The case continues. My AGW/Greenie mate Joe has asked to be removed from this list following several very polite debate emails between just the two of us which really serves to highlight a lot of the issues which AGW skeptics have to deal with - the idea that the science is now "done", that 20 years of research is pretty much categoric, even if partially based on the work of scientists now shown to be unethical and manipulative (and possibly criminal), and that those of us who say that there are problems with the science fall into one of the following categories...
1) Conspiracy nuts who deserve to be equated to "9/11 Truthers" and UFO chasers.
2) Scientifically ignorant people who do not see that any malfeasance would have been rooted out by the peer review process long ago (despite evidence that this process has been compromised). This coincides with an assertion that there is no conspiracy (I dont believe that there is a large scale centralised conspiracy myself by the way, just a series of small scale collusions and conspiracies) to inhibit the publication of conflicting data and findings, and that the latter simply is not given credence because it is, at heart, flawed science which just happily happens to contradict AGW orthodoxy.
3) Are possibly complicit of "crimes against humanity" as one prophet of AGW said, and akin to Holocaust Deniers (that David Icke is also a AGW skeptic does not help to refute this ludicrous statement).
4) Slaves of big business interests who are just gullible and believe everything they hear.
Now, in fairness, I am sure that there are AGW skeptics that fall into the above categories (with the obvious exception of #3), and sometimes who fall into more than one. I myself could fall quite easily into #2 - but I personally think I make up for scientific knowledge and instinct with a semi-trained analytical approach from my humanities studies, as well as a big dollop of native cynicism, scepticism of a generic sort, and increasing paranoia about the agendas and goals of social engineering elites of all stripes who want to change us all for our own good.
But all of the above is hyperbole and piffle - none of it, and none of anything I have read on pro-AGW sites (yes, I do look at some of them too) leads me to have even the slightest doubt that fraud on some level is being perpetrated regarding this issue, and that a huge whitewash by vested interests (green politicians, social engineers, big business cashing in on the paranoia, the mainstream media) is currently underway despite revelations that make Nixon's Watergate seem like a little white lie. And that is the basic point - we have been, and are being, screwed royally over this, and with increasingly billions being poured into cap and trade schemes as well as economic aid to the developing world in order for them to cut carbon emissions, we are all looking at being taxed to all hell for, essentially, nothing.
With that rant more or less over, lets get to some links/URLs. I email this to people as well as posting it on my blog (http://nonpcmeanderings.blogspot.com/) and have not learnt how to hotlink or hyperlink, so any technical advice on this would be much appreciated.
First up is a great article on American Thinker, which pretty much sums up the state of play. Worth reading even if it is long. http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/global_warming_fraud_and_the_f.html
Chris Booker has also written an excellent article, which in many ways perfectly sums up my own views. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6679082/Climate-change-this-is-the-worst-scientific-scandal-of-our-generation.html.
Apparently there is some controversy over the above article somehow being blocked from Google searches, but that may be a touch too paranoid even for me. EU Referendum has some more on Booker's article. http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/11/mushroom-cloud.html
This is a convoluted and long winded article on Watts Up With That showing just how the scientific method has been manipulated and compromised by the good folks at the CRU. As this is a big stick for warmists to beat us skeptics with - the fact that science would have outed any bad behaviour, this is a good article to see that this has actually been done. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/24/the-people-vs-the-cru-freedom-of-information-my-okole%e2%80%a6/
Another Watts Up With That article that, when you get through the current issue regarding a total idiot named Paul Krugman, has some very interesting links and stats about the money tied up in the Church of AGW. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/29/quote-of-the-week-krugmans-lol-on-skeptics/
Here is a pretty interesting video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu_ok37HDuE&feature=player_embedded#
And on a slightly lighter note to finish up with, a "most annoying" list from WUWT http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/28/spencertop-10-annoyances-in-the-climate-change-debate/#more-13345
Enjoy.
Monday, 30 November 2009
Friday, 27 November 2009
Climategate - the next chapter
Hi all,
Taking a break from EU bashing has been refreshing this week, despite the worrying revelations about the new EU 'Foreign Minister', and thus the person ultimately responsible for many of the future decisions regarding the security of our new Reich, was treasurer for the CND back in the 80s (when a nuclear deterrant was arguably essential) and indeed liaised with Communist groups in the UK and possibly accepted money from the USSR to fund the CND - that the USSR did so as a measure to weaken NATO is a matter of historical record.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/11/soviet-stooge.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230097/Revealed-The-CND-past-new-EU-Foreign-Minister-Baroness-Ashton.html
Of course, in the spirit of openess and accountability that permates our glorious Reich, when concerns over this dubious past (for a foreign secretary at least) were raised by UKIP's own Nigel farage, he was slapped down and threatened with disciplinary actions. Democracy in action.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6653340/Baroness-Ashton-questioned-over-CND-and-Soviet-money.html
As my work laptop is now riddled with worms and viruses, I have not been active for a couple of days, so this post will be longish. I am still wading through the links that my mate Joe has sent me explaining the warmist position and trying to absorb his efforts at trying to make me understand how science works with regards theories, peer review etc. I am not sure that the end result will make him happy since the essential core of 'good' science is objective peer review and acceptance, and the core group of warmist science "peers" seems to be an incestuous pool of mutual accredation and agreement, which makes me even less likely to accept AGW as fact. Fascinating stuff though.
But on to the links. Mostly found from the most excellent eureferendum.com site, which has AGW skepticism as its second cause, which is not as fgar fetched as you may think at first since both the EU and the Church of AGW are tied in some very real ways to the same philosophy of internationalism ad transnational progressivism.
Watts Up With That kicks us off with an analysis of the "hide the decline" email and shows how inconvenient data was just deleted. Bit high brow for me, but I think I understood the article. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/26/mcintyre-data-from-the-hide-the-decline/#more-13256
This next link from the Canadian newspaper Financial Post shows how Phil Jones refused to supply his data to another scientist who in good faith requested it to verify his own findings, which contrasted with the CRU and UEA. Since a core element of 'good' science is the sharing of data and openess to empirical testing of your findings and theories, this rings massive alarm bells. The comments to this artcile are also interesting. http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/11/26/skewed-science.aspx
As usual the Aussies show that they plot their own course. James Delingpole tells us how 5 of their front bench opposittion MPs are resigning from the front bench in protest over a CO2 tax. As Delingpole says, Ian Pilmer must be happy at being vindicated. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100018003/climategate-five-aussie-mps-lead-the-way-by-resigning-in-disgust-over-carbon-tax/
Predictably the IPCC, the UN's AGW frontmen and its cabal of 'climate experts' (many of whom are sociologists, economists and not climate scientists at all) is standing firm. To be honest, they are right to do so from a certain point of view - the actions of a small group do not necessarily invalidate the entire theory - however, they should at least be honest enough that the revelations do raise questions about the larger 'consensus' influenced by personaged implicated in the recent revelations, especially the AGW luminaries Michael Mann and Phil Jones. http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSGEE5AP1Y5
George Monbiot, perhaps the leading light of media AGW men in the UK does take a slightly more mature and realistic viewpoint, but is also toeing the line regarding the wider science. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/nov/25/monbiot-climate-leak-crisis-response
Another Delingpole link here - he looks at the response of the AGW camp in general. Some interesting reading. As usual I am less than overwhelmed by the intergrity of the BBC. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017912/climategate-how-they-all-squirmed/
Here is a German summary of whats going on. I especially like the conclusion of a prominent German Climatologist about how the emails show that the Anglosphere scientists at least are not above manipulating and distorting the peer review process. http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4929149,00.html
Here is one from the CRU at UEA itself. One cry that warmists often make is that skepticism is funded by the fossil fuel industry - and this is to some degree true. A lot of science research aiming to discredit AGW will of course be funded by the industries that would be hurt most if AGW ends up, as it has, being a political and social tool. There is nothing at all immoral in looking after your own - as can be seen here, which is an interesting page showing just how lucrative toeing the religious line when it comes to AGW has been for some. The now infamous Phil Jones for example, who has been involved in work garnering £1.2m funded by those paragons of objectivity when it comes to climate science, British Council, NERC, DEFRA and several EU organisations. Fossil Fuel and Tobacco companies are not the only one to play the game. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/research/grants.htm
Here is another antipodean revelation. New Zealand has long been one of the 'greenest' countries in the world. Now, similar claims of data manipulation and exageration have emerged there too. Fascinating stuff. http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/global_warming_nz2.pdf
And finally for today - shock! horror! A network that is NOT Fox is talking about AGW in a critical fashion. Actually, CBS is here talking about a very sensible move on the part of Republicans in congress in my opinion - the email revelations from the CRU may only represent a small group of climateologuists, but since their work and their models were directly incorporated into reports, statements and various other releases by the IPCC which directly influenced political debate and decisions, it MUST be determined that those decisions are/were based on an open, ethical science without manipulation and obfuscation. http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/11/24/taking_liberties/entry5761180.shtml
In summing up, that last link really hits home with what I think should be the next step. Even though I am a skeptic and unlikely to change in that, I objectively acknowledge that the actions of a small cabal of unethical scientists, even if they do count in their number such people as Michael Mann (who is basically the high prophet of AGW and the power behind realclimate.org), do not inevitably invalidate the work of all 'climate scientists'. Even if, as some skeptics assert, there are less than 100 real voices pushing the whole agenda, the CRU emails still do not make all of them unethical. BUT, it MUST now be the case that all political decisions are reviewed and all resolutions and agreements analysed, because if they are even partially based on 'science' originating or touched by Mann and his crew, they are suspect.
Taking a break from EU bashing has been refreshing this week, despite the worrying revelations about the new EU 'Foreign Minister', and thus the person ultimately responsible for many of the future decisions regarding the security of our new Reich, was treasurer for the CND back in the 80s (when a nuclear deterrant was arguably essential) and indeed liaised with Communist groups in the UK and possibly accepted money from the USSR to fund the CND - that the USSR did so as a measure to weaken NATO is a matter of historical record.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/11/soviet-stooge.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230097/Revealed-The-CND-past-new-EU-Foreign-Minister-Baroness-Ashton.html
Of course, in the spirit of openess and accountability that permates our glorious Reich, when concerns over this dubious past (for a foreign secretary at least) were raised by UKIP's own Nigel farage, he was slapped down and threatened with disciplinary actions. Democracy in action.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6653340/Baroness-Ashton-questioned-over-CND-and-Soviet-money.html
As my work laptop is now riddled with worms and viruses, I have not been active for a couple of days, so this post will be longish. I am still wading through the links that my mate Joe has sent me explaining the warmist position and trying to absorb his efforts at trying to make me understand how science works with regards theories, peer review etc. I am not sure that the end result will make him happy since the essential core of 'good' science is objective peer review and acceptance, and the core group of warmist science "peers" seems to be an incestuous pool of mutual accredation and agreement, which makes me even less likely to accept AGW as fact. Fascinating stuff though.
But on to the links. Mostly found from the most excellent eureferendum.com site, which has AGW skepticism as its second cause, which is not as fgar fetched as you may think at first since both the EU and the Church of AGW are tied in some very real ways to the same philosophy of internationalism ad transnational progressivism.
Watts Up With That kicks us off with an analysis of the "hide the decline" email and shows how inconvenient data was just deleted. Bit high brow for me, but I think I understood the article. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/26/mcintyre-data-from-the-hide-the-decline/#more-13256
This next link from the Canadian newspaper Financial Post shows how Phil Jones refused to supply his data to another scientist who in good faith requested it to verify his own findings, which contrasted with the CRU and UEA. Since a core element of 'good' science is the sharing of data and openess to empirical testing of your findings and theories, this rings massive alarm bells. The comments to this artcile are also interesting. http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/11/26/skewed-science.aspx
As usual the Aussies show that they plot their own course. James Delingpole tells us how 5 of their front bench opposittion MPs are resigning from the front bench in protest over a CO2 tax. As Delingpole says, Ian Pilmer must be happy at being vindicated. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100018003/climategate-five-aussie-mps-lead-the-way-by-resigning-in-disgust-over-carbon-tax/
Predictably the IPCC, the UN's AGW frontmen and its cabal of 'climate experts' (many of whom are sociologists, economists and not climate scientists at all) is standing firm. To be honest, they are right to do so from a certain point of view - the actions of a small group do not necessarily invalidate the entire theory - however, they should at least be honest enough that the revelations do raise questions about the larger 'consensus' influenced by personaged implicated in the recent revelations, especially the AGW luminaries Michael Mann and Phil Jones. http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSGEE5AP1Y5
George Monbiot, perhaps the leading light of media AGW men in the UK does take a slightly more mature and realistic viewpoint, but is also toeing the line regarding the wider science. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/nov/25/monbiot-climate-leak-crisis-response
Another Delingpole link here - he looks at the response of the AGW camp in general. Some interesting reading. As usual I am less than overwhelmed by the intergrity of the BBC. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017912/climategate-how-they-all-squirmed/
Here is a German summary of whats going on. I especially like the conclusion of a prominent German Climatologist about how the emails show that the Anglosphere scientists at least are not above manipulating and distorting the peer review process. http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4929149,00.html
Here is one from the CRU at UEA itself. One cry that warmists often make is that skepticism is funded by the fossil fuel industry - and this is to some degree true. A lot of science research aiming to discredit AGW will of course be funded by the industries that would be hurt most if AGW ends up, as it has, being a political and social tool. There is nothing at all immoral in looking after your own - as can be seen here, which is an interesting page showing just how lucrative toeing the religious line when it comes to AGW has been for some. The now infamous Phil Jones for example, who has been involved in work garnering £1.2m funded by those paragons of objectivity when it comes to climate science, British Council, NERC, DEFRA and several EU organisations. Fossil Fuel and Tobacco companies are not the only one to play the game. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/research/grants.htm
Here is another antipodean revelation. New Zealand has long been one of the 'greenest' countries in the world. Now, similar claims of data manipulation and exageration have emerged there too. Fascinating stuff. http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/global_warming_nz2.pdf
And finally for today - shock! horror! A network that is NOT Fox is talking about AGW in a critical fashion. Actually, CBS is here talking about a very sensible move on the part of Republicans in congress in my opinion - the email revelations from the CRU may only represent a small group of climateologuists, but since their work and their models were directly incorporated into reports, statements and various other releases by the IPCC which directly influenced political debate and decisions, it MUST be determined that those decisions are/were based on an open, ethical science without manipulation and obfuscation. http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/11/24/taking_liberties/entry5761180.shtml
In summing up, that last link really hits home with what I think should be the next step. Even though I am a skeptic and unlikely to change in that, I objectively acknowledge that the actions of a small cabal of unethical scientists, even if they do count in their number such people as Michael Mann (who is basically the high prophet of AGW and the power behind realclimate.org), do not inevitably invalidate the work of all 'climate scientists'. Even if, as some skeptics assert, there are less than 100 real voices pushing the whole agenda, the CRU emails still do not make all of them unethical. BUT, it MUST now be the case that all political decisions are reviewed and all resolutions and agreements analysed, because if they are even partially based on 'science' originating or touched by Mann and his crew, they are suspect.
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
Complilation of Climategate stuff
When the Climategate story broke about some leaked emails and other info hacked from the University of East Anglia (apparently a major centre of climate science) I started emailing my usual suspects. Here are the two emails I have sent so far
******
Email 1
Hi all,
I am not sure how many of you have been following the “Climategate” story – it would be hard since the main stream media is a little too caught up in pre-Copenhagen hysteria, but here are some links – read them in order I think – that would make the most sense. Not knowing much about the pro-AGW camp, I am sure there are some good sources of debunking info for all of these claims. Joe?
http://www.climatechangefraud.com/home/33-enviro-extremists/5648-global-warming-meltdown-climategate
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017451/climategate-how-the-msm-reported-the-greatest-scandal-in-modern-science/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1230104/MAIL-COMMENT-Bad-science-climate-change.html
Excellent summary, cross referenced with the source emails here
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/20/climate-cuttings-33.html
More analysis
http://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/search/label/CRU%20emails
Thoughts and comments? This is a WAY bigger story than a measly £33m in MP’s expenses, yet it’s a safe bet that, with so much invested in supporting the current “consensus” about AGW the MSM (Main Stream Media) will stay quite a far distance from it. And the public wont get as angry about it. Even though the perpetuation of the AGW myth, if myth it indeed is, will cost a hell of a lot more than £33m.
******
Email 2
Hi all,
Been following this story as it goes on, and also having some very interesting conversations with my mate Joe, who has presented the AGW viewpoint and some very trenchant observations about how science works that has really been food for thought. Before getting to the meat of my links list today, here is a link that Joe sent me yesterday that I plan on working through bit by bit since I think it will answer most of my questions. It may not, indeed will almost certainly not, change my mind, but I think its healthy to see the other side of an argument.
http://www.grist.org/article/series/skeptics/
Now, on to todays collection of Climategate links.
A bit about the professor in charge from the Guardian, a left wing paper normally firmly on board with the AGW agenda. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/24/climate-professor-leaked-emails-uea
For those of you who don’t know, Monbiot is a leading climate change personality in the MSM. Interesting post on his site, with a somewhat amusing satirical email regarding the “conspiracy” that is a little misleading since I personally think that there is a vested interest in the AGW theory remaining at the centre of political and economic planning http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/11/23/the-knights-carbonic/
More on Monbiot’s response from the skeptic site Watts Up With That. It really is a big deal that Monbiot is taking the revelations of the emails and the manipulation of data, at least on the part of some AGW science types, seriously enough to say what he is saying. The environmentalist faithful in the UK must be gnashing their teeth at such a high profile response. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/23/monbiot-issues-an-unprecedented-apology/
The Wall Street Journal here – its being looked at a little bit more seriously in the US press than in the band wagon press here in the UK.About halfway down is some interesting info regarding who AGW scientists respond to peer-reviewed journals that dare to publish papers by sceptics http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704888404574547730924988354.html
Not all American press media are looking at it, leaving it to the admittedly somewhat ludicrously biased FOX network to cover it. I think that the MSM in the states has some of the same vested interests as the UK media in toeing the line. http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/11/24/climategate-totally-ignored-tv-news-outlets-except-fox
Another Watts Up With That link. This one looks at the fact that some of the code for the models was leaked along with the emails, and in many ways is far more damning than poorly chosen words that can be charitably be excused (though not by me) as out of context. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/22/cru-emails-may-be-open-to-interpretation-but-commented-code-by-the-programmer-tells-the-real-story/
I look forward to any response, and Joe, thanks for all the links yesterday, I will be looking especially at the link I posted above as and when I have time.
******
Overall I think that this is a fascinating story and reinforces a lot of what I have instinctually been saying and thinking. Lets hope it does not get totally brushed under a carpet somewhere - the scientists in question may be only a small percentage of those invested in AGW theory, but they should all "hang" in a career sense, and possibly be investigated for prosecution.
******
Email 1
Hi all,
I am not sure how many of you have been following the “Climategate” story – it would be hard since the main stream media is a little too caught up in pre-Copenhagen hysteria, but here are some links – read them in order I think – that would make the most sense. Not knowing much about the pro-AGW camp, I am sure there are some good sources of debunking info for all of these claims. Joe?
http://www.climatechangefraud.com/home/33-enviro-extremists/5648-global-warming-meltdown-climategate
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017451/climategate-how-the-msm-reported-the-greatest-scandal-in-modern-science/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1230104/MAIL-COMMENT-Bad-science-climate-change.html
Excellent summary, cross referenced with the source emails here
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/20/climate-cuttings-33.html
More analysis
http://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/search/label/CRU%20emails
Thoughts and comments? This is a WAY bigger story than a measly £33m in MP’s expenses, yet it’s a safe bet that, with so much invested in supporting the current “consensus” about AGW the MSM (Main Stream Media) will stay quite a far distance from it. And the public wont get as angry about it. Even though the perpetuation of the AGW myth, if myth it indeed is, will cost a hell of a lot more than £33m.
******
Email 2
Hi all,
Been following this story as it goes on, and also having some very interesting conversations with my mate Joe, who has presented the AGW viewpoint and some very trenchant observations about how science works that has really been food for thought. Before getting to the meat of my links list today, here is a link that Joe sent me yesterday that I plan on working through bit by bit since I think it will answer most of my questions. It may not, indeed will almost certainly not, change my mind, but I think its healthy to see the other side of an argument.
http://www.grist.org/article/series/skeptics/
Now, on to todays collection of Climategate links.
A bit about the professor in charge from the Guardian, a left wing paper normally firmly on board with the AGW agenda. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/24/climate-professor-leaked-emails-uea
For those of you who don’t know, Monbiot is a leading climate change personality in the MSM. Interesting post on his site, with a somewhat amusing satirical email regarding the “conspiracy” that is a little misleading since I personally think that there is a vested interest in the AGW theory remaining at the centre of political and economic planning http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/11/23/the-knights-carbonic/
More on Monbiot’s response from the skeptic site Watts Up With That. It really is a big deal that Monbiot is taking the revelations of the emails and the manipulation of data, at least on the part of some AGW science types, seriously enough to say what he is saying. The environmentalist faithful in the UK must be gnashing their teeth at such a high profile response. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/23/monbiot-issues-an-unprecedented-apology/
The Wall Street Journal here – its being looked at a little bit more seriously in the US press than in the band wagon press here in the UK.About halfway down is some interesting info regarding who AGW scientists respond to peer-reviewed journals that dare to publish papers by sceptics http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704888404574547730924988354.html
Not all American press media are looking at it, leaving it to the admittedly somewhat ludicrously biased FOX network to cover it. I think that the MSM in the states has some of the same vested interests as the UK media in toeing the line. http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/11/24/climategate-totally-ignored-tv-news-outlets-except-fox
Another Watts Up With That link. This one looks at the fact that some of the code for the models was leaked along with the emails, and in many ways is far more damning than poorly chosen words that can be charitably be excused (though not by me) as out of context. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/22/cru-emails-may-be-open-to-interpretation-but-commented-code-by-the-programmer-tells-the-real-story/
I look forward to any response, and Joe, thanks for all the links yesterday, I will be looking especially at the link I posted above as and when I have time.
******
Overall I think that this is a fascinating story and reinforces a lot of what I have instinctually been saying and thinking. Lets hope it does not get totally brushed under a carpet somewhere - the scientists in question may be only a small percentage of those invested in AGW theory, but they should all "hang" in a career sense, and possibly be investigated for prosecution.
Thursday, 19 November 2009
An Author's Afterword that Struck Me
While away on a training trip this week, I set aside my studies and delved into a bit of military sci-fi, specifically "Yellow Eyes" by John Ringo and Tom Kratman. I won't go through the plot - its ultra-geeky, ultra-violent military sci-fi and of interest to very few of you I am sure. However, there was a very interesting afterword written by Ringo and Kratman that I find echoes a lot of my thoughts, feelings and beliefs quite accurately and wanted to share them. The afterword is written by two Americans, ex-military personnel and takes a military view point. It also makes reference to this event http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/04/the_pain_in_spain_falls_mainly.html
Now, given my staunch anti-international beliefs, my antagonism towards the EU and the UN, my issues with the ECHR, and my rampant pro-American and pro-Israel points of view, it should be no surprise that I loved the afterword, an abridged version of which is below. I hasten to add that I did not agree 100% with all of it, but I did agree with enough to think it was well worth posting. I have also added a few of my own comments to it as it goes - they are in bold and in squared brackets. I also think its worth reminding people of the dangers of a dangerous appeasing maniac like Obama allowing the US to fall into the Tranzi trap...
*******
So, yes, they’re [the Panamanians] a tough and a brave people, well within the western military tradition, and properly armed and trained they can fight.
Of course, the western military tradition, outside of the U.S. and U.K. [an arguable assertion in 2009, but the book was written in 2007], isn’t what it used to be. Oh, the formations are still there, some of them. The weapons are, if anything, better than ever. Even the men and women, too, of course still have much of what made the West great inside them.
Unfortunately, the West itself has largely fallen under the control of civilizational Dr. Kevorkians. Some call them “Tranzis.”
“Tranzi” is short for “Transnational Progressive” or “Transnational Progressivism.” For a more complete account of their program, look up John O’Sullivan’s Gulliver’s Travails or some of what Steven Den Beste has written on the subject. You might, dear reader, also look at John Fonte’s The Ideological War within the West. Lastly, for purposes of this little essay, look up Lee Harris’ The Intellectual Origins of America Bashing. These should give you a good grounding in Tranzism: its motives, goals and operating techniques. All can be found online.
For now, suffice to say that Tranzism is the successor ideology to failed and discredited Marxist-Leninism. Many of the most prominent Tranzis are, in fact, “former” members of various communist parties, especially European communist parties. These have taken the failure of the Soviet Union personally and hard, and, brother, are they bitter about it.
Nonetheless, our purpose here is not to write up “Tranzism 101.” It is to illustrate the Tranzi approach to the laws of war.
That’s right, boys and girls. Pull up a chair. Grab a stool. Cop a squat. Light ‘em if you’ve got ‘em. (If not, bum ‘em off Ringo; Kratman’s fresh out.)
It’s lecture time.
(WARNING! Authorial editorial follows. If you just
adore the International Criminal Court, then read
further at your own risk. You have been warned.)
One of the difficult things about analyzing Tranzis and their works is that they are not a conspiracy. What they are is a consensus. Don’t be contemptuous; civilization is nothing more than a consensus. So is barbarism. Moreover, the Tranzis are a fairly cohesive consensus, especially on certain ultimate core issues. Nonetheless, if you are looking for absolute logical consistency on the part of Tranzis you will search in vain.
On the other hand, at the highest level, the ultimate Tranzi goal, there is complete agreement. They want an end to national sovereignty and they want global governance by an unelected, self-chosen “elite.” Much of what they say and do will make no sense, even in Tranzi terms, unless that is borne in mind.
Below that ultimate level one cannot expect tactical logical consistency. Things are neither good nor bad, true nor false, except insofar as they support the ultimate Tranzi goal.
For example, if one were to ask a Tranzi, and especially a female and feminist Tranzi, about the propriety of men having any say over a woman’s right to an abortion the Tranzi would probably be scandalized. After all, men don’t even have babies. They know nothing about the subject from the inside, so to speak. Why should they have any say?
Nonetheless, that same Tranzi, if asked whether international lawyers and judges, and humanitarian activist nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, should have the final say in the laws of war, would certainly approve. This is true despite the fact that the next lawyer, judge or NGO that understands as much about war as a man understands about childbirth will likely be the first.
Why do we say they know nothing about the subject? By their works shall you know them.
The International Criminal Court is, after the UN and European Union, the next most significant Tranzi project (Kyoto being dead on arrival) [wait for Copenhagen and the EU is going full steam ahead] and arguably the most significant with regard to the laws of war. A majority, if a bare one, of the world’s sovereign states have signed onto it while about half have ratified it.
The ICC claims jurisdiction over all the crimes mentioned in its founding statute, irrespective of who committed them, where they were committed, or whether the “crimes” are actually criminal under the traditional and customary law of war. This is called “universal jurisdiction.”
Universal jurisdiction, as a concept, has a number of flaws. Among these are that it has zero valid legal precedence behind it.
Zero precedence? Tranzis will cite at least two precedents. One of these is the jurisdiction exercised from times immemorial by any sovereign power over pirates at sea, when any were caught. The other is Nuremberg. These are flawed. In the case of Nuremberg, the jurisdiction exercised was not “universal” but national jurisdiction of the coalition of the victors over a Germany whose sovereignty had been temporarily extinguished by crushing defeat in war.
The piracy precedent as applied to modern notions of universal jurisdiction doesn’t stand close scrutiny any better. The Tranzis claim that universal jurisdiction was exercised over piracy because piracy was, in its conduct and effect, so ghastly. This is wrong on both counts. In the first place, pirates were not necessarily subject to universal jurisdiction except insofar as they were caught where national jurisdiction did not run; typically at sea, in other words. Moreover, alongside piracy there existed privateering. In their conduct the two were often enough indistinguishable. In other words, however “ghastly” privateering may have been and the former residents of Portobello and Panama City could have told one it could be ghastly, indeed it was still not subject to universal jurisdiction. No matter that piracy was no worse than privateering, it was so subject. The difference was that sovereign powers, nation-states in other words, exercised sovereign jurisdiction over privateers, were responsible for their actions, and punished them at need, while they did not and could not with pirates. It was the lack of sovereign jurisdiction, both as to their persons and as to the locus of their crimes, that left pirates open to universal jurisdiction and not any supposed “ghastliness” of those crimes.
Along with the lack of valid legal precedence, the ICC and universal jurisdiction suffer other flaws. Recall, dear reader, the lack of Tranzi logical consistency on the questions posed above about abortion and the laws of war.
Anti-imperialism is yet another Tranzi tactical cause. But what is imperialism beyond one or several states or people using force or color of law to make rules for another or other state or people? And what is the ICC, using all the staggering moral and military power of . . . oh . . . Fiji . . . France . . . West Fuckistan . . . but the attempt at enforcing rules made by one group of states upon others? It’s imperialism, in other words.
Of course, imperialism in the service of a higher cause the raising of unelected, self-styled, global elites to power, for example is praiseworthy, in Tranzi terms.
Nothing deterred, the Tranzis claim that Tranzi courts, to include notionally national Tranzi courts like those of Spain, have universal jurisdiction. Why?
Tranzis hate national sovereignty. It cramps their style. It interferes with their program. It’s aesthetically unappealing. [Sound like the EU to anyone?]
Their goal is the destruction of national sovereignty. The right of a people to democratically make their own laws, to govern themselves, is anathema to Tranzi goals and dreams. When they say “global governance,” boys and girls, they mean it. They really intend that unelected bureaucrats and judges, and self-selected elites ought be able to tell you what to do, how to live, what to pay in taxes, what rights you are not entitled to. [EU? Is this making sense to you yet?]
Sovereignty stands in the way. The ultimate expression of sovereignty is a nation’s and people’s armed forces. No army; no ability to defend one’s own laws and way of life; no sovereignty. [I would argue that it is the ability to legislate your own laws, including those governing military activity, but that’s somantics.]
But how to do away with sovereign control of national armed forces? It’s a toughie. They’ve got all these guns and shit, while the poor Tranzis have none.
“Aha! We know,” say the Tranzis. “We can control a nation’s armed forces if we can punish the soldiers and especially the officers and a nation refuses to stand up and defend them. No nation which permits a foreign court to exercise jurisdiction over its military can any longer be said to own that military. Instead, that military will be owned by the courts able to punish the leaders. Onward, into the future, comrades!”
Let them punish your soldiers and the soldiers can no longer be counted upon to defend the nation. Nor would you deserve being defended by your soldiers. Let them punish the soldiers and there is no principled distinction to prevent them punishing the President, the Legislature, even the Supreme Court. For who would defend the President, Legislature and courts once the same have let down their soldiers? Let them punish your soldiers and you deserve what you get . . . and to lose what you will lose.
It would be one thing if the ICC were something more than a misguided exercise in legalistic Tranzi mutual masturbation; if it could, in other words, be effective in limiting the horrors of war.
It cannot be effective. Ever.
This is because of the very nature of war itself. There is nothing a court can do that, in terms of punishment that deters, even begins to approach the horror men inflict on each other in war, routinely, in the course of normal and legal operations. There is nothing any court can do that can even hope to catch the interest of tired men, hungry men, men fighting for victory and their lives. No sensible court would even try.
There is some conduct which cannot be deterred. When life is at stake, the law recognizes no “no trespassing” signs. When the choice is between picking pockets at a mass hanging of pickpockets, and risking the noose, or facing slow starvation . . . well . . . at least the rope is fairly quick.
Similarly, when the choice on the battlefield is life or death, what power has some uncertain court distant in both time and space to deter anything? The simple answer is; it has none. What trivial power has the law with its trivial possible punishments to deter conduct that might save soldiers’ lives, their comrades’ and their country’s in the here and now?
Yet we can see that, however imperfectly, the customary law of war has often worked even without any such body as the ICC and without Spain’s recent disgusting, illegal, morally putrescent attempt at exercising sovereignty over American soldiers. It has worked imperfectly, to be sure. Yet it has worked often enough . . . indeed, within western war it has worked more often than not.
Where the laws of war have worked to mitigate the horror and protect innocent life they have, by and large, done so when the combatants were of the same culture, shared the same values, and had what we might like to think of as a basic decency. [All concepts discounted by Tranzis and Internationalists - we are all the same right? Differences are invented and everyone is rational and cuddley and just waiting to be talked to as an equal and then they will stop blowing stuff up. Grrrr.]
That’s rarely been quite enough. It needed a little something else, some other reason to follow the rules.
The other reason was the threat and fear of reprisals.
Tranzis hate reprisals, which are war crimes in themselves but war crimes which become legal in order to punish an enemy who violates the law of war, deter him from violating it, and remove the advantages which accrue from such violations. The Tranzis don’t hate reprisals merely because they’re ugly, cause suffering of innocents, etc., though they hate them for those reasons, too. No, Tranzis hate reprisals because reprisals work to enforce the laws of war and their own silly courts fail.
Reprisals work? You’re kidding us, right?
Wrong. Why wasn’t poisonous gas used in the Second World War? The threat of reprisal. What happened when, in 1944, the Germans threatened to execute some numbers of French resistance fighters and the French Resistance, which was holding many German prisoners, answered, “We will kill one for one”? The French prisoners held by the Germans were left unharmed. Why didn’t the Southern Confederacy during the American Civil War execute the white officers of black regiments as they had passed a law to do? Because the Union credibly threatened to hang a white Southern officer for every man of theirs so mistreated. Why didn’t the United States or South Vietnam execute, generally, Viet Cong guerillas who had gravely violated the laws of war in the course of the insurgency there? Because the North Vietnamese had prisoners against whom they would have reprised had we or the South Vietnamese done so.
Reprisals work; courts and statutes do not. The law of war, because of the nature of war, must be self enforcing, through reprisals. Nothing else can work and any attempt to do away with reprisal is an indirect attack on and undermining of the law of war. [Its unsavoury and I did not like reading it, but I think they are right about reprisals]
But then, the law of war and mitigating its horrors are not really what the Tranzis are about. Undermining national sovereignty? Replacing sovereign nations with themselves? That’s what they’re about.
The Tranzis aren’t about eliminating war’s horrors? Oh, John, Oh, Tom . . . say it isn’t so.
(Interject dual sigh at the vast iniquity of mankind here.)
It’s so.
Recall that we mentioned that Tranzism is the successor philosophy to Marxist-Leninism. It should come as no great surprise, then, that one of the key pieces of Tranzi legislation on the law of war should have been sponsored and forced into existence by . . . wait for it . . . wait for it . . . THE SOVIET UNION. [EU Mark II – Mark I was the 3rd Reich, we are in Mark III now]
This key piece of Tranzi legislating on the law of war was Additional Protocol I to Geneva Convention IV. The protocol itself was shoved through by the Soviets at a time when it looked like People’s Revolutionary War (guerilla war . . . communist insurgency) would continue to be a powerful weapon to advance the cause of communism. The United States has never ratified it and, pray God, it never shall. The Russians, who forced it through, have never paid it the slightest attention, as witnessed by their conduct in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989 and, more recently, in Chechnya.
The protocol is interesting for three reasons: what it purports to do, what it actually does, and for the admittedly slick way in which it tries to do it.
The slickness is in the way the protocol is structured. It begins with a pious preamble, typically enough. That isn’t the slick part. What is clever is that it repeats much of what was already in Geneva Convention IV (GC IV), which is concerned with the protection of civilians caught up in war (as is the protocol), and then interweaves some very new things. The new things include major advantages, given gratis, to guerillas and especially communist guerillas, a broad ban on the use of what it calls “mercenaries,” one rather unreasonable restriction on the use of food as a weapon, and a subtle way of saying “It’s okay to push the Zionist beasts into the sea.”
Then, when a nation refuses to ratify the additional protocol for any of the at least five really good reasons not to do so, it stands accused of anything from being in favor of mass rape to forced medical experiments a la Josef Mengele. Never mind that all that is prohibited by the original GC IV and that the additional protocol adds nothing of importance. “You refuse to ratify the additional protocol? You Nazi bastards!”
Are these guys slick or what? [This is nothing. How about ramming a “treaty” through the legislatures of 27 sovereign states which effectively removes their sovereignty in perpetuity without all but one of those states bothering to consult its electorate?]
As to what the protocol is supposed to do, protect civilians, one has to wonder. It is part of the traditional law of war that, in case of a siege, a city may have its food cut off and civilians attempting to escape may be fired upon, even killed, to drive them back to eat up the food. This is cruel to be sure, an “extreme measure” as the U.S. Army’s manual on the subject admits. Cruel or not, this was upheld in the late ‘40s in the case of United States v. Ritter von Leeb and is still up to a point good law, outside of Tranzidom. Geneva Convention IV ameliorated this harsh rule, and reasonably so, by requiring that some evacuations for particular reasons (maternity, infancy, infirmity, for example) be allowed.
The protocol, however, does not allow food to be cut off or civilians to be driven back into a besieged town to eat up whatever food is there. Naturally, one cannot permit food to enter without at the same time feeding the garrison, which will ensure for itself that it eats first. Therefore, the besieger has a choice, sit there forever which is generally impractical or take the place by assault. Now imagine what will happen to the civilians if the town is stormed, when every room receives its donation of grenade and bullet. And this is supposed to protect them? Starvation, at least, while unpleasant, offered a good chance for a besieged town to fall after a few lean days without the massacre intendant on an assault.
What then is the purpose of the additional protocol? It is to disadvantage the West, to reduce its military power, thus to reduce its sovereignty. Since being forced into existence by the Soviets the protocol has had no other purpose.
The law of war nowhere mentions the phrase “illegal combatants.” Tranzis will tell you that, therefore, there is no such thing. This is false.
There is a legal principle, a Latin expression, “Expresio unius exclusio alterius est,” the inclusion of one is the exclusion of the other. While the law of war does not mention “illegal combatants,” it goes to some length to explain what is required to be a legal combatant. If there is such a concept as legal combatancy, and rules which must be followed to attain that status, then failure to follow those rules places one in the implicit status of illegal combatant.
Those rules are four. To be a legal combatant under the original Geneva Convention, which is quite different from the additional protocol to which the United States is not a party, one must a) wear a fixed insignia recognizable at a distance, b) carry arms openly, c) be under the command of a person or chain of command responsible for your actions (much like a privateer was under a sovereign and a pirate, again, was not), and d) conduct operations in accordance with the customs and laws of war. Failure to meet any of these conditions makes one an illegal combatant.
Note, here, that individuals do not “conduct operations.” Organizations conduct operations. This implies that one is responsible for the actions of one’s organization as well as for one’s own.
Can you hear the sound of Tranzi heads exploding over that last?
They might seem to have a point. Civil law normally doesn’t permit people to be held responsible for the actions of others, right? Wrong. Look up “conspiracy.” Once someone becomes part of a conspiracy they become responsible for everything their coconspirators do. Moreover, within the law of war’s concept of reprisal, perfect innocents may be effectively responsible for what their side does. After all, what happens when a side violates the law by using a hospital, say, for an ammunition dump? The perfectly innocent and otherwise protected wounded are blasted from this world to the next in reprisal.
Equally so, within an armed force, both by “d)”, above, and under the practical effect of the doctrine of reprisal a combatant is responsible for both his own actions and those of his organization.
It works the other way, too, by the way. Note that General Yamashita was hanged not for anything he ordered or could have prevented but for things sub-elements only notionally under his command did.
What does this mean for the current war? It means that every Saudi kid, inspired to go to Iraq to fight by watching some truck driver’s head sawed of on Al Jazeera, has in civil law terms voluntarily joined a conspiracy to fight illegally and is thus an illegal combatant and that in law of war terms he is an illegal combatant even if he personally follows the rules completely. [Given US sympathies for the IRA, I wonder how many right-wing Americans of similar beliefs to Ringo and Kratman would rightfully extend these insights to those Fenian bastards?]
Those who would grant him legal combatant status, the Tranzis in other words, thus are trying to improve and enhance the effectiveness of those who would and do violate the law of war.
This is something you would expect from an enemy, right?
So what can we do? What would John and Tom like to see done?
Number One: Never forget that the Tranzi purpose is inimical to our own, that they are the enemy as much as Hitler was or al Qaeda is. They want us, as a distinct nation and people, to cease to exist. They want our constitution overthrown or made subordinate to their law, which amounts to the same thing. They want our military made subordinate to their judges, so that it can be undermined and made unable or unwilling to defend us. They want us to lose our wars. [Mission now accomplished in Europe, and of course legislation and precedent in place now for a European Army that will be almost totally useless, and lack the political backing, to do and accomplish anything.]
Number Two: Remembering that the Tranzis are the enemy, give them no aid, no money, no support. Do not give them a foothold into the armed forces and if such foothold exists (say, in the form of an institute devoted to peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance) close it down. Audit the Tranzis’ books; they’re as corrupt as imaginable and could not well stand auditing. They tend to lie, especially to raise money. Require that their charitable activities advertise truthfully and punish them when they do not. Jail a few of the bastards. On second thought, jail a lot of the bastards. Remove their tax exempt status on the first whiff of impropriety. When the ultimate Tranzi organization, the UN, cheats the Iraqi people and hides the details of the thefts, withhold the funds otherwise due to the UN and pay it to the Iraqis instead . . . with no chance of ever making good to the UN any such amounts withheld and given. [The EU accounts have never been audited, even though there was a staggering level of public angst at a mere £33 million in UK MP expense claims. The EU would dwarf this figure in waste, graft and corruption.]
Number Three: Did you know that the United States has what amounts to a conditional declaration of war in place should anyone have the gall to grab one of our soldiers to turn over to the ICC or some other Tranzi court? It’s called the American Servicemembers Protection Act and it passed unanimously in the Senate. (Sometimes your country just makes you proud.) We should look for an opportunity to exercise that law . . . and sometime soon. Spain might be a good place to start. [Belgium first please]
Number Four: Even when we have them on the ropes do not let up. Finish them off. Make the Tranzi organizations extinct and the parasites who live off of them spend the remainder of their days poor and hungry. Do not weep for the Tranzis.
Number Five: Don’t, don’t, DON’T give up hope. The Tranzis are not going to win. Their center of gravity, Europe, is dying to demographics. Within the United States and with our own Tranzis much the same thing is happening regionally and subculturally. The prize Tranzi projects, the UN and EU, are staggering under a burden of incompetence, ineffectuality and corruption. Moreover, say what you will about Muslim extremists, they’re still damned good at demonstrating to the world outside of Europe what happens when you let the Tranzis take over. [The UN is becoming less influential, the EU is the true hub of Tranzi power now, and is looking more robust than ever before… until someone secedes – I hope it’s the UK.]
By the way, Tom and John intend to fight the bastards all the way [Me too, as far as I can. I refuse to accept that the Tranzi superstate EU is the only option for the UK. If, as many assert, we need to attach ourselves to a larger power to retain any influence at all, then bollocks to the EU and lets join NAFTA. Or the Cairns Group. Or some sort of English-speaking sphere of influence. Or a more closely linked Commonwealth. Hell, I would sooner see these Islands became states of the United States than see them become provincial backwaters of an EU Empire.]
Now, given my staunch anti-international beliefs, my antagonism towards the EU and the UN, my issues with the ECHR, and my rampant pro-American and pro-Israel points of view, it should be no surprise that I loved the afterword, an abridged version of which is below. I hasten to add that I did not agree 100% with all of it, but I did agree with enough to think it was well worth posting. I have also added a few of my own comments to it as it goes - they are in bold and in squared brackets. I also think its worth reminding people of the dangers of a dangerous appeasing maniac like Obama allowing the US to fall into the Tranzi trap...
*******
So, yes, they’re [the Panamanians] a tough and a brave people, well within the western military tradition, and properly armed and trained they can fight.
Of course, the western military tradition, outside of the U.S. and U.K. [an arguable assertion in 2009, but the book was written in 2007], isn’t what it used to be. Oh, the formations are still there, some of them. The weapons are, if anything, better than ever. Even the men and women, too, of course still have much of what made the West great inside them.
Unfortunately, the West itself has largely fallen under the control of civilizational Dr. Kevorkians. Some call them “Tranzis.”
“Tranzi” is short for “Transnational Progressive” or “Transnational Progressivism.” For a more complete account of their program, look up John O’Sullivan’s Gulliver’s Travails or some of what Steven Den Beste has written on the subject. You might, dear reader, also look at John Fonte’s The Ideological War within the West. Lastly, for purposes of this little essay, look up Lee Harris’ The Intellectual Origins of America Bashing. These should give you a good grounding in Tranzism: its motives, goals and operating techniques. All can be found online.
For now, suffice to say that Tranzism is the successor ideology to failed and discredited Marxist-Leninism. Many of the most prominent Tranzis are, in fact, “former” members of various communist parties, especially European communist parties. These have taken the failure of the Soviet Union personally and hard, and, brother, are they bitter about it.
Nonetheless, our purpose here is not to write up “Tranzism 101.” It is to illustrate the Tranzi approach to the laws of war.
That’s right, boys and girls. Pull up a chair. Grab a stool. Cop a squat. Light ‘em if you’ve got ‘em. (If not, bum ‘em off Ringo; Kratman’s fresh out.)
It’s lecture time.
(WARNING! Authorial editorial follows. If you just
adore the International Criminal Court, then read
further at your own risk. You have been warned.)
One of the difficult things about analyzing Tranzis and their works is that they are not a conspiracy. What they are is a consensus. Don’t be contemptuous; civilization is nothing more than a consensus. So is barbarism. Moreover, the Tranzis are a fairly cohesive consensus, especially on certain ultimate core issues. Nonetheless, if you are looking for absolute logical consistency on the part of Tranzis you will search in vain.
On the other hand, at the highest level, the ultimate Tranzi goal, there is complete agreement. They want an end to national sovereignty and they want global governance by an unelected, self-chosen “elite.” Much of what they say and do will make no sense, even in Tranzi terms, unless that is borne in mind.
Below that ultimate level one cannot expect tactical logical consistency. Things are neither good nor bad, true nor false, except insofar as they support the ultimate Tranzi goal.
For example, if one were to ask a Tranzi, and especially a female and feminist Tranzi, about the propriety of men having any say over a woman’s right to an abortion the Tranzi would probably be scandalized. After all, men don’t even have babies. They know nothing about the subject from the inside, so to speak. Why should they have any say?
Nonetheless, that same Tranzi, if asked whether international lawyers and judges, and humanitarian activist nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, should have the final say in the laws of war, would certainly approve. This is true despite the fact that the next lawyer, judge or NGO that understands as much about war as a man understands about childbirth will likely be the first.
Why do we say they know nothing about the subject? By their works shall you know them.
The International Criminal Court is, after the UN and European Union, the next most significant Tranzi project (Kyoto being dead on arrival) [wait for Copenhagen and the EU is going full steam ahead] and arguably the most significant with regard to the laws of war. A majority, if a bare one, of the world’s sovereign states have signed onto it while about half have ratified it.
The ICC claims jurisdiction over all the crimes mentioned in its founding statute, irrespective of who committed them, where they were committed, or whether the “crimes” are actually criminal under the traditional and customary law of war. This is called “universal jurisdiction.”
Universal jurisdiction, as a concept, has a number of flaws. Among these are that it has zero valid legal precedence behind it.
Zero precedence? Tranzis will cite at least two precedents. One of these is the jurisdiction exercised from times immemorial by any sovereign power over pirates at sea, when any were caught. The other is Nuremberg. These are flawed. In the case of Nuremberg, the jurisdiction exercised was not “universal” but national jurisdiction of the coalition of the victors over a Germany whose sovereignty had been temporarily extinguished by crushing defeat in war.
The piracy precedent as applied to modern notions of universal jurisdiction doesn’t stand close scrutiny any better. The Tranzis claim that universal jurisdiction was exercised over piracy because piracy was, in its conduct and effect, so ghastly. This is wrong on both counts. In the first place, pirates were not necessarily subject to universal jurisdiction except insofar as they were caught where national jurisdiction did not run; typically at sea, in other words. Moreover, alongside piracy there existed privateering. In their conduct the two were often enough indistinguishable. In other words, however “ghastly” privateering may have been and the former residents of Portobello and Panama City could have told one it could be ghastly, indeed it was still not subject to universal jurisdiction. No matter that piracy was no worse than privateering, it was so subject. The difference was that sovereign powers, nation-states in other words, exercised sovereign jurisdiction over privateers, were responsible for their actions, and punished them at need, while they did not and could not with pirates. It was the lack of sovereign jurisdiction, both as to their persons and as to the locus of their crimes, that left pirates open to universal jurisdiction and not any supposed “ghastliness” of those crimes.
Along with the lack of valid legal precedence, the ICC and universal jurisdiction suffer other flaws. Recall, dear reader, the lack of Tranzi logical consistency on the questions posed above about abortion and the laws of war.
Anti-imperialism is yet another Tranzi tactical cause. But what is imperialism beyond one or several states or people using force or color of law to make rules for another or other state or people? And what is the ICC, using all the staggering moral and military power of . . . oh . . . Fiji . . . France . . . West Fuckistan . . . but the attempt at enforcing rules made by one group of states upon others? It’s imperialism, in other words.
Of course, imperialism in the service of a higher cause the raising of unelected, self-styled, global elites to power, for example is praiseworthy, in Tranzi terms.
Nothing deterred, the Tranzis claim that Tranzi courts, to include notionally national Tranzi courts like those of Spain, have universal jurisdiction. Why?
Tranzis hate national sovereignty. It cramps their style. It interferes with their program. It’s aesthetically unappealing. [Sound like the EU to anyone?]
Their goal is the destruction of national sovereignty. The right of a people to democratically make their own laws, to govern themselves, is anathema to Tranzi goals and dreams. When they say “global governance,” boys and girls, they mean it. They really intend that unelected bureaucrats and judges, and self-selected elites ought be able to tell you what to do, how to live, what to pay in taxes, what rights you are not entitled to. [EU? Is this making sense to you yet?]
Sovereignty stands in the way. The ultimate expression of sovereignty is a nation’s and people’s armed forces. No army; no ability to defend one’s own laws and way of life; no sovereignty. [I would argue that it is the ability to legislate your own laws, including those governing military activity, but that’s somantics.]
But how to do away with sovereign control of national armed forces? It’s a toughie. They’ve got all these guns and shit, while the poor Tranzis have none.
“Aha! We know,” say the Tranzis. “We can control a nation’s armed forces if we can punish the soldiers and especially the officers and a nation refuses to stand up and defend them. No nation which permits a foreign court to exercise jurisdiction over its military can any longer be said to own that military. Instead, that military will be owned by the courts able to punish the leaders. Onward, into the future, comrades!”
Let them punish your soldiers and the soldiers can no longer be counted upon to defend the nation. Nor would you deserve being defended by your soldiers. Let them punish the soldiers and there is no principled distinction to prevent them punishing the President, the Legislature, even the Supreme Court. For who would defend the President, Legislature and courts once the same have let down their soldiers? Let them punish your soldiers and you deserve what you get . . . and to lose what you will lose.
It would be one thing if the ICC were something more than a misguided exercise in legalistic Tranzi mutual masturbation; if it could, in other words, be effective in limiting the horrors of war.
It cannot be effective. Ever.
This is because of the very nature of war itself. There is nothing a court can do that, in terms of punishment that deters, even begins to approach the horror men inflict on each other in war, routinely, in the course of normal and legal operations. There is nothing any court can do that can even hope to catch the interest of tired men, hungry men, men fighting for victory and their lives. No sensible court would even try.
There is some conduct which cannot be deterred. When life is at stake, the law recognizes no “no trespassing” signs. When the choice is between picking pockets at a mass hanging of pickpockets, and risking the noose, or facing slow starvation . . . well . . . at least the rope is fairly quick.
Similarly, when the choice on the battlefield is life or death, what power has some uncertain court distant in both time and space to deter anything? The simple answer is; it has none. What trivial power has the law with its trivial possible punishments to deter conduct that might save soldiers’ lives, their comrades’ and their country’s in the here and now?
Yet we can see that, however imperfectly, the customary law of war has often worked even without any such body as the ICC and without Spain’s recent disgusting, illegal, morally putrescent attempt at exercising sovereignty over American soldiers. It has worked imperfectly, to be sure. Yet it has worked often enough . . . indeed, within western war it has worked more often than not.
Where the laws of war have worked to mitigate the horror and protect innocent life they have, by and large, done so when the combatants were of the same culture, shared the same values, and had what we might like to think of as a basic decency. [All concepts discounted by Tranzis and Internationalists - we are all the same right? Differences are invented and everyone is rational and cuddley and just waiting to be talked to as an equal and then they will stop blowing stuff up. Grrrr.]
That’s rarely been quite enough. It needed a little something else, some other reason to follow the rules.
The other reason was the threat and fear of reprisals.
Tranzis hate reprisals, which are war crimes in themselves but war crimes which become legal in order to punish an enemy who violates the law of war, deter him from violating it, and remove the advantages which accrue from such violations. The Tranzis don’t hate reprisals merely because they’re ugly, cause suffering of innocents, etc., though they hate them for those reasons, too. No, Tranzis hate reprisals because reprisals work to enforce the laws of war and their own silly courts fail.
Reprisals work? You’re kidding us, right?
Wrong. Why wasn’t poisonous gas used in the Second World War? The threat of reprisal. What happened when, in 1944, the Germans threatened to execute some numbers of French resistance fighters and the French Resistance, which was holding many German prisoners, answered, “We will kill one for one”? The French prisoners held by the Germans were left unharmed. Why didn’t the Southern Confederacy during the American Civil War execute the white officers of black regiments as they had passed a law to do? Because the Union credibly threatened to hang a white Southern officer for every man of theirs so mistreated. Why didn’t the United States or South Vietnam execute, generally, Viet Cong guerillas who had gravely violated the laws of war in the course of the insurgency there? Because the North Vietnamese had prisoners against whom they would have reprised had we or the South Vietnamese done so.
Reprisals work; courts and statutes do not. The law of war, because of the nature of war, must be self enforcing, through reprisals. Nothing else can work and any attempt to do away with reprisal is an indirect attack on and undermining of the law of war. [Its unsavoury and I did not like reading it, but I think they are right about reprisals]
But then, the law of war and mitigating its horrors are not really what the Tranzis are about. Undermining national sovereignty? Replacing sovereign nations with themselves? That’s what they’re about.
The Tranzis aren’t about eliminating war’s horrors? Oh, John, Oh, Tom . . . say it isn’t so.
(Interject dual sigh at the vast iniquity of mankind here.)
It’s so.
Recall that we mentioned that Tranzism is the successor philosophy to Marxist-Leninism. It should come as no great surprise, then, that one of the key pieces of Tranzi legislation on the law of war should have been sponsored and forced into existence by . . . wait for it . . . wait for it . . . THE SOVIET UNION. [EU Mark II – Mark I was the 3rd Reich, we are in Mark III now]
This key piece of Tranzi legislating on the law of war was Additional Protocol I to Geneva Convention IV. The protocol itself was shoved through by the Soviets at a time when it looked like People’s Revolutionary War (guerilla war . . . communist insurgency) would continue to be a powerful weapon to advance the cause of communism. The United States has never ratified it and, pray God, it never shall. The Russians, who forced it through, have never paid it the slightest attention, as witnessed by their conduct in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989 and, more recently, in Chechnya.
The protocol is interesting for three reasons: what it purports to do, what it actually does, and for the admittedly slick way in which it tries to do it.
The slickness is in the way the protocol is structured. It begins with a pious preamble, typically enough. That isn’t the slick part. What is clever is that it repeats much of what was already in Geneva Convention IV (GC IV), which is concerned with the protection of civilians caught up in war (as is the protocol), and then interweaves some very new things. The new things include major advantages, given gratis, to guerillas and especially communist guerillas, a broad ban on the use of what it calls “mercenaries,” one rather unreasonable restriction on the use of food as a weapon, and a subtle way of saying “It’s okay to push the Zionist beasts into the sea.”
Then, when a nation refuses to ratify the additional protocol for any of the at least five really good reasons not to do so, it stands accused of anything from being in favor of mass rape to forced medical experiments a la Josef Mengele. Never mind that all that is prohibited by the original GC IV and that the additional protocol adds nothing of importance. “You refuse to ratify the additional protocol? You Nazi bastards!”
Are these guys slick or what? [This is nothing. How about ramming a “treaty” through the legislatures of 27 sovereign states which effectively removes their sovereignty in perpetuity without all but one of those states bothering to consult its electorate?]
As to what the protocol is supposed to do, protect civilians, one has to wonder. It is part of the traditional law of war that, in case of a siege, a city may have its food cut off and civilians attempting to escape may be fired upon, even killed, to drive them back to eat up the food. This is cruel to be sure, an “extreme measure” as the U.S. Army’s manual on the subject admits. Cruel or not, this was upheld in the late ‘40s in the case of United States v. Ritter von Leeb and is still up to a point good law, outside of Tranzidom. Geneva Convention IV ameliorated this harsh rule, and reasonably so, by requiring that some evacuations for particular reasons (maternity, infancy, infirmity, for example) be allowed.
The protocol, however, does not allow food to be cut off or civilians to be driven back into a besieged town to eat up whatever food is there. Naturally, one cannot permit food to enter without at the same time feeding the garrison, which will ensure for itself that it eats first. Therefore, the besieger has a choice, sit there forever which is generally impractical or take the place by assault. Now imagine what will happen to the civilians if the town is stormed, when every room receives its donation of grenade and bullet. And this is supposed to protect them? Starvation, at least, while unpleasant, offered a good chance for a besieged town to fall after a few lean days without the massacre intendant on an assault.
What then is the purpose of the additional protocol? It is to disadvantage the West, to reduce its military power, thus to reduce its sovereignty. Since being forced into existence by the Soviets the protocol has had no other purpose.
The law of war nowhere mentions the phrase “illegal combatants.” Tranzis will tell you that, therefore, there is no such thing. This is false.
There is a legal principle, a Latin expression, “Expresio unius exclusio alterius est,” the inclusion of one is the exclusion of the other. While the law of war does not mention “illegal combatants,” it goes to some length to explain what is required to be a legal combatant. If there is such a concept as legal combatancy, and rules which must be followed to attain that status, then failure to follow those rules places one in the implicit status of illegal combatant.
Those rules are four. To be a legal combatant under the original Geneva Convention, which is quite different from the additional protocol to which the United States is not a party, one must a) wear a fixed insignia recognizable at a distance, b) carry arms openly, c) be under the command of a person or chain of command responsible for your actions (much like a privateer was under a sovereign and a pirate, again, was not), and d) conduct operations in accordance with the customs and laws of war. Failure to meet any of these conditions makes one an illegal combatant.
Note, here, that individuals do not “conduct operations.” Organizations conduct operations. This implies that one is responsible for the actions of one’s organization as well as for one’s own.
Can you hear the sound of Tranzi heads exploding over that last?
They might seem to have a point. Civil law normally doesn’t permit people to be held responsible for the actions of others, right? Wrong. Look up “conspiracy.” Once someone becomes part of a conspiracy they become responsible for everything their coconspirators do. Moreover, within the law of war’s concept of reprisal, perfect innocents may be effectively responsible for what their side does. After all, what happens when a side violates the law by using a hospital, say, for an ammunition dump? The perfectly innocent and otherwise protected wounded are blasted from this world to the next in reprisal.
Equally so, within an armed force, both by “d)”, above, and under the practical effect of the doctrine of reprisal a combatant is responsible for both his own actions and those of his organization.
It works the other way, too, by the way. Note that General Yamashita was hanged not for anything he ordered or could have prevented but for things sub-elements only notionally under his command did.
What does this mean for the current war? It means that every Saudi kid, inspired to go to Iraq to fight by watching some truck driver’s head sawed of on Al Jazeera, has in civil law terms voluntarily joined a conspiracy to fight illegally and is thus an illegal combatant and that in law of war terms he is an illegal combatant even if he personally follows the rules completely. [Given US sympathies for the IRA, I wonder how many right-wing Americans of similar beliefs to Ringo and Kratman would rightfully extend these insights to those Fenian bastards?]
Those who would grant him legal combatant status, the Tranzis in other words, thus are trying to improve and enhance the effectiveness of those who would and do violate the law of war.
This is something you would expect from an enemy, right?
So what can we do? What would John and Tom like to see done?
Number One: Never forget that the Tranzi purpose is inimical to our own, that they are the enemy as much as Hitler was or al Qaeda is. They want us, as a distinct nation and people, to cease to exist. They want our constitution overthrown or made subordinate to their law, which amounts to the same thing. They want our military made subordinate to their judges, so that it can be undermined and made unable or unwilling to defend us. They want us to lose our wars. [Mission now accomplished in Europe, and of course legislation and precedent in place now for a European Army that will be almost totally useless, and lack the political backing, to do and accomplish anything.]
Number Two: Remembering that the Tranzis are the enemy, give them no aid, no money, no support. Do not give them a foothold into the armed forces and if such foothold exists (say, in the form of an institute devoted to peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance) close it down. Audit the Tranzis’ books; they’re as corrupt as imaginable and could not well stand auditing. They tend to lie, especially to raise money. Require that their charitable activities advertise truthfully and punish them when they do not. Jail a few of the bastards. On second thought, jail a lot of the bastards. Remove their tax exempt status on the first whiff of impropriety. When the ultimate Tranzi organization, the UN, cheats the Iraqi people and hides the details of the thefts, withhold the funds otherwise due to the UN and pay it to the Iraqis instead . . . with no chance of ever making good to the UN any such amounts withheld and given. [The EU accounts have never been audited, even though there was a staggering level of public angst at a mere £33 million in UK MP expense claims. The EU would dwarf this figure in waste, graft and corruption.]
Number Three: Did you know that the United States has what amounts to a conditional declaration of war in place should anyone have the gall to grab one of our soldiers to turn over to the ICC or some other Tranzi court? It’s called the American Servicemembers Protection Act and it passed unanimously in the Senate. (Sometimes your country just makes you proud.) We should look for an opportunity to exercise that law . . . and sometime soon. Spain might be a good place to start. [Belgium first please]
Number Four: Even when we have them on the ropes do not let up. Finish them off. Make the Tranzi organizations extinct and the parasites who live off of them spend the remainder of their days poor and hungry. Do not weep for the Tranzis.
Number Five: Don’t, don’t, DON’T give up hope. The Tranzis are not going to win. Their center of gravity, Europe, is dying to demographics. Within the United States and with our own Tranzis much the same thing is happening regionally and subculturally. The prize Tranzi projects, the UN and EU, are staggering under a burden of incompetence, ineffectuality and corruption. Moreover, say what you will about Muslim extremists, they’re still damned good at demonstrating to the world outside of Europe what happens when you let the Tranzis take over. [The UN is becoming less influential, the EU is the true hub of Tranzi power now, and is looking more robust than ever before… until someone secedes – I hope it’s the UK.]
By the way, Tom and John intend to fight the bastards all the way [Me too, as far as I can. I refuse to accept that the Tranzi superstate EU is the only option for the UK. If, as many assert, we need to attach ourselves to a larger power to retain any influence at all, then bollocks to the EU and lets join NAFTA. Or the Cairns Group. Or some sort of English-speaking sphere of influence. Or a more closely linked Commonwealth. Hell, I would sooner see these Islands became states of the United States than see them become provincial backwaters of an EU Empire.]
Monday, 9 November 2009
Betrayal and Treason
I actually found myself in the car on the way to Brentford yesterday filled with anger and frustration. On a day where most of us who give a toss remember the millions of people who have perished in order to preserve the sovereignty of this nation, to preserve its independence from a European Hegemony, I despaired that all that sacrifice had been in vain – a mere couple of generations since the last World War and our independence and sovereignty has been handed to a foreign, unelected power. Its like we lost the Cold War, or either of the World Wars. It is a crime, and the fact that it has been perpetrated without a popular mandate from the electorate of most of the nation states involved, but especially from the UK, deserves prosecution for treason, nothing less.Here are some links that fuelled my angst this morning…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/08/eu-general-election
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6525111/William-Hague-Tories-would-not-take-on-Europe-for-some-years.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/6521617/Restore-trust-in-the-democracy-for-which-so-many-died.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6521187/The-end-of-the-great-deception.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/08/eu-general-election
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6525111/William-Hague-Tories-would-not-take-on-Europe-for-some-years.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/6521617/Restore-trust-in-the-democracy-for-which-so-many-died.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6521187/The-end-of-the-great-deception.html
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
Shock Horror
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8339522.stm
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6900270.ece
Yep, you read it right. Cameron is going to break the pledge he made about a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, just like Labour and the Lib Dems already have. He is insane to ignore his eurosceptic voters this way – they will look elsewhere if he does not come up with a plausible solution to this abrupt U-turn.
On that note, I went to a UKIP meet and greet in Waddesdon (my home village) Monday night and met UKIP boss Nigel Farage, who is breaking tradition and convention by standing against the Speaker (and Labour puppet despite being a “Tory”) John Bercow. Farage was slightly slippery and almost annoyingly smooth and articulate – he is a politician after all, but he was not patronizing, not condenscending in any way, and when he gave his 5 minute speechette, he basically said everything I have been harping on about for the last few weeks to all of you poor people (my family are growing politics callouses I think. That or learning to ignore me). When speaking one to one he was polite and engaging.
The long and the short of it was that my support for UKIP is solidified, I have confidence in Nigel Farage to make the euroscpetic point well, and I still entertain fantasies about 2 or 3 UKIP MPs being returned next May to act as a focal point of Euroscepticism in Westminster, and hopefully attract defectors from the Tories once they have the legitimacy of sitting MPs. A pipe dream probably, but I do not count my vote as “wasted” if there is even a chance that the point gets through to the Tories.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/11/its-over.html
Seems like 1st December is the date that the Treaty will become law. The time for a referendum on it will pass too. The only referendum possible from now on is a basic decision – provincial existence that will see any semblance of sovereignty and independence disappear bit by bit until we are literally a mere province of an EU empire run by the Franco-German-Benelux claque, or dramatic re-evaluation of our membership in the EU at all and a withdrawal from the political union and membership once again in the EFTA instead. Those are the only two choices. To me the choice is clear. I just wish we had a prime minister in waiting with the moral substance to make the choice that the majority of the people in this country want him to. Sadly, we do not.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6900270.ece
Yep, you read it right. Cameron is going to break the pledge he made about a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, just like Labour and the Lib Dems already have. He is insane to ignore his eurosceptic voters this way – they will look elsewhere if he does not come up with a plausible solution to this abrupt U-turn.
On that note, I went to a UKIP meet and greet in Waddesdon (my home village) Monday night and met UKIP boss Nigel Farage, who is breaking tradition and convention by standing against the Speaker (and Labour puppet despite being a “Tory”) John Bercow. Farage was slightly slippery and almost annoyingly smooth and articulate – he is a politician after all, but he was not patronizing, not condenscending in any way, and when he gave his 5 minute speechette, he basically said everything I have been harping on about for the last few weeks to all of you poor people (my family are growing politics callouses I think. That or learning to ignore me). When speaking one to one he was polite and engaging.
The long and the short of it was that my support for UKIP is solidified, I have confidence in Nigel Farage to make the euroscpetic point well, and I still entertain fantasies about 2 or 3 UKIP MPs being returned next May to act as a focal point of Euroscepticism in Westminster, and hopefully attract defectors from the Tories once they have the legitimacy of sitting MPs. A pipe dream probably, but I do not count my vote as “wasted” if there is even a chance that the point gets through to the Tories.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/11/its-over.html
Seems like 1st December is the date that the Treaty will become law. The time for a referendum on it will pass too. The only referendum possible from now on is a basic decision – provincial existence that will see any semblance of sovereignty and independence disappear bit by bit until we are literally a mere province of an EU empire run by the Franco-German-Benelux claque, or dramatic re-evaluation of our membership in the EU at all and a withdrawal from the political union and membership once again in the EFTA instead. Those are the only two choices. To me the choice is clear. I just wish we had a prime minister in waiting with the moral substance to make the choice that the majority of the people in this country want him to. Sadly, we do not.
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