Posts Tagged ‘terrorist’
My MP, Richard Drax, Responds On Israel And I Challenge Him Again.
Richard Drax MP
—– Original Message —–
From: DRAX, Richard
To: Peter Reynolds
Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2014 5:33 PM
Subject: Israel
Dear Mr Reynolds,
I write following your most recent further emails regarding Israel’s recent actions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs).
It is indeed tragic that so many innocent civilians, including women and children, have been killed and injured. Ministers have made clear to all parties at every opportunity that the current situation is in no one’s interest, and is harmful to prospects for the Middle East Peace Process. We now have a 72 hour ceasefire. The Government’s objective is to make that permanent so the killing stops.
It is vital that all security operations are conducted with due care and proportionate use of force. There are hundreds of thousands of extremely vulnerable civilians in Gaza who bear no responsibility for the rocket fire and are suffering acutely from this crisis; and the Israeli defence forces estimate that 5 million Israeli civilians live within range of rockets fired from Gaza. Israel has a right to defend itself against indiscriminate rocket attacks, but it is vital that Gaza’s civilian population is protected. International humanitarian law requires both sides to distinguish between military and civilian targets and enable unhindered humanitarian access.
The UK is working with international partners to achieve three important goals. Firstly, Ministers will push for a lasting and durable ceasefire agreed by both sides that ends both the rocket fire and the Israeli operations against Gaza. This will require cooperation from all parties in Israel and the OPTs, as well as assistance from regional partners.
Secondly, the Government has committed to do all it can to help alleviate humanitarian suffering in Gaza. Given the rapidly deteriorating situation in Gaza, the International Development Secretary has decided to make more than £15 million available in emergency support including health care, clean water, blankets and cooking equipment to help the people affected by the violence in Gaza. This includes £6 million in new funding to help the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) provide immediate emergency assistance for over 100,000 people who are seeking shelter in their schools. DFID is also bringing forward £3 million in funding to help the International Committee of the Red Cross respond to the worsening situation and is spending £200,000 to repair UNRWA schools that are being used as shelters.
Finally, it is again important to re-iterate that a negotiated two-state solution remains the only way to resolve the conflict once and for all and to achieve a sustainable peace so that Israeli and Palestinian families can live without fear of violence. No other option exists which guarantees peace and security for both peoples. I can assure you the UK will work with all parties to make progress towards this goal.
I do not believe that imposing sanctions on Israel would be a constructive step. The UK has a productive relationship with Israel which enables us to express our views at senior levels very frankly. It is the Government’s assessment that imposing sanctions on Israel would lessen this influence, not increase it, and would not promote the urgent progress towards a two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which we want to see. However, I am appalled at reports of further civilian casualties in the vicinity of a UN-run school housing Palestinians displaced by the Gaza conflict in Rafah. The facts are not yet clear, but it is tragic that there are further losses of life in a place which is being used as a shelter. The UN is absolutely right to speak out.
Yours sincerely
Richard Drax MP
—– Original Message —–
From: Peter Reynolds
To: DRAX, Richard
Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2014 4:16 PM
Subject: Re: Israel
Dear Richard,
Thank you for your reply.
You do an excellent job of presenting the government’s position. Forgive me for reminding you but you do not represent the government, you represent the people of South Dorset. I am sure we, like the majority of the UK, are horrified at the government’s inaction and acquiescence to Israeli conduct. If anything, present policy only seems to demonstrate how powerful and effective is the pro-Israel lobby. It seems to have successfully driven our government way off course from any morality and blinded it to the criminal actions of the apartheid, zionist state that is central to all the problems of the Middle East.
In sharp contrast, military and proactive humanitarian action has been launched within days in Iraq. We are told we have to prevent a “slaughter”, we have to break the “siege” in the Sinjar mountains, we must prevent “genocide”. Government ministers are wringing their hands over “brutal persecution” – the same ministers who have said nothing about Israel’s massacre of civilians in Gaza and genocide of the Palestinian people..
The hypocrisy is simply breathtaking and the cowardly, weasel words of those who call themselves our leaders are beneath contempt.
Democracy in the UK is nothing more than a sham. The BBC censors and controls the news clearly on government orders. Palestinian resistance fighters are “terrorists”, Israeli war crimes are excused and their propagandists are provided with great swathes of air time to present their arguments, unchallenged and untested while they continue to murder children with impunity.
Israel has no right to defend itself when it is acting unlawfully. It is in breach of 64 UN resolutions. Its settlements, apartheid policies and occupation of Palestinian land are unlawful. It is the rockets that are weapons of self defence.
Israel has committed repeated and heinous war crimes by targeting civilian areas and reckless attacks where it is clear there will be civilian casualties. What is Britain doing to bring these criminals to justice?
We quite clearly do not have a “productive relationship” with Israel. The kindest word that can be used to describe this claim is disingenuous. We have to draw a line. We must not permit an outlaw, renegade state, run by war criminals, to pursue its racist persecution of the Palestinian people. Israel’s fanatacism is every bit as evil as that of ISIS. indeed, if we had dealt justly with the Palestinian people and protected them against Israel, the West would not now be facing such an enraged, dangerous enemy.
Finally, there is simply no excuse at all for supplying anything to Israel that can help it to sustain its present policy. If we are still supplying arms then those concerned must be arrested immediately and brought to justice.
There is no hiding place for ministers or MPs on this Richard, no immunity against prosecution for being culpable in supporting war crimes. Please take a stand. You do not represent the government, you represent the people of South Dorset. Stand up to the corruption and cowardice in Whitehall. Resign if our government will not pursue a moral path. That would gain you more support than any toeing of the party line or repeating government propaganda.
If there is concern that Israel would use its nuclear weapons if challenged, then please have the decency to say so.
Yours sincerely,
Peter Reynolds
I’m Not A Conspiracy Theorist But…
If I had just executed a dramatic terrorist attack for maximum media impact I would not go out holding up 7-11 stores.
If I was photographed exiting the boat I was hiding in, apparently unarmed, why am I now in critical condition in hospital.
Why has it taken an operation on such an outlandish scale to deal with two pretty dumb teenagers?
Something isn’t right.
“War On Drugs Has Failed, Say Former Heads Of MI5, CPS And BBC”, The Daily Telegraph, 21st March 2011
The “war on drugs” has failed and should be abandoned in favour of evidence-based policies that treat addiction as a health problem, according to prominent public figures including former heads of MI5 and the Crown Prosecution Service.
Drug availability and use has increased with up to 250 million people worldwide using narcotics such as cannabis, cocaine and heroin
Leading peers – including prominent Tories – say that despite governments worldwide drawing up tough laws against dealers and users over the past 50 years, illegal drugs have become more accessible.
Vast amounts of money have been wasted on unsuccessful crackdowns, while criminals have made fortunes importing drugs into this country.
The increasing use of the most harmful drugs such as heroin has also led to “enormous health problems”, according to the group.
The MPs and members of the House of Lords, who have formed a new All-Party Parliamentary Group on Drug Policy Reform, are calling for new policies to be drawn up on the basis of scientific evidence.
It could lead to calls for the British government to decriminalise drugs, or at least for the police and Crown Prosecution Service not to jail people for possession of small amounts of banned substances.
Their intervention could receive a sympathetic audience in Whitehall, where ministers and civil servants are trying to cut the numbers and cost of the prison population. The Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke, has already announced plans to help offenders kick drug habits rather than keeping them behind bars.
The former Labour government changed its mind repeatedly on the risks posed by cannabis use and was criticised for sacking its chief drug adviser, Prof David Nutt, when he claimed that ecstasy and LSD were less dangerous than alcohol.
The chairman of the new group, Baroness Meacher – who is also chairman of an NHS trust – told The Daily Telegraph: “Criminalising drug users has been an expensive catastrophe for individuals and communities.
“In the UK the time has come for a review of our 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act. I call on our Government to heed the advice of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime that drug addiction should be recognised as a health problem and not punished.
“We have the example of other countries to follow. The best is Portugal which has decriminalised drug use for 10 years. Portugal still has one of the lowest drug addiction rates in Europe, the trend of young people’s drug addiction is falling in Portugal against an upward trend in the surrounding countries, and the Portuguese prison population has fallen over time.”
Lord Lawson, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1983 and 1989, said: “I have no doubt that the present policy is a disaster.
“This is an important issue, which I have thought about for many years. But I still don’t know what the right answer is – I have joined the APPG in the hope that it may help us to find the right answer.”
Other high-profile figures in the group include Baroness Manningham-Buller, who served as Director General of MI5, the security service, between 2002 and 2007; Lord Birt, the former Director-General of the BBC who went on to become a “blue-sky thinker” for Tony Blair; Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, until recently the Director of Public Prosecutions; and Lord Walton of Detchant, a former president of the British Medical Association and the General Medical Council.
Current MPs on the group include Peter Bottomley, who served as a junior minister under Margaret Thatcher; Mike Weatherley, the newly elected Tory MP for Hove and Portslade; and Julian Huppert, the Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge.
The group’s formation coincides with the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which paved the way for a war on drugs by describing addiction as a “serious evil”, attempting to limit production for medicinal and scientific uses only, and coordinating international action against traffickers.
The peers and MPs say that despite governments “pouring vast resources” into the attempt to control drug markets, availability and use has increased, with up to 250 million people worldwide using narcotics such as cannabis, cocaine and heroin in 2008.
By Martin Beckford, Health Correspondent
They believe the trade in illegal drugs makes more than £200 billion a year for criminals and terrorists, as well as destabilising entire nations such as Afghanistan and Mexico.
As a result, the all-party group is working with the Beckley Foundation, a charitable trust, to review current policies and scientific evidence in order to draw up proposed new ways to deal with the problem.
The LCA Leadership Election
The ballot papers have been mailed to members today. The candidates are Stuart Warwick and myself. Voting closes a week today. The result will be announced shortly afterwards.
Peter Reynolds
Dear LCA member,
I am seeking election as leader of the Legalise Cannabis Alliance.
I have been campaigning for an end to the prohibition of cannabis for more than 30 years.
If elected, I can promise you radical change in the way that LCA goes about its business. We will launch a new campaign based around the theme: REFORM, REGULATE and REALISE.
That is REFORM the law to end prohibition, REGULATE production and supply based on facts and evidence and REALISE the huge benefits of the plant both as medicine and as a £10 billion net contribution to the economy.
This will be a tightly focused campaign aiming for the urgent availability of cannabis for those who need it as medicine and a properly regulated supply chain for the millions of British citizens who use it recreationally. That means we will take the business out of the hands of criminals, allow commercial growers to produce the plant under properly regulated conditions and permit small scale personal cultivation of up to six plants.
We will advocate sales of cannabis through licensed outlets such as tobacconists and/or coffee shops to adults only. It would remain a criminal offence to supply cannabis to under 18s. We accept that cannabis should be taxed, partly to cover the costs of the regulatory system and a health advisory service but also so that the entire country will benefit from bringing this huge market out of the black economy. Based on research by the Independent Drug Monitoring Unit and the Transform Drug Policy Foundation we estimate that with reductions in law enforcement costs and new tax revenue, there will be a net contribution of approx £10 billion to the UK exchequer.
We will not be diverted by peripheral issues such as the many uses for industrial hemp, although we will be glad to see progress in that area. We will run a campaign focused on achieving practical change, not promoting a philosophy. That means that our main concern will be to educate and influence MPs and get our message across in the media. MPs are the only people who can change the law and it is through the media that we can influence voter opinion so we will deal with them on their terms, in Westminster, in newspapers and television studios. We will bring a new professionalism to this issue and demand the attention and respect that our proposals deserve.
The prohibition of cannabis is unjust, undemocratic and immoral. Most cannabis users are reasonable, responsible and respectable people and I will demand our right to be heard and treated fairly.
I shall stand for parliament in every by-election and in the next general election on this single issue. Being realistic, we do not expect to win a seat but we will put cannabis back on the political agenda and we will be taken seriously. No longer will we allow the Daily Mail or other media to publish lies and propaganda uinchallenged. No longer will we allow prohibitionists like Debra Bell and Peter Hitchens to misinform and promote scare stories without any balance.
I want to transform the LCA into a professional, effective campaign that will achieve results. I believe that I am the right man for this job. Please vote for me. Vote to REFORM, REGULATE and REALISE.
My website at http://www.peter-reynolds.co.uk contains a wealth of information about cannabis and many articles that I have written on the subject. If you want more detailed information about me and what I stand for, that is the place to look.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Peter Reynolds
Stuart Warwick
Dear Member,
As one of the candidates seeking election for leadership of the LCA, I’ve been asked to write a short letter outlining my plans for the direction and actions I’d like to see the LCA take.
As Leader I would not seek to limit our campaign to the medical and recreational issues only (although I believe this should be our focus) but use the plethora of other applications that cannabis has in industry to gain support from as wide a demographic as possible.
I intend to campaign for legalisation, regulation & taxation.
Legalisation, done properly would remove the cannabis market from the hands of criminals and terrorists and open it up to legitimate businesses & entrepreneurs, giving the substantial profit back to society.
Regulation will help prevent dangerous contamination, ensure good quality and be more effective at keeping it out of the hands of children.
Taxation to put some of the profit back into the country – everyone benefits.
I think licensed outlets and growers is what we should be aiming to achieve. Licensing should cover not only the supply of cannabis but should also cover growing set-ups to ensure electrical and fire safety as this is a known hazard with some badly fitted installations. This would allow local growers to provide more variety in outlets, allowing users to clearly identify the strain that suits their needs the best.
Licenses should be available to cover a wide range of grow sizes to encourage both local and national business opportunities.
I think fact-based policy is a must, with genuinely unbiased research. To base policy purely on knee jerk emotional and moral arguments while ignoring scientific research is unjust and unproductive.
We know there are people in power who understand this but are forced to repeat the same prohibition mantra.
We need to let people know that if they decide to make a stand against prohibition we will be there to back them up. They will not want to make a move unless they know that when they do, they are not left hanging, We just have to give them the nod and be ready when they do.
By standing for elections, I hope to challenge not only my local MP’s and the other candidates but also policy on a national level. As leader of the LCA I hope to unite all of the voices in our community to achieve just that.
I have 2 sites that I have used to promote my ideas so far. Feel free to visit them, although there are some very early attempts on there, so quality isn’t always great, sorry.
http://www.youtube.com/user/NovictimNocrime08
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hunar-for-Prime-Minister/238421977309
Thanks for your time – , this wasn’t as easy to write as I thought it would be!
Regards
Stuart Warwick.
Politicians’ Negligent Response To The Drugs Debate
Shamefully Slandered
The Independent in its leader today, says “It is depressing how stale and weary have been the responses” to Bob Ainsworth’s initiative on drug policy reform. See here. As with all the media it has failed dismally to point out that he was supported by Peter Lilley, former deputy leader of the Tory party, Tom Brake from the LibDems and Paul Flynn from Labour.
The BBC, with appalling inaccuracy, stated that “all three main parties at Westminster remain opposed to legalisation”. See here. In fact the LibDems’ published policy is “In the longer term, seeking to put the supply of cannabis on a legal, regulated basis”. It matters little though because almost never has any political party been more irrelevant. The LibDems now command less respect than the Monster Raving Loonies.
The Most Dangerous Man In Britain
The responses of our political leaders are not just depressing, they are grossly irresponsible and negligent. James “Broken Britain” Brokenshire is the most dangerous man in Britain and will be responsible for far more death, misery and degradation in our country than any terrorist. As The Independent says, “such is the hysteria about drugs in Britain that there is no political space for a reasoned debate by those in authority.” The evidence that the war on drugs is an expensive failure is overwhelming but politicians prefer to waste money and lives rather than grasp this nettle.
The cowardly hypocrites, Cameron and his poodle, sit back while they allow Brokenshire, a preppy-faced apologist for gangsters to oppress, pillage and brutalise our fellow citizens.
Brokenshire is doing all he can to break Britain and British society.
He is a criminal of the first order.
British Justice On Trial
Thugs, Slimeballs And Grunts
At last, four of the Metropolitan Police’s Territorial Support Group are to stand in the dock charged with assault causing actual bodily harm and a jury is to decide their fate. They are PC Nigel Cowley, PC Mark Jones, PC Roderick James-Bowen and DC John Donohue.
He's Got To Go
Perhaps Keir Starmer, Director Of Public Prosecutions, thinks he will win back some credibility through this after his catastrophically bad judgement in the Ian Tomlinson case. Not a bit of it. In fact, the decision to prosecute now after a successful civil claim against these thugs, proves how negligent the original decision was. The CPS is charged to uphold the public interest by statute. It should not have to be harried to the Court reluctantly by civil action. Yet again, Keir Starmer should hang his head in shame. In fact, he should resign
These officers have already been proven on the balance of probabilities to have illegally assaulted Babar Ahmad in 2003. Last year the High Court heard that he was subject to “serious, gratuitous, prolonged, unjustified violence” and “religious abuse”. Now the criminal courts will seek to extend that proof to beyond a reasonable doubt. Meanwhile, the Met, which decided against any disciplinary action, chooses not even to suspend these proven thugs and bullies. Sir Paul Stephenson should join them in the dock. His disrespect for due process is astounding. How can he have such men under his command? The IPCC also failed in this case – yet again. In 2007, it decided to take no action against any of the officers.
Keeping Mum
Almost every day now, new horror stories of illegal, brutal or simply dumb police behaviour are revealed. This is the reward we have reaped from the massive investment and huge increase in salaries we gave to the police in the 80s. According to my contact with inside knowledge it is due to a “collapse in supervision…and an arrogance due to few cops having much other work experience”. The police service is no such thing for the average British citizen. It is a self-serving bureaucracy with an aggressive sub-culture, acting as a revenue generating workforce for the state. It is institutionalised racism, brutality, prejudice, bullying, corruption, cowardice, freemasonry, all dressed up in a jack-the-lad, paramilitary uniform. It isn’t even any good at what it does. Aside from dealing with road accidents and high-level anti-terrorism, I know of little good work done by the British police. It has become an out of control monster that avoids doing what the public wants and picks and chooses what to devote its resources to.
PC Simon Harwood
If Keir Starmer can reverse his decsion on these thugs who beat up a suspected terrorist, he can also reverse his decison on the fatal assault on Ian Tomlinson, an entirely innocent bystander. Meanwhile we await impatiently the coroner’s inquest on his death and the disciplinary hearing against PC Simon Harwood, which must be held in public in accordance with the statutory provisions.
Every time that a police officer breaks the law or exceeds his powers he breaches our trust. It is the same as a bank employee stealing from his bank. It must be punished particularly severely. This must be the standard that British police adhere to. We must never relent from calling the corrupt and incompetent to account.
We Wait For Justice
Whether a conviction is possible in this latest case, seven years after the events took place, I don’t know. On the basis of its own rules the CPS must believe a conviction is more likely than not or it wouldn’t be proceeding . Justice delayed though, is justice denied for Babar Ahmad and the policemen. This repeated and continuing incompetence by the prosecution and regulatory authorities is every bid as dangerous as the deterioration in the police. Suspicions of corruption, collusion and conspiracy are inevitable and must be answered. These are serious threats to British justice.
Keir Starmer – The Next Lord Widgery?
No Better Than A Terrorist
The scandalous decision not to prosecute PC Simon Harwood over the death of Ian Tomlinson is reverberating right across the world.
British justice has become a laughing stock and our proud history of freedom, liberty and fairness is heaped with derision – and deservedly so
When the establishment needs to dissemble and misinform it calls on its tame lawyers and paper tiger figureheads. Keir Starmer, the DPP, is clearly angling for his peerage and his place on the government roster of professional liars, deceivers and propagandists.
In 1972, when British soldiers murdered protestors on the streets of Londonderry, they wheeled out Lord Widgery who produced a report of such crass dishonesty and fundamental deception that it took a further enquiry lasting 12 years and costing £200 million to expose it as nonsense.
When millions across the world have witnessed the unprovoked assault from behind on Ian Tomlinson, they have wheeled out Keir Starmer, another tame QC, to demonstrate a complete absence of integrity and deliver a deeply corrupt, manipulative and unforgivable decision not to prosecute.
In the last 50 years more than 1,000 people have died while in police custody in the UK but not a single policeman has been prosecuted.
Is it any wonder that we have pond life like Raoul Moat feted and worshipped by the underclass when they suffer under the yoke of police oppression, when they see no justice nor fairness nor hope?
The truth is that PC Simon Harwood and Raoul Moat are two peas from the same pod. Police websites, such as the notorious Inspector Gadget, reveal serving police officers’ attitudes just as perverse as those that supported the Raoul Moat Facebook page. The police are completely out of control, ineffective, mismanaged and corrupt.
It took 30 years for the Metropolitan Police to admit that one of its officers was responsible for the death of Blair Peach.
The suggestion from the extreme left is that we are being softened up and desensitised against a future where with swingeing public expenditure cuts we can expect to see riots in the streets and more police violence. I don’t buy this conspiracy theory but I am desperately worried for the future of British justice when men like Keir Starmer are in charge.
It isn’t just incompetence. It isn’t just misjudgement. There is clear intent to pervert the course of justice. He knew that the six month limit on bringing a charge of common assault was passing. He knew that the conflict between expert evidence was for a jury to determine. He knew that never was it more essential “in the public interest” for a prosecution to be brought.
Keir Starmer is every bit as dangerous to the fabric of our society as any terrorist or subversive. Look at how many lives Lord Widgery’s behaviour was responsible for. Look at how his lies prolonged the violence and fed the divisions within Northern Ireland. The same thing is happening all over again.
PC Simon Harwood, Raoul Moat, Keir Starmer. They are all the same. They are all a danger to society. They should all be behind bars.
Who Will Stand Up For Justice?
The CPS are dithering over the police murder at the G20 protest. Just like the assault on Nicola Fisher, we all saw on television the attack on Ian Tomlinson which led directly to his death. The delay in bringing charges in this matter is outrageous and already amounts to a miscarriage of justice. Justice delayed is justice denied.
Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions says he is working as quickly as he can on a careful investigation in “this difficult and complex case”. See the full story here.
This is rubbish. It is a pathetic excuse and I simply don’t believe him when he says he is having difficulty getting medical evidence. Proceed without it! The evidence is clear enough. If the accused was anyone other than a police officer he would already be behind bars.
With the Smellie acquittal, this perversion of justice at the DPP’s own hands and the Newsnight story yesterday that people arrested at the Gaza protest are being treated as terrorists, we have reached a new low point in our history.
Those politicians, civil servants, police and legal officers who have allowed these events to unfold are guilty of treason. They are destroying our country and our civilisation just as much as they could with bombs and bullets.
Channel 4 – The Air Hospital
This was magnificent television, enough surely to shock us all out of our complacency. Watch it here.
It was the story of the courageous team that flies our badly injured heroes home from Afghanistan in a C17 aircraft, converted to one large intensive care unit. Every second of this documentary is shot through with pain, heroism, trauma and the utter pointlessness of the war.
I am afraid that I don’t believe we will be any further on in Afghanistan in another year. I don’t believe that having our troops there now is making our country safer. I think it actually makes terrorist attacks more likely.
What this programme reminded me of most effectively is that every time we hear of another soldier who has lost his life, there are four or five others, horribly mutilated and facing a future which may well be worse than death.
It has been said a hundred times but we need to say it a hundred times more, every day. This is an unwinnable war, a pointless war.
Bring our boys home now!
Peter Reynolds 