International lawyers should walk the plank

Windsong

God Is Not mocked Melanie, and He will Prevail, as He will with the BBC If immature men can ruin national broadcasting with perverese and damaging humour,(making light of a ladies honour is pretty unforgiveable anyway - only cads do that) we can scrap all the child protection legislation, because, the Beeb spoon feeds it thru the likes of Ross, If the people can face down John Sargeants critics what is Ross and a few piffling lawyers. What is patently wrong is patently wrong and no amount of legal waffle will change that!What is the calibre of chief execs and producers these dayS? backstreet?

blue_&_white_defender

Several weeks ago, the RN killed several pirates & captured others who were taken for trial in Kenya.
I await the inevitable enquiry which will investigate why the Human Rights of these pirates was so sorely infringed and a possible trial in the Hague: International Law vs the Royal Navy.

Michael B

Spot-on, precision guided commentary and a tell-tale indicator of much broader and deeper crises modernity and civilization are simply not facing up to. Fundamental responsibilities requiring a full, undiluted measure of gravitas are instead sloughed off and sneered off onto a disembodied collective consciousness.

hadrian

Not often I say this but for once one must- for goodness sake ( literally!!) just bomb the bastards and actually carry out the prime purpose of government- to defend the interests of the realm from attack.

Herbert Thornton

Melanie - You are, once again, magnificently right.

The west's kid-glove handling of these Somali pirates, brings to mind the public inquiry conducted some years ago (1994/97) in Canada after some Canadian soldiers in Somalia, very much provoked and goaded by constant attempts - some successful - by Somali thieves determined to break into their camp and steal supplies, caught a Somali teenager in the act and beat him to death. The teenager's name was Shidane Arone.

Political correctness in Canada was very pervasive at the time, and a great many people felt that the soldiers concerned, and other military officers appearing at the inquiry were treated disgracefully.

Joseph McNulty

So true. We seem indifferent to our own survival. The idea that modern piracy can be a threat is beyond belief. We once knew how to deal with this conduct. We no longer seen to remember how. Pity.

itlog98

In all the journalistic accounts of the piracy problem; how difficult it is to patrol the vast area of ocean, the enormous lenghth of Somali coastline, etc. etc, nowhere have I seen the single word 'convoy' used. Do people have to relearn the lessons of history every generation? There would be no need to worry about violating the civil rights of terrorists or pirates if that preventive measure were used, since they would be very unlikely to approach a heavily defended convoy, Hey, it's not as if the pirates were attacking shipping using wolfpacks of U-boats.

Verity

The mind-boggling thing, Hadrian, and Herbert Thornton, is, governments (by allowing all these Alice in Wonderland legal arguments that any judge in his right mind would have dismissed out of hand before One Worlder lunacy set in) are acting against the will of the populace and the interests of the country they are pledged to serve.

Hanging traitorous ministers would certainly serve to concentrate minds, but these people have disabled their own legal systems, so the normal penalty for treason is no longer possible.

No representation without taxation. Yes, you read that right. Disenfranchise the public sector and the passenger sector and put the wealth creators (and that includes the kid who stands on his feet for a four hour shift asking, "Do you want fries with that?") back in the drivers' seat. As far as I'm concerned, that kid who works at McDonalds for minimum wage, and those guys and gals who do the night shift as shelf stackers in the supermarkets throughout Britain are of more value to our country than anyone who is not a wealth contributor.

The only way to get this human garbage out of the driver's seat is by wresting the vote from their grubby, corrupt hands.

It certainly won't happen in Britain, where they quixotically voted for self-destruction by allowing the malignant Tony and Cherie Ceauçescu in three times. The only mass delusion to equal it is the one we have just witnessed in the United States.

This is a natural step forward for the British and Americans who actively berated their own governments for refusing to cede authority to the hellish United Nations.

Right now, the One Worlders are in the ascendant. I don't know what the solution is.

Tom the Redhunter

"Human rights" and "international law" have been twisted and abused by the left. They are used nowadays primarily as a means to make sure the West can't defend itself.

Although Glick was writing primarily about Israel, the phenomenon holds true about any Western country that dares stand up to the barbarians.

Dixon

We are slipping back into a pattern that existed for several centuries until it was stopped by the fledgling USA in the early 1800's.

Until that time there had existed a gigantic racket in piracy in the Mediterranean and Atlantic. Even as far north as Ireland. The perpetrators were the city states of the Barbary Coast, North africa. They seized thousands of ships and took tens of thousands of Europeans and Americans into slavery.

A system developed whereby these pirate states restrained the taking of ships that sailed under the flags of those countries which paid them an annual ransom. This included both Britain and America.

Thomas Jefferson, on arriving in office, declared that this practice would stop. He took the nascent U.S. Marine Corps and despatched it to wage war on the pirate states. The USMC song that cites "the shores of Tripoli" is a reference to this. This campaign lasted some years and has been dubbed "The First War On Terror".

It is one more indication as to how aspects of present day global friction are not actually new, but a continuation of prior patterns that had been merely suspended in the Modern Era, whilst the world was dominated by the major industrial power blocs.

Shy Guy

Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame:
All their attempts to bend thee down,
Will but arouse thy generous flame;
But work their woe, and thy renown.
"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
"Britons never will be slaves."

Alan Melia

Herbert sorry although I agree with Melanie I can not agree that it is ok for soldiers to beat to death probably poverty stricken teenagers for attempting to steal supplies.

Miranda Rose Smith

Dear Mr. Thornton: So the Canadian soldiers who beat the Somali teenager were court-martialed-I assume-and then...?

Miranda Rose Smith

Dear Itlog98: Heavily armed convoys are expensive. Why should nations be forced to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars because judges in Britain or the Hague or wherever have nutty, far-left ideas about the human rights of thugs?

Miranda Rose Smith

Dear Mr. Melia: It isn't right to beat teenagers to death. It is vicious, cruel, and wrong. But I understand backed-into-a-corner, under-pressure men literally lashing out.

Miranda Rose Smith

Dear Verity: I have said before, and will say again, that Israel's only hope of survival is to tell the U.N. to go-do something obscene to itself-with a fire extinguisher.

Verity

I think beating to death a vicious, thieving Somali teenager pour encourager les autres is perfectly OK.

What kind of supplies was he stealing? Something the American taxpayer paid to have manufactured, that he was going to appropriate and sell?

Miranda Rose Smith, although I am, naturally, a friend of Israel, this isn't about Israel. It is about the future of the entire advanced, civilised West. Although, to be sure, the only country that is not engaged in slitting its own throat is Israel.

Geoff M

Today, the Sunday Times reports:-

"The hunt for Rashid Rauf that ended with hellfire."

A British terror suspect was killed by US forces in Pakistan yesterday. MPs want to know: did they tell Britain first?

........three Hellfire missiles from a Predator destroyed a mud-built bungalow in the village.

Inside, among the five people killed and six injured, were Rashid Rauf, the British militant alleged to have masterminded a plot to blow up transatlantic airliners in 2006, and two senior Al-Qaeda comrades, Abu Nasr Al-Misri and Abu Zubair Al-Masri, according to Pakistani intelligence sources.

Cause for celebration?

Er, well, no!

The attack has alarmed some MPs...

Andrew Dismore, the Labour chairman of the parliamentary committee on human rights, said he would be referring the matter to the committee for possible investigation.

“This is a very serious matter...... We can investigate whether British security services had involvement in providing intelligence concerning British nationals in Pakistan.

Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP for Newark and former shadow security minister, said Rauf’s killing raised serious issues. “This raises the question of how much co-operation the British intelligence agencies provided in what is ultimately the execution of a British subject. ”

Meanwhile......

At Rauf’s family home in Birmingham yesterday the only response came from a bearded man in his twenties. The man, who would not identify himself, said: “I’m very angry right now, so you should leave for your own safety.”

No change there then!

Who's side are our politicians on?

I dont think they know. After all, they are scrabbling around for the Islamic vote and party funding. The rest of us can just get stuffed.

Very worrying.

I can see why the BNP is becoming so popular.

Dixon

Verity:
"No representation without taxation. Yes, you read that right. Disenfranchise the public sector and the passenger sector and put the wealth creators (and that includes the kid who stands on his feet for a four hour shift asking, "Do you want fries with that?") back in the drivers' seat. As far as I'm concerned, that kid who works at McDonalds for minimum wage, and those guys and gals who do the night shift as shelf stackers in the supermarkets throughout Britain are of more value to our country than anyone who is not a wealth contributor."

Robert Heinlein had a different approach to the same issue. He envisaged a system inb which votes were available with "citizenship" and that status was only possesed by those who had voluntarily done military service.

Others have proposed that votes be only accorded to people of a certain educational attainment. Or abstract intelligence.

Of course, none of these three options are actually compatible with each other. While the system you propose is actually a version of what it used to be in Britain, when votes were a privilege of property owners.

There are others who maintain the rot set in when votes were given to women.

Personally, I dont endorse this version of electoral democracy. My ideal would be a system in which the state is run by a monastic "eunoch" class, who are stripped of all rights ( and corruptibility ) and live apart from the rest of society. The state would be administered by these administrative servitors solely in the interest of the citizens. All foreign policy would be determined on that basis. There would be immensely strong armed forces, deployed continually to further the interest of the citizens, who would be exempt from service in favour of foreign mercenaries and slaves. A ruthless empire would provide the income of both the state and its citizens. Among whoim, all activities between consenting adults would be allowed and a condition of absolute laissez faire would exist.

I am not being ironic. This is exactly what I do propose. However, I think my vision is about as likely to exist as yours. Although aspects of it DID exist in the Ottoman Empire, for about five centuries.

Needless to say, those abroad would be scared to death of even contemplating acts of piracy, or terrorism, let alone trying it.

Incidentally, before anyone retorts wittily with reference to the British empire of old, that institution didnt possess nuclear weapons, nor genetically engineered bio-weapons, as the new version would!

Miranda Rose Smith

Dear Verity: I think Israeli willingness to make concessions does come under "slitting its own throat."

Augustus

Surely this piracy problem should be solvable both with RN escorted convoys together with rocket launching naval helicopters? But the area to protect does apparently cover more than 160 million square kilometers. And if captured alive, let the Saudis deal with them under their laws.

Verity

Dixon - thanks for an interesting post. I'll respond to a couple of your points without getting involved in dense arguments.

"My ideal would be a system in which the state is run by a monastic "eunoch" class, who are stripped of all rights ( and corruptibility ) and live apart from the rest of society."

Well, actually, Thailand once had a system that is glancingly similar to what you propose. They seconded a monk - obviously they chose someone with a high degree intelligence and thoughtfulness - from a monastery and made him prime minister.

Of course, having already rejected the world of ambition and corruption, the monk wasn't pleased to be chosen and served his time out in grim determination to do a good job and, when his time of servitude was up, hoof it back to the monastery. This system apparently worked very well. However, Thailand decided to go with the democracy idea and dumped what had served them so well. One of the commentariat living in Thailand can probably enlighten us further.

To another of your proposals, Dixon: military service. This is actually a requirement in Singapore. Not only do they have to do national service for two years, but they have to take (I think it's two weeks each year) refresher training. It's not optional. And it is not optional for employers. They are bound by law to give all males under (I think 40, but not too sure) time off for their military service.

An interesting side issue, which involves citizenship. A child born in Singapore of foreign parents or even one foreign parent, do not get automatic Singporean citizenship. At a certain age (if memory serves, it is age 18), the child can decide for itself what citizenship it wants. If he chooses to be a Singaporean, he has to go and do two years of national service in order to qualify.

(I would like to see something similar in Britain for people born into a social culture that is not congruent with liberal democracy.)

David Raynes

Verity
"Disenfranchise the public sector", you say.

Sadly you are ranting. Not the first time (from memory) that you have raised this. Much of the public sector is forbidden active involvement with political parties anyway. Societies NEED an effective and honest public sector. It is not the fault of public employees that the role of the state is so big. Of course their trade unions plead for more public servants but governments should resist that. This particular Melanie entry is about piracy and HR-it is well made and the international community has been very slow to get to grips with it. Why not stick to the point?

Verity

Dave - You have failed to address my point. Clearly, you are unable address anything that is not on your own agenda.

My point stems directly from Melanie's blog.

The power of "international law" and lawyers to which she refers has been allowed to expand beyond all sanity by the socialist public sector, and the wha'evah welfare sector, which have their own interests, as opposed to Britain's, interests at heart.

The public sector no longer has to court considered public opinion because it has the electorate - around 50 per cent of whom are not wealth producers and have no investment in capitalism and national borders - on its side. Benefits and privileges trump wealth creation, nationalism and conservatism (small c).

Do not tell me that I am ranting because I have an opinion opposed to your own. You are a very weak man if you cannot respond in a debate within saying something derogatory (and not appropriate) about your opponent. Have someone look up "ranting" in the dictionary and read the definition out to you, simplifying the longer words where necessary.

I will be skipping your response, no matter how laboriously composed.

Crazy fo the Green and Gold

Dismore, Mercer and of course that stunning english rose - Clare Short.
Britain certainly knows how to breed and nurture them.
Is it something in that off the shelf, flat beer of yours.
And now the mighty Springboks have punished that ragtag bunch at Twikkers.
Its all too much!
Confusion reigns in the once great realm - won't be long now before we'll see your royals done up in hijabs and burkhas - you know just so they do'nt offend.
Goodbye sad country - politically corrected out of existance.

itlog98

Augustus; No need to use manned helicopters. UAVs launched from a US carrier and armed with Hellfire missiles would probably be more effective and less expensive to operate. Present technology (that we know about) allows them to stay aloft for about 24 hours before they are recovered.

EC

Crazy fo the Green and Gold:
"Goodbye sad country..."

Somehow I doubt it. Fear of actual dismemberment combined with BC Fever cause so many of your men and women to filter back on the strength of having a distant relation.

Bonne chance, bon voyage, au revoir maybe but I very much doubt adieu!

Now what was that spitting image song ......

PS. Some of us consider that compelling certain "royals" to wear hijabs doesn't have a downside!

Ronnie

Verity, are there any contributors to these threads whose responses you don't now skip?

And, as you scroll furiously over this, you might like to explain exactly how the 'socialist public sector' has 'allowed' the expansion of international law, and lawyers. The latter, presumably, by their being encouraged by the nanny state to eat far too much.

Dixon

re Verity.

I didnt know that about the Thai monk system. It reminds me of the Doge in Venice, who was obliged to serve once elected ( from a governing elite ) and if I recall my distant reading on this topic, was effectively a prisoner. A bit like the "queen" of some types of communal insects.

The comparison I had in mind was the Ottoman empire, which was run quite literally by slaves, many of whom were indeed eunochs. Depending on which tier and caste they served in. The Turks launched expeditions to their neiughbours in nthe Balkans and Eastern Europe to slaughter swathes of communities, bringing thousands of children back to be sorted according to ability and raised as servants of the state. Some became Muslims. Some were castrated. The cleverest were put into the civil service, becoming governors of entire regions, others were raised as soldiers. The entire military elite were non-Muslim slaves, most famously somprising the Janisserie.

Amidst all the guilt-mongering we about British involvement in slavery that we hear, I have yet to come accross any mention in the mainstream media of this fact that white, Eurpoewan Christians were imported into Turkey as slaves on an industyrial scale for several centuries. Estimates vary but certainly in the millions. Thereby amounting to as much as a third of the number of Africans taken as slaves into Christendom. Meanwhile, considerably more Africans were taken as slaves into the Ottoman empire than ever were by the British and Americans. Curiously, we hear noght about this in the media. Why are not the Turks being asked to apologise to US?

Dixon

Further point:
"Rule Britannia
Britannia rules the waves
Britons, never, never, never
shall be slaves"

We grow up thinking of this as a broad brush metaphorical assertion, but as I understand it, the song specifically and quite literally refers to the history of Europeans being seized and carted off into slavery by the "Barbary Pirates" of North africa, which was the original reason britain founded a navy and became sea-going power.

Not only were non-Muslims seized from ships on the high seas who sold them as slaves in North africa, but the same pirates would occasionally raid coastal communities to abduct people. Most notoriously, seizing virtually the entire population of the Irish village of Baltimore.

In, I think it was the 17th Century, there even existed an international order of Christians who specialised in raising money and going to places like Algiers to buy people their freedom. Witnesses at the time report there being tens of thousands of European non-Muslims held as slaves in Muslim countries at any one period. One illustrious example of a European slave of Muslims who later made freedom was ( if my menmpory serves ) the writer Miguel Cervantes.He spent several years chained to an oar in a naval galley of a Muslim state. He described it vividly. Imagine the galley scene from , what was that film, Ben Hur ( ? ) but ten times worse! Rowing continually up to 20 hours a day. I would prefer picking cotton any day! A later witness to this phenomenon of "White slavery" was Samuel Pepys in his diaries.

I dont think they teach this kind of thing in schools!

Verity

Dixon, I hadn't read about the slaves from the Balkans and eastern Europe. Nor that they were running entire provinces in the Ottoman Empire. That is quite extraordinary.

But why would anyone have enough trust in someone they'd captured and enslaved to give them the power of civil servant or goveror?

Hmmm ... it sounds as though there is more to your tale than meets the eye.

Elizabeth

Slightly off topic but following on from Dixon's posting ..... To summarise the Wikipedia entry, in 1953 the late Nevil Shute wrote a novel called "In the Wet" set in 1983, mostly in Australia and the UK. He wrote that Australians had the opportunity to have seven votes:- one basic vote, education (including a commission in the armed forces), earning one's living overseas for two years, raising two children to the age of 14 without divorcing, being an official of a Christian church, or having a high earned income. The seventh vote, was only given at the Queen's discretion by Royal Charter. Every so often I wonder which political party would be in power in the UK if this futuristic fictional system were adopted.

Dixon

Verity
November 23rd, 2008 9:12pm
"Dixon, I hadn't read about the slaves from the Balkans and eastern Europe. Nor that they were running entire provinces in the Ottoman Empire. That is quite extraordinary.

But why would anyone have enough trust in someone they'd captured and enslaved to give them the power of civil servant or goveror?

Hmmm ... it sounds as though there is more to your tale than meets the eye."

It puzzled me as well at first. However, it is very certainly an uncontroversial fact in history of the topic. I refer to "Servitude in Modern Tines" by M.L.Bush ( Polity Press, ISBN 0745617298 ) as a recent academic source and more colourfully, "The Sultans Seraglio" by Ottavio Bon, Venetian ambassador to Turkey, written in 1607 ( Saqi Books ISBN 0863560466 ). In this fascinating and very detailed ( although sometimes hard to follow ) account he describes the system whereby children captured abroad were sorted and assigned to different services. The brightest,or least suitable for military service, were converted to Islam and put through a rigorous academic training. In effect, they knew nothing else but the system they grew up in and were moulded by, having little or no memory of anything of their origins. Moreover, they were lavishly rewarded for their lifetimes service, the luckiest being retired as free citizens with property and land.

More surprising is that the state was kept in place by an army composed of slaves. Again, similar brainwashing was involved. Coupled with rewards for achievement for those who toed the line in what was an extremely aggressive and highly disciplined military.

However, a similar relationship of ruler and ruled existed in much more recent times. In Apartheidt South africa, where the majority of the police and army were black, and their work for the most part served to sustain the domination of a black majority by their minority white commanders and leadership.

You might also argue that the citizens of the USSR were really little more than slaves to a ruling oligarchy. Yet from that citizenry were drawn the very forces that kept the majority down.

David Raynes

Verity
You say:
"Clearly, you are unable address anything that is not on your own agenda".

Motes & beams, I think apply.
You re-make my point, exactly.

Charlie

One option is to arm the merchantmen. Many merchantmen in WW2 were armed,some carrying up to 6 inch guns and sailed independently. The gun crews could be from the Royal Navy or be trained Merchant Navy personnel( as in WW2). As the threat off Somalia comes from fast moving speed boats( but not as fast as aeroplanes) 6 No 0.5 inch Browning machine guns or 6 No( groups of 4 or more) 20 mm cannons would be adequate protection per ship. Little or no reinforcing would be required to carry guns up to 20mm calibre. If ships which were armed, moved in convoys there would probably be adequate protection if combined with air cover from helicopters.

Conservative Cabbie

Dixon

"My ideal would be a system in which the state is run by a monastic "eunoch" class, who are stripped of all rights ( and corruptibility ) and live apart from the rest of society. The state would be administered by these administrative servitors solely in the interest of the citizens."

sounds a lot like Plato's Republic and his philosopher kings. Just one question, if the live apart from society, how do they know what the citizen's best interests are?

Verity

Dixon - I wasn't doubting your word in the least, but thank you for the more detailed explanation anyway! This is fascinating.

Conservative Cabbie, you missed my post where I explained that a similar system used to be in effect in Thailand.

How did a monk, isolated from the world, know what the citizens' best interests are? If they picked a highly intelligent monk, which they did, he knew what the country's best interest were. The citizens, he left to decide what their own best interests are.

I wonder if there are any Tibetan English-speaking monk free and if they would like to come to England for two years. We could endow a monastery.

Verity

Charlie - mmmmmmm..... guns.

Of course merchantmen should be armed! The ship itself should have firepower for emergencies, wigh enough firepower to blast those suckers right out of the water. In Victorian times, this would have been a given.

Dixon

Conservative Cabbie.

I differ from Plato ( Im sure hell be upset to know ) in that I wouldnt presuppose "wisdom" of these administrators. Merely that they would interpret circumstances in the application of fundamental rules. Even then, they would only need to make decisions when the usual automated ( computer governed ) system couldnt because of unforeseen new categories of event.

But your more fundamental problem, a variant of the eternal "Quis Custodiat", might , ironically, be regarded as a fundamental problem with our present day politicians. Most of whom seem to have not the slightest clue about real life, producing huge amounts of legislation on a whim, such as dictating to us that we must all recycle our dinner scraps or banning "happy hour".

My notional administrators would have no actual power and there would be no actual laws applying to citizens, bar one, that everything is legal between consenting adults. The admin breeds task would be to interpret the application of this rule. Plus, the running of wars of conquest, domination, exploitation and pillage that would draw in the resources that free the citizens from any need to pay tax. Nuclear weapons and much more sophisticated biological weapons would be instrumental in this. Oil would be as plentiful as water and probably worth less than water in a war ravaged "external" world, in which our hypothetical "Steel State" would control most sources of water.

Meanwhile, the fact of these admin drones being neutered at birth would be very fundamental to their devotion to honest interpretation of the one law, as they would have no other motivation in life.

I expect all this has been imagined by some science fiction writer somewhere, but I stopped reading their work about twenty years back and amm therefore not up to date.

Sergey

The only efficient way to combat speedboats is gunships on aerial patrol over sea lanes, armed with rocket-launchers. All pirate vessels should be sunk. No prisoners, no legal battles.

Verity

Sergey - Agreed.

hadrian

I always love it when Verity gets going as she is so often hitting the nail on the head. With respect to the One World Order idea, I don't think any of them are efficient enough to have a genuine one world sinister conspiracy bubbling along by deliberate plotting. However I do agree that there is a definite mindset that afflicts much o the humanist West where faith is put in supra national bureaucracy that then spins out these absurd international laws and the politics of guilt, pity and self hatred as American conservatives like RJRushdoony, Gary North and others put it.
Thankfully all these deluded ventures implode under their own utter impotence and incompetence, although sadly there can be real tragedies as a result- eg Rwanda where UN troops simply 'observed' as the savagery unfolded before their eyes.

phil

Some years ago I saw on TV a former member of the Kray gang being interviewed on the subject of crime and punishment -in fact what it would take to stop certain crimes like armed robbery -He certainly was an expert on the subject ,however disgusting he was , his solution was to make the cost too high a price to pay for the criminal ,.it would not stop crime but it would make them find another way ,maybe even go to work !!

If this reprobate managed to tell us what after all is only common sense ,why cant we listen .Perhaps we even should find out what the pirates need to stop them -to simple ?

Keith Clouston

Earlier times dealt with pirates equally hesitantly. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Barbary Corsairs, Muslim pirates operating out of North African ports, continued to manipulate European powers who paid huge bribes to Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli in order to prevent attacks on their own shipping and enslavement of their crews. It took the recently formed United States of America to cut the Gordian knot by refusing to continue to play the Europeans' game. The US administration established
its navy specifically to combat the Barbary scourge and led the way in ending it by landing US Marines to attack Tripoli and bombarding Algiers from the sea in 1816. The British followed suit and eventually the French occupied Algiers in 1830, bringing the pirate threat to an end. Which world power would be prepared to do the same and occupy Somalia today?