Thursday 21st December, 2006
- 21 Dec 06, 05:48 PM
How do you reconcile a hearts and minds campaign in Iraq with the killing of 24 unarmed civilians in the town of Haditha? The case has drawn comparisons with the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam war - an atrocity that prompted outrage around the world and lost American support at home. This trial could have similar ramifications for how the troops are received in Iraq - and ultimately whether their numbers are boosted or withdrawn. Also: Ethical Man on domestic wind turbines; Northwick Park drugs trial victim interview; and the British Army aide in Afghanistan accused of spying under the Official Secrets act. Plus an Oh My Newsnight video on the production of cocaine in Colombia.
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Politicians always say they "came into politics to improve the lot of their fellow man. But any "fellow man" who is bright enough can tell they are ambitious lovers of power over that f/m. Why else would they never answer a question? None of the above is about ability to take wise, pragmatic decisions or the application of integrity. We vote the wrong types into positions of power world-wide. That is the problem;
But you try to get a politician to admit it - let alone accept it!
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Viewers may wish to check for progress on the website estblished to evaluate domestic wind turbines at the Warwick Microwind Trial project -
The aim is to collect and publish objective data on performance when the systems are used by real families and homeowners.
Most importantly, it aims to discover what impact installing these systems has on awareness of energy efficiency in the households with the systems and amongst members of the local community.
Marches Energy Agency is taking a leading role in cutting carbon emissions so viewers may wish to check us out at
Robert Saunders
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This is "generic" but I think it answers your question regarding Haditha.
DOGS OF WAR
As war鈥檚 abrasion strips his fine veneer
Man鈥檚 inhumanity his ilk defines.
Bi-pedal dog, scent-primed, unleashed, packed off
he brings a licking to some wrong-tongued foe.
While back in civvy-street, his leaders rise
short-slept from tasting civilized excess
this day newborn in sinless rectitude
to move their boarded pawns with gifted guess.
In blinkered ignorance of Conqueror鈥檚 Creed
that sets them free from hypocritic bond
war leaders mire mere men in Despond鈥檚 slough;
so deep Geneva鈥檚 spires are over-topped.
Unheeding they send mortal men to war
Yet heed the call when time comes to deplore.
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The excellent interview by JP with one of the drug test victims produced some very worthwhile evidence of how the testing system fails. And does so because it is too often driven by greed, so corners are cut because money can be used to buy off victims.
The way drug companies can charge whatever they wish for new treatments corrupts the entire process.
There are good laboratory tests that could have warned (if there weren't already any warnings) that the opposite effect to that theorised might happen in humans. Those arranging the tests instead off-loaded the responsibility for deciding to go with human trials at that point by offering apparently easy money to people who (in at least that one case) thought their "youth" absolved them of full responsibility for safeguarding their own well-being, and blurred the process of informed consent by fudging the answers to legitimate questions.
And yet that testing company is still in business. Its patient advisors (perhaps doctors) still practicing. If they are doctors should they not be facing GMC fitness to practice hearings?
Sometimes, at some stage in drug trials, tests have to be done on whole, live humans, but it would seem essential that those who volunteer be screened for those who think that being "only 21" somehow protects them. There are, I would point out, many far younger than that who have medical competency and deserve that status because they have informed themselves, take no "bull", and know things ultimately come down to them watching out for their own life.
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The unremarked aspect of the US Marine murders is that when you recruit, train (and in the process brutalise), and deploy a lethal fighting force, the prime responsiblity is to ensure that they have discipline under every circumstance. That's one of the things all that "spit and polish" and marching is supposed to be about. It isn't about polite toy soldiers that fill military march-pasts, president's inspection lines, and honour guards.
It's so that, when they're out there with tax-payer-funded killing machines they do what tax-payers (and other voters) won't be ashamed of. So that they don't shoot each other, or those of allied forces. So that, if things go pear-shaped, they don't "go ape" and start killing everyone on sight.
Unfortunately the US military has a bad record on exactly those sorts of incidents, and on covering them up (I fear that in future they will make sure "dead" bodies, including of young girls, are truly dead - this case would not have made progress against army denials if that heroically brave, and composed young girl, sole survivor of her family, had not been there to give witness. It may not be a coincidence that the US military has a record of Supreme Commanders who have often used that military for purposes the tax payers (and others) would be ashamed of.
The whole pattern might not be at all coincidental. And it seems infectious. One would guess that when the US military trains forces of other countries they infect them too. One hopes that when they train "with" UK forces they aren't doing the training _of_ UK forces.
We have a single "super power" with armed forces that are armed to the teeth and insufficiently disciplined, with a Supreme commander who believes he talks directly to "god" and is entitled to do whatever he likes (such as ignoring Geneva Conventions). We're back in Roman / Biblical times. Not at all odd really that millions of voters of that country following a book written back then would re-create the system of government of back then. Happy Christmas thoughts.
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