggling mafias of Nigeria undoubtedly have direct dealings with the Boko Haram terrorists who took the two engineers last May. They would pick up rumours of a possible rescue, particularly if it had to be delayed even for a day or so.
The information would have got out, either in Italy or in Nigeria or both. Some Italian commercial organisations and self-appointed go-betweens might then have tried to raise ransom for Mr Lamolinara.
A number of Italian hostages have been ransomed in several world trouble-spots, including Nigeria,
in recent years. Few national governments are as hard line on not paying ransom as the UK.
There is a lot more in the same vein here.
The fact that we don’t pay ransoms, is a policy I totally agree with.
More Beggaring Belief!
When I wrote the post, This Story Beggars Belief, I just thought it was a one-off, by a total stupido in the US military.
But no! They also managed to lose some of the bodies from the September 11th attack on the Pentagon, according to this story. No-one seems to know where they ended up.
Iran’s Incompetent Bombers
I found the story in The Times today under the headline, Failed Bombers had beer-and-prostitute holiday in Thailand. The full story is here on a website called scoop.co.nz.
It’s a pity that the man on the Tehran omnibus probably won’t read the story. But then his .0000001 or much less of a vote, wouldn’t get rid of the country’s ridiculous government.
Still incompetent bombers have always been good for a laugh in both fact and fiction.
The Bailing of Abu Qatada
In some ways this might be the best thing, as I suspect that it will be easier to monitor him outside of jail than inside it. I also think inside of jail, it will be easier to convert people to his stupid views. Various reports have shown that jails are a fertile recruiting ground for extremists of all kinds. And not just Islamic!
If we can’t pick up all conversations and communications, we aren’t as bright as we think we are. But he’s made some powerful enemies, who don’t have any qualms about killing who they want to.
And I don’t mean the US! They could get him to a US court very easily if they wanted to, because of Blair’s one-sided deal over extradition.
Our biggest problem, will probably be stopping someone killing him. After all, every right wing nutter might think, they could have their five minutes of fame. But then most of them aren’t that brave and don’t like the thought of life in jail. Indiscriminate car and parcel bombs are more their style rather than targeted assassinations.
Christopher Hitchens
Read his article in the Sunday Times today. Superb!
A previous version of the article is here.
The Second Tragedy of September 11, 2011
The attacks on this day were awful and no words can express the damage done to individual and collective lives.
The second tragedy of this event, is that Bush and Blair pursued such a misguided strategy afterwards that they made a second serious attack more likely to happen.
To show how badly they performed, you just have to look at how many people think the attacks didn’t happen and were an event staged by the CIA and the Israelis to get at Muslims. Or something else equally false and bizarre!
We should probably have gone into Afghanistan, but Iraq now looks in the eyes of nearly everybody to be a colossal mistake. Although saying that, Saddam was a cruel tyrant and had to go, if only to protect his own people. But the Arab world seems to specialise in people like him. Just look at Syria, Tunisia, Libya, Algeria and Egypt. And don’t get me going on places like Saudi Arabia and a few others. How many women would like to live in those countries?
The attacks gave us a chance to deal with the real problems of the world. But we just made it worse, by our vengeful actions and our complete disregard for human rights at Guantanamo and other places we are just starting to know about.
The Private Thoughts of Engineers and Scientists
Some years ago there was an attack on the Tokyo Metro using sarin gas. Although it killed a number of people and injured many more, it could easily have been a lot worse.
At the time, I knew a guy who was and hopefully still is a world class chemical engineer, who worked in the pharmaceutical industry. I asked him, just how easy it was to make Sarin gas. He said it was fairly easy, but in most cases, sarin will kill you before you use it, unless you can get the proper protection, which is the most difficult part.
He did however tell me a much more easy way to paralyse a city and cause a lot of damage. I will not repeat it here, but judging what I don’t see in London, other people have had the same thought and made the carrying out of such an attack impossible.
What worries me now, is if we had a jokey conversation in a chat room on the Internet about an attack similar to that in Tokyo, would our doors be kicked in?
July 7th 2005, Six Years On
Today is six years to the day since the London bombings of July 7th, 2005.
I didn’t suffer in any way and wasn’t even in London at the time, but still my heart goes out to anyone who suffered loss or endured physical or mental trauma at the time.
I must admit though I’m getting rather annoyed with the media images shown every time the horrendous bombings are mentioned. Showing the bus with its top open as if operated on by an enormous tin-opener surely doesn’t serve any purpose,when Wikipedia can illustrate the scale of the horrors, by just showing the emergency services lined up outside Russell Square station.
It is about time the media moved on and stopped showing the damaged bus and trains.
But then they rarely do!
For over five years now, every time the BBC talks about breast cancer, they show the same poor lady being scanned.
The Anonymous Widower 