Mr Baha Mousa, 26, was beaten to death by British troops in Iraq, this matter is not contested by the MOD and compensation of nearly three million pounds has been paid to the families of the deceased and others tortured by Tommy.In 1980, during an appeal by the Birmingham Six (who were later acquitted) Lord Denning judged that the men should be stopped from challenging legal decisions. He listed several reasons for not allowing their appeal:
Just consider the course of events if their action were to proceed to trial ... If the six men failed it would mean that much time and money and worry would have been expended by many people to no good purpose. If they won, it would mean that the police were guilty of perjury; that they were guilty of violence and threats; that the confessions were involuntary and improperly admitted in evidence; and that the convictions were erroneous. ... That was such an appalling vista that every sensible person would say, "It cannot be right that these actions should go any further." [83]
Alfred Denning was a popular if unconventional judge, some of his judgements compassionate and far-sighted, others, like the one above, damnable; the Birmingham Six, he felt, could be properly left rotting in prison if their release were to result in police malpractice being revealed; better the innocent suffer than institutional corruption be revealed.
And so it may prove with the apparent iceberg-tip 32 cases currently being brought against the Army alleging abuse, torture and rape by troops serving in Iraq. It may be that investigators are aware or find themselves being reminded that should these cases be proven then not only the long-discredited Blair invasion itself will be tarnished far beyond re-burnishing but so, too, will be the hitherto discrete, separate reputation of our armed forces.
Here in Ishmaelia, as in much of the unlicensed commentary on Ruin, we have crouched in that awkward posture of being agin the wars but sympathetic to Tommy, Kiplingising our responses; armchair generals, lambasting Hoon and Browne and Ainsworth for their manifold deficiencies, their deceit and charlatanry, their cruel careerism.
What shall we say and where shall we turn if Tommy, too, is villainous, is Godless, blood-letting Crusader, maltreating Ahmed, as though the Coldstream Guards were the Adolf Hitler Brigade of the SS?
And where should we go, in the solid world, should our name, thanks to our troops, be Torture?
We must await events but it is probably better that counsels such as those of Denning do not prevail for, despite his filthy, faux-paternalistic police statism, everybody now knows that the West Midlands Regional Crime Squad and many of the lawyers involved in the framing of the Birmingham Six were just dirty criminals - Denning predicted as much, should the Six ever gain release, in his judgement above. Convictions, however, of the true wrongdoers were deemed undesireable and no-one concerned with helping the true bombers evade capture and in securing sixteen years imprisonment for the innocent was ever punished.
We have long argued that coming after an illegal Blitzkrieg on a sovereign state the expenses scandal is small beer - if we let them away with Iraq, as we did, then sticky fingers is the very least we might expect; we have long argued that the massively tooled-up US/Israeli hegemony is the most dangerous Axiom of Evil in the world, despite the drunken fathead Fawkes sending propaganda Pizza to its child-killing Nazis. It is inevitable, I feel, that, close-quartered with Uncle Sam's crewcut, gang-raping psychobastard MommasBoys, betrayed by mincing, whoring, lickspittle criminals like Tony and Imelda Blair and directed now by a government which does not know, cannot tell right from wrong, Tommy Atkins will have, in the wost possible way, let down those who won the honours on his bloody flag. An unjust, shitty, immoral war led by thieves and fuckpigs like Campbell and Scarlett, drunken, wife beating coke-fiends and simpering ladyboys like Bush and Blair has probably dragged the regimental colours in the shit and stomped on them.
There may be some way back from Ruin but probably not, given the conduct of our elected dictatorship, of their chief constables, their heads of this and that, of skymadeupnewsandfilth and of bent financiers who, post- Thatcher, now pimp and swagger where once industry and manufacturing stood firm, given what goes on at home and given the threadbare poverty of his cassus bellus it would be little wonder if, increasingly, Tommy, abroad, joins the national shame.
And so it may prove with the apparent iceberg-tip 32 cases currently being brought against the Army alleging abuse, torture and rape by troops serving in Iraq. It may be that investigators are aware or find themselves being reminded that should these cases be proven then not only the long-discredited Blair invasion itself will be tarnished far beyond re-burnishing but so, too, will be the hitherto discrete, separate reputation of our armed forces.
Here in Ishmaelia, as in much of the unlicensed commentary on Ruin, we have crouched in that awkward posture of being agin the wars but sympathetic to Tommy, Kiplingising our responses; armchair generals, lambasting Hoon and Browne and Ainsworth for their manifold deficiencies, their deceit and charlatanry, their cruel careerism.
What shall we say and where shall we turn if Tommy, too, is villainous, is Godless, blood-letting Crusader, maltreating Ahmed, as though the Coldstream Guards were the Adolf Hitler Brigade of the SS?
And where should we go, in the solid world, should our name, thanks to our troops, be Torture?
We must await events but it is probably better that counsels such as those of Denning do not prevail for, despite his filthy, faux-paternalistic police statism, everybody now knows that the West Midlands Regional Crime Squad and many of the lawyers involved in the framing of the Birmingham Six were just dirty criminals - Denning predicted as much, should the Six ever gain release, in his judgement above. Convictions, however, of the true wrongdoers were deemed undesireable and no-one concerned with helping the true bombers evade capture and in securing sixteen years imprisonment for the innocent was ever punished.
We have long argued that coming after an illegal Blitzkrieg on a sovereign state the expenses scandal is small beer - if we let them away with Iraq, as we did, then sticky fingers is the very least we might expect; we have long argued that the massively tooled-up US/Israeli hegemony is the most dangerous Axiom of Evil in the world, despite the drunken fathead Fawkes sending propaganda Pizza to its child-killing Nazis. It is inevitable, I feel, that, close-quartered with Uncle Sam's crewcut, gang-raping psychobastard MommasBoys, betrayed by mincing, whoring, lickspittle criminals like Tony and Imelda Blair and directed now by a government which does not know, cannot tell right from wrong, Tommy Atkins will have, in the wost possible way, let down those who won the honours on his bloody flag. An unjust, shitty, immoral war led by thieves and fuckpigs like Campbell and Scarlett, drunken, wife beating coke-fiends and simpering ladyboys like Bush and Blair has probably dragged the regimental colours in the shit and stomped on them.
There may be some way back from Ruin but probably not, given the conduct of our elected dictatorship, of their chief constables, their heads of this and that, of skymadeupnewsandfilth and of bent financiers who, post- Thatcher, now pimp and swagger where once industry and manufacturing stood firm, given what goes on at home and given the threadbare poverty of his cassus bellus it would be little wonder if, increasingly, Tommy, abroad, joins the national shame.
