Toronto Police Chief making his own laws

Not a police state? (Emphasis mine)

Toronto's police chief is admitting there never was a five-metre rule that had people fearing arrest if they strayed too close to the G20 security perimeter.

Civil libertarians were fuming after hearing Friday that the Ontario cabinet gave police the power to stop and search anyone coming within five metres of the G20 fences in Toronto for a one week period.

However, the Ministry of Community Safety says all the cabinet did was update the law that governs entry to such things as court houses to include specific areas inside the G20 fences — not outside.

A ministry spokeswoman says the change was about property, not police powers, and did not include any mention of a zone five metres outside the G20 security perimeter.

When asked Tuesday if there actually was a five-metre rule given the ministry's clarification, Chief Bill Blair smiled and said, “No, but I was trying to keep the criminals out.”

Chet is being generous when he suggests this is the result of incompetence. I tend towards intentional malfeasance on the part of the Chief of the Toronto police department who clearly disregarded the law and made his own set of rules without the consent of his superiors.

So we do have new rules. It was convenient for him to trample on the rights of citizens. Oh well.

Cause for immediate dismissal. With disgrace.

Tony Blair. Joiner... and stupid.

The guy disagreed with the Catholic church on a number of issues while prime minister. Now he can't hold back about its "virtues":

Mr Blair, in the famous words of his spokesman, Alastair Campbell, did not "do God" while he was in Downing Street. He later admitted that he feared he would be labelled a "nutter" if he spoke publicly about his religious convictions.

But he has since converted to Roman Catholicism and set up the Tony Blair Faith Foundation to "promote respect and understanding about the world's major religions".

In an interview published in the Church of England Newspaper , Mr Blair said: "Sometimes I think we as Christians are more sensitive than we should be although I say that as someone who when I was in office, although I was perfectly open about my Christianity, nonetheless kept it within certain boundaries that were restricted in terms of what I said publicly. The position of prime minister puts you in a unique category

"But in general terms in British society there is a risk that people see faith as a personal eccentricity."

That's because it is a personal eccentricity. Most... no all religion is superstition and the Roman Catholic church is steeped in beliefs, rites and trappings which have nothing at all to do with the supposed teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.

He admitted that conflict is "inevitable" between traditional religions and the new liberal doctrine of human rights.

But he went on: "The real test of a religion is whether in an age of aggressive secularism it has the confidence to go out and make its case by persuasion."

There is no conflict, particularly in the case of the Roman Catholic church. I haven't seen a case to support any invisible god and I can't imagine the Roman Catholic church is going to "persuade" any rational, thinking human being to join their ranks after this latest episode.

The fact that Blair, after engaging in an acrimonious pig-fight with the Roman Catholic church over same-sex adoption rights (among other issues), still saw fit to run off to Catechism classes as soon as he was out of 10 Downing Street is nothing short of astounding.

OB spells it out perfectly:

Why do I frown upon Blair's adult-onset Catholicism? Why do I think it's reprehensible for informed adults to join the Catholic church? Because the Catholic church is a reactionary cruel woman-hating bullying organization run by men and based on mythology, that's why. If you join the Catholic church as a reasoning adult, then you are signing up to and endorsing that organization, just as if you joined a neo-Nazi party or the Taliban or any other organization. It makes no sense to disagree with many of its most vehement and public positions and yet join it anyway. Jimmy Carter, to his credit, left The Southern Baptist Convention when it announced a new woman-subordinating stance; if he gets credit for that then Blair gets uncredit for joining the unregenerate Church of Peter.

And while we're at it, I don't believe Blair when he tells us that his religious convictions didn't influence his function as prime minister. He was spinning the same web with that preposterous excuse for a US president who rode an orchestrated religious vote to the oval office and who claimed to be "one of them".

OB caps it nicely.

Grown-up reasonable people have no business joining such an outfit. In fact they ought to be leaving it in disgust, not stumbling along to join it.

Political Pension Payola . . . .

It appear$ that political capital i$ received all 'round the world after leaving office.

From Reuters today:

Tony Blair to join JPMorgan
Wed Jan 9, 2008 8:48pm EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former British prime minister Tony Blair is expected on Thursday to join U.S. bank JPMorgan Chase & Co Inc as a senior adviser, according to a person familiar with the situation.

_______________


Details of Blair's duties with JPMorgan, the third largest U.S. bank, were not immediately available.

Blair's predecessor, John Major, joined a U.S. finance company after leaving 10 Downing Street.

After leaving office, Major joined U.S. private equity firm The Carlyle Group in 1998 amid that company's big push into the European market.

$illy me.

I thought thi$ was a uniquely American tradition.

Yeah, right . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moving to Vancouver)

Tony earns his colours

In 1996 the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, the late Cardinal Basil Hume, wrote then British prime minister Tony Blair a personal letter. In it, the leader of the Catholic church in England demanded that the prime minister stop taking communion at the Catholic church in Islington.

The reason? Blair wasn't a Roman Catholic.

That's pretty tough stuff. I mean, geez, who knew you had to have "colours" to be allowed to eat a piece of tasteless bread and get a sip of cheap wine?

Well, Tony can relax. Yesterday he made team. Blair, once George Bush's second favourite lap dog, has earned his colours.

The former prime minister joined the faith at a service in a chapel in Westminster last night.

Under normal circumstances this would have no bearing on anything, anywhere. But Blair's politics ran counter to the policies of the Catholic church.

Fr [Timothy] Russ added that Mr Blair, whose views on a range of issues from abortion to stem cell research are at odds with traditional Church teaching, had "some way to go" on important moral issues.

Which means that Blair, in order to pass his final exams and orals to get his Catholic ticket, had to recant his previously held position... on just about everything.

In a book, Fr Russ also revealed that Mr Blair even discussed the possibility of becoming a Catholic deacon, a position below that of a priest that can be held by lay people.

Ahh... going for a power position.

Toss out that little daily dispenser, Cherie! Tony's heard the word of Bennie and he's making a stab at becoming a full patch one percenter.

Waterloo . . . .

'Ya gotta love ABBA . . . .

(Cross-Posted at Moving to Vancouver)

Bye, asshole.

It is common for world renown rock bands, famous sopranos and big-time tenors to enter retirement with a splash. Known as the Farewell World Tour, they depart their working lives to cheers, adulation and the elevated admiration of their fans.

So, following the lead of Nana Mouskouri, British prime minister Tony (I heart George) Blair is making an exit of rock-star proportions and taking his show on the road, one last time.

Tony Blair brings down the curtain on his decade as Prime Minister today as he announces a departure plan that will see him leave office towards the end of June.

But for much of his remaining six weeks in power Mr Blair will be absent from Downing Street, with at least five overseas trips planned for later this month and June. What aides are calling his farewell tour will begin tomorrow with a trip to Paris to see Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president-elect.

Blair will announce, on 10 May, that he will leave around the end of June. In a tightly orchestrated tour, Blair will visit France, the United States, South Africa, Germany and Belgium. He will leave John (I heart shag my secretary) Prescott to deal with the House of Commons during Question Time.

The Mirror received a faxed copy of a "leaked" memo out of 10 Downing Street giving all the details of the spin surrounding Blair's departure. It's quite remarkable and the detail would be more appropriate for a new prime minister rather than one who is being barked out of office.

This is politics at its most raw. Publicly the PM is vague and dismissive of a likely departure date. Privately a highly detailed battle plan is in place that aims to catapult Mr Blair out of office and into elder statesmanship with as many bells and whistles as possible.

[...]

As they bunker down in the PM's study at the back of No10 over endless cups of milky tea, the level of detail that has been nailed down is breathtaking.

Mr Blair will leave, as he arrived, on a brilliantly orchestrated PR campaign. He will be spun from office.

[...]

But what both camps will be stunned to learn from the memo is that the main thing on the PM's mind is the PM himself.

So, perhaps it's the fact that he would have a problem squeezing his ego into the same room as his fellow egotist that caused his handlers to avoid sending him to an Ottawa play date.

Blair is going for a legacy departure. Cheers, adulation and admiration. Timothy Garton Ash points directly at Blair's legacy. He enabled a half-wit across the Atlantic and aided and abetted a corrupt US regime in its quest for global hegemony.

Blair keeps insisting that history will give the verdict on Iraq, but we can already say this with confidence: Iraq is a disaster. To describe it as a case of liberal interventionism is the greatest disservice anyone could do to the cause of liberal interventionism. We went to war on a false prospectus about weapons of mass destruction and without proper authority, either legal or political. The failure to prepare for the likely consequences was a disgrace. It would be difficult for things to be worse than they were under Saddam Hussein, but they now are. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed or maimed, and there is no end in sight. US intelligence agencies say Iraq has become a breeding ground for a new generation of terrorists. The hundreds of billions of dollars squandered on the war and occupation could have bettered the lives of many of the world's poor.

Drawing away troops from Afghanistan when the job there was only half done, we have created two failures instead of one possible success. The Shia-Sunni rift has been inflamed across the Muslim world. The theocratic dictatorship of Iran has been greatly strengthened. The moral authority of the US is in tatters, and that of the United Kingdom dragged down with it. Iraq has alienated Muslims everywhere, including our own fellow citizens. Need I go on? This is the most comprehensive British foreign policy disaster since the Suez crisis of 1956.

Nothing more needs be said. Blair would do well to save British taxpayer a few pounds and leave 10 Downing Street with as little noise as possible. Sending an international embarrassment on a world tour is obscene.

The irrelevance of US diplomacy

There was probably little doubt in most minds that after the capture of 15 Royal Navy sailors and marines on the gulf frontier of the Shatt al-Arab waterway that the US Bush administration would be chaffing at the bit to make things worse. Britain's worst nightmare would have been a typically miscalculated Bush/Cheney military response to something which still was not fully understood.

Sure enough, the Bush/Cheney offer to Britain at the outset of the capture of those naval personnel was to ratchet up the military activity. While I don't give Tony Blair much credit for possessing the power of reason, his senior civil service, senior cabinet members and the British diplomatic corps completely understood what would happen if the US was permitted to become a part of the incident. (All emphasis mine)

The US offered to take military action on behalf of the 15 British sailors and marines held by Iran, including buzzing Iranian Revolutionary Guard positions with warplanes, the Guardian has learned.

In the first few days after the captives were seized and British diplomats were getting no news from Tehran on their whereabouts, Pentagon officials asked their British counterparts: what do you want us to do? They offered a series of military options, a list which remains top secret given the mounting risk of war between the US and Iran. But one of the options was for US combat aircraft to mount aggressive patrols over Iranian Revolutionary Guard bases in Iran, to underline the seriousness of the situation.

Now, there is nothing in the Guardian article to suggest that there weren't offers of diplomatic assistance but such offers certainly aren't mentioned, and given the way the Bush administration has been dealing with Iran it would be safe to accept that from a diplomatic standpoint, the US had little or nothing to offer.

Britain had their own way of handling it and there was a factor which had to be resolved: Was this actually a stunt originating with the Tehran, or was it a local decision which expanded into an international incident? Whatever it was, the current US Bush methodology of dealing with such issues had to be contained or the whole thing would spiral out of control.

The British declined the offer and said the US could calm the situation by staying out of it. London also asked the US to tone down military exercises that were already under way in the Gulf. Three days before the capture of the 15 Britons , a second carrier group arrived having been ordered there by president George Bush in January. The aim was to add to pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme and alleged operations inside Iraq against coalition forces.

At the request of the British, the two US carrier groups, totalling 40 ships plus aircraft, modified their exercises to make them less confrontational.

The British government also asked the US administration from Mr Bush down to be cautious in its use of rhetoric, which was relatively restrained throughout.

I'm sure the British used very diplomatic language when addressing the US but if there is any doubt about what they meant, it was clear that "Keep out of it. Keep your mouths shut. And take your carrier strike groups to the other end of the Gulf," was the message.

Bush finally spoke on March 31st, he was a long way down the list of leaders of various nations which had already publicly and privately communicated the same message to Iran. Interestingly, there was no reaction from anybody about Bush's statement. The truth is, anything he said would be irrelevant. Iran had already heard from a long list of countries, including Syria and the message was clear: Release the captives.

The British view one of the few benefits of this event as the identification of channels of communication with Iran which previously had not existed. While it is a most undesirable way to develop diplomatic lines of communications, the establishment of them places Britain on a different diplomatic plane. And it underscores the fact that the US administration of George W Bush and Richard Cheney, with no ability to communicate with Iran except through back-channels, has taken the United States in a direction which should enrage its population. The United States has been reduced to global diplomatic irrelevance.

The Bush administration is such a political and diplomatic disaster that it possesses no capital. The presence of the United States in resolving diplomatic incidents is so horrifying that other countries not only do not want their help, they make it clear that they want the US to do the only safe thing: stay away and keep silence.

Iraq government condemns a raid which discovers tortured prisoners.

Having been completely put in my place by global policy mandarin, Laura Bush, I was about to skip over this report because it's simply that one bombing per day that shouldn't be discouraging me.

A suicide car bomber shattered a relative lull in Baghdad's violence Monday, killing at least 28 people in a blast that touched off raging fires and a blizzard of bloodstained paper from a popular book market.

But, I read it anyway because I don't have any need to go shopping. Then I found something really interesting in the same story.

Meanwhile, a British-Iraqi raid on a police intelligence headquarters in southern Iraq on Sunday found 30 prisoners with signs of torture and an alleged death squad leader was captured.

The raid took place at the National Iraqi Intelligence Agency building in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city 340 miles southeast of Baghdad. Inside, troops discovered the prisoners, including one woman and two children, with signs of torture and abuse, the British military said in a statement. It did not elaborate.

The Iraqi government criticized the raid and on Monday launched an investigation.

"We have a committee that ... has started work to uncover the circumstances of the incident," said Ali al-Dabbagh, a government spokesman.

Al-Maliki had ordered the inquiry a day earlier, and vowed to punish "those who carried out this illegal and irresponsible act," his office said in condemning the raid. Al-Maliki's statement did not mention the prisoners.

Condemning the raid? Criticizing the raid? Given what the raid uncovered one might think the Al-Maliki government would be thankful that the British carried out the raid.

Given the Iraqi government's response, well... I guess the Iraqi government, at the highest levels, is complicit.

I wonder how long it's going to take the Bush and Blair administrations to understand that all they did was replace one brutal regime with another? Iraq is a nation, although severely fractured, that will be governed by a Shi'ite majority, and if the minority groups don't accept it, the state machine will cleanse the country of them.

The question of an exit strategy should be no problem at this point. Without overwhelming concentrations of troops, without eliminating the government which the Bush administration blindly installed without a second thought, without a long period of dominant occupation, nothing can fix what Bush created.

The neo-con dream has fallen flat because, with the attention span of a group of two year-olds, they expected instant gratification for their half-spent effort.

It's time they just packed up and left. The damage is well and truly done.

Tony Blair quietly inserts the dogs of war

The Scotsman reports that Tony Blair's withdrawal of 1600 troops from Iraq is more smoke and mirrors. It would appear that while he's pulling the troops with a Royal Union flag on their camo smocks, he's replacing them with those who wear a slightly different logo. Mercenaries. (via NewsHog)

MINISTERS are negotiating multi-million-pound contracts with private security firms to cover some of the gaps created by British troop withdrawals.

Days after Tony Blair revealed that he wanted to withdraw 1,600 soldiers from war-torn Basra within months, it has emerged that civil servants hope "mercenaries" can help fill the gap left behind.

Officials from the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence will meet representatives from the private security industry within the next month to discuss "options" for increasing their business in Iraq in the coming years.

The UK government has already paid out almost £160m to private security companies (PSCs) since the invasion of Iraq, for a range of services, including the protection of British officials on duty and in transit in some of the most dangerous parts of the world.

But, despite expectations that the booming market for private security would go into decline following the bursting of the "Iraq bubble", firms have now been told to expect even more lucrative work during the "post-occupation phase".

A senior official from one of the biggest PSCs already operating in Iraq last night claimed firms had been told to expect increased business opportunities in areas such as personnel protection, highway security and the training of Iraqi police and soldiers.

[...]

The development will reawaken complaints that the government is "privatising" the occupation of Iraq.

Pressure groups have consistently warned that private security contractors have been given too much freedom to operate in Iraq, and one warned that the country was being flooded with PSCs as part of the British "exit strategy

And, after Nepos appointed Orestes, Orestes overthrew Nepos. Then Odoacer, the commander of the Germanic mercenaries employed by Rome, overthrew Orestes. Then Rome fell.