Click to get your own widget

Friday, October 17, 2008

SHIRLEY WILLIAMS' LECTURE ON PRINCIPLES IN POLITICS


Last night the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow held a lecture by Baroness Shirley Williams. She spoke for an hour on Principles & Politics.

Apparently of 93 professions MPs place 93rd in public respect with estate agents & journalists respectively above. She explained how in the 18thC politics was a matter of noblesse oblige among the upper classes & thus respected & uncorrupt (I think most historians would disagree) & went on to list politicians from Wilberforce, who fought slavery, to Robin Cook, who resigned over the Iraq war, who had acted from principle.

She then proceeded to say what a principled politician of the future should stand for:

If not a global government at least global governance.
Fighting "climate change" on which politicians should not disagree because "we cannot afford to go on with Punch & Judy politics" on warming.
That "extreme differences of wealth & poverty are incompatible with democracy" (applause) I have to say that though I am pretty libertarian I do agree with this & I don't know of an economically non-damaging way out of it - currently I am prepared to put it in the back burner until we have reached close to our growth potential but do recognise that is not a solution
Proportional representation (strong applause) Again I strongly agree.

She also supported Re-nationalising railways; on Iran that it is merely trying to get respect & be treated equally by the international community & that according to the government's Joint Intelligence Committee "there is no reason to believe that it is trying to make nuclear weapons" which I found persuasive: that Sarah Palin merely represented the anti-intellectual trend in America.

Clearly we disagree on more than we agree on & in the Q & A section I asked:

"You held up Robin Cook as a man of principle. How would you respond to the fact that he, as Foreign Secretary told Parliament that it was the KLA in Kosovo, not the Serbs, who were engaged in genocide & 2 months later was bombing Serb hospitals to help them? He continued after NATO took over Kosovo & appointed the KLA as "police" providing them with new uniforms & guns & sending them out to commit atrocities. Within days they had murdered 210 unarmed civilians a few hundred yards from the British military HQ in Dragodan. They were responsible for the genocide & ethnic cleansing of 350,000 Serbs, Gypsies, Jews, Macedonians & even Christian Albanians. They were allowed to kidnap thousands, possibly 10s of thousands, of schoolgirls & sell them to western brothels. We have recently discovered that they were allowed to kidnap thousands of Serb teenagers & while they were still alive, cut them open to steal kidneys, lungs & hearts for our hospitals. How can you say politicians supporting this are "principled"?

She said "I agree with you that the KLA did such things but the Serbs committed similar atrocities"


I replied "No, as Robin Cook made clear it was always the NATO armed KLA who were engaged in genocide. Our government knew that".

She replied "No the Serbs committed atrocities - stop shaking your head - have you been to Kosovo - I was in Kosovo with Paddy Ashdown & I saw the Serbs committing atrocities."

At that point I (perfectly properly since I had had a chance to answer & it was her lecture not our debate) was refused the microphone. My very strong suspicion is that she was not in Kosovo during Yugoslav rule & that she did not see any Serb atrocities. What she may have seen is Paddy Ashdown showing her places & claiming that they had been the site of Yugoslav crimes. Since Ashdown has quite certainly already perjured himself on oath during the Milosevic show-trial that is not credible.

I have contacted Baroness Williams & should she wish to withdraw or substantiate the claim to having personally seen the Yugoslav forces committing atrocities I will certainly publish it. Let us see what much vaunted political principles amount to?

Comments:
Dear Mr Craig: Thank you for your interesting posting. One might disagree with Baroness Williams on policy, but she is a woman of honour & honesty. During that terrible war, I recall that Shirley Williams was indeed a United Nations special representative (to the former Yugoslavia) along with an American politician, Lynn Martin, former member of Congress and Bush the Father's Labour Cabinet Member; both of whom traveled to Yugo for multipartied talks and inspections... if that at all helps.
 
Thank you, it does. She will certainly in that case be willing to say whether she actually visited Kosovo or whether the multiparty talks were held in Belgrade. If the former she will be able to say what atrocities she personally saw, which can be checked against current forensic evidence. I assume in such circumstances she would have attempted to inform President Milosevic.

Since she did not give evidence against (or for) Milosevic at his "trial" my working assumption would be that she didn't. Certainly had she had such evidence it would have been her duty to do so & the "court" would certainly have been very grateful since in 4 1/2 years of "trial" they were unable to produce any actual evidence against him with the exception of Wesley Clark's calim that Milosevic had approached him at a conference & told him, for no deiscerable reason, of his alleged role in the alleged Srebrenica massacre. Clark then said, still under oath, that there had never been any link between NATO & the KLA thereby certainly perjuring himself.

My opinion is that an enormous wrong has been done to the people of Yugoslavia. Not just the Serbs but moderates of all sorts such as Fikret Abdic currently serving 20 years for the war crime of opposing al Quaeda's genocide when supporting such genocide was our policy. Moreover that this has been immensely destructive to our own democracy since, if politicians & journalists can get away with such atrocities & their censorship all our liberties hang by a thread.

If she accepts that the atrocities carried out under our rule I described happened & that Robin Cook did indeed know that the NATO armed KLA not the Yugoslavs were engaged in genocide honour & honesty would compel her to speak out.

I think the evidence not merely here but on SlobodanMilosevic.org & tenc.org & in Michael Parenti's book is clear.
 
Good morning sir.

I wrote a satire the other day sending up Baroness Williams' attempt to equate the Serbs with the KLA and her deliberate lie that she witnessed the "Serbs committing atrocities" whilst in the company of Paddy Ashdown, the proven perjurer.

You refused to publish my comment. I don't think it was offensive in any way.In fact in all modesty I think it was rather humorous.If you wish to explain why you didn't publish I would certainly like to hear it.

My e-mail address is
mick.tanzer@live.com

best regards,

Mick.
 
"I was in Kosovo with Paddy Ashdown & I saw the Serbs committing atrocities."

That's nothing.I was in Windsor Castle having a nice cup of tea in the Queen's Private Chapel on the morning of the 20th of November 1992 where I swear, out of the corner of my eye, I witnessed Slobodan Milosevic with a box of matches in one hand and a 40 gallon drum of petrol in the other hand walking around the corridors with a silly smirk on his face vowing to bring down Her Majesty's government.Suddenly Windsor Castle was ablaze. Coincidence? I think not! Never underestimate the dastardly resourcefulness of those wiley rascal Serbs. I can prove this actually happened and is definitely not a figment of my overactive imagination because of 4 highly significant reasons...

1)Paddy Ashdown and Oliver Kamm were with me at the time.


2)Paddy's credibility as a witness is beyond reproach. As an example of incontrovertible evidence of this, Oliver told me that Paddy had informed him that he "personally witnessed Milosevic's troops committing appalling atrocities in a village in Kosovo."

The curious thing was that whilst viewing these atrocities he noticed two rather strange things: the first thing was that Milosevic's troops had impossibly dark suntans even though it was only early spring in the northern hemisphere.

The second rather curious thing was that he was able to clearly see the village despite the fact that there was a rather huge mountain obstructing his view. Knowing this to be physically impossible according to the current known laws of physics including the refraction of photons of light around opaque objects, Paddy quickly took out the map of Kosovo provided to him by Her Majesty's government and was astonished to find that he was actually standing in the republic of Congo.

This astonishing revelation of where Paddy actually was standing that day went a long way in helping to explain why "Milosevic's troops" had such impossibly dark suntans.

Paddy also revealed that unbeknownst to him at the time, Her Majesty's government had secretly given him X-ray vision while he served in the Special Boat Service, which of course helped to explain how he was able to see through the large mountain obstructing his view of the village in the former republic of Congo (now universally known as "Kosovo in Albania" according to The Hague transcripts of the Milosevic 'trial').

All of the preceding information came to light when Paddy was witness for Mr. Geoffrey Nice's prosecution in the Milosevic 'trial' in The Hague with 'judges' Lord Iain Bonomy and Sir Richard May presiding for the prosecution...err, I mean bench.

Iain is an old friend of mine.As a matter of fact not only did I help him get his job as an apprentice solicitor with East Kilbride Town Council in 1968, but I also helped write his report into what he described as the "shambles" of the Scottish High Court. Asked to review the system, I helped Iain produce the now well known "damning report of inefficiency and trials constantly being postponed, adding to the grief of victims and wasting the time of professional witnesses", very similar indeed to what Iain admitted to me in private last year that we Brits helped create together with the Americans at The Hague ICTY and our handling of Milosevic's rather untimely demise during his rather lengthy 'trial'.

Hopefully we can handle Karadzic's soon to be similar demise much more effectively this time around where once again my old mate Iain is presiding for the prosecution...err, I mean bench.


3)I was also an eyewitness to Radovan Karadzic and several dozen members of the Bosnian Serb army wearing women's stockings over their heads obviously planting vials of foot and mouth disease in the Cheale Meats abattoir in Little Warley, Essex on February 19,2001 which as we all know led to the national foot and mouth outbreak in the UK.

4) I work for Her Majesty's government in an official capacity the details of which I
 
"I was in Kosovo with Paddy Ashdown & I saw the Serbs committing atrocities."

That's nothing.I was in Windsor Castle having a nice cup of tea in the Queen's Private Chapel on the morning of the 20th of November 1992 where I swear, out of the corner of my eye, I witnessed Slobodan Milosevic with a box of matches in one hand and a 40 gallon drum of petrol in the other hand walking around the corridors with a silly smirk on his face vowing to bring down Her Majesty's government.Suddenly Windsor Castle was ablaze. Coincidence? I think not! Never underestimate the dastardly resourcefulness of those wiley rascal Serbs. I can prove this actually happened and is definitely not a figment of my overactive imagination because of 4 highly significant reasons...

1)Paddy Ashdown and Oliver Kamm were with me at the time enjoying a nice hot cup of English tea.


2)Paddy's credibility as a witmess is beyond reproach. As an example of incontrovertible evidence of this, Oliver told me that Paddy had informed him that he personally witnessed Milosevic's troops "committing appalling atrocities in a far away village in Kosovo."

The curious thing was that whilst "viewing these atrocities" he noticed two rather strange things: the first thing was that Milosevic's troops had impossibly dark suntans even though it was only early spring in the northern hemisphere.

The second rather curious thing was that he was able to clearly see the far away village despite the fact that there was a rather huge mountain obstructing his view. Knowing this to be physically impossible according to the current known laws of physics including the refraction of photons of light around opaque objects, Paddy quickly took out the map of Kosovo provided to him by Her Majesty's government and was astonished to find that he was actually standing in the democratic republic of Congo.

This astonishing revelation of where Paddy actually was standing that day went a long way in helping to explain why "Milosevic's troops" had such impossibly dark suntans.

Paddy also revealed that unbeknownst to him at the time, Her Majesty's government had secretly given him X-ray vision while he served in the Special Boat Service, which of course helped to explain how he was able to see through the large mountain obstructing his view of the village in the former democratic republic of Congo (now universally known as "Kosovo in Albania" according to The Hague transcripts of the Milosevic 'trial').

All of the preceding information came to light when Paddy was witness for Mr. Geoffrey Nice's prosecution in the Milosevic 'trial' in The Hague with 'judges' Lord Iain Bonomy and Sir Richard May presiding for the prosecution...err, I mean bench.

Iain is an old friend of mine.As a matter of fact not only did I help him get his job as an apprentice solicitor with East Kilbride Town Council in 1968, but I also helped write his report into what he described as the "shambles" of the Scottish High Court. Asked to review the system, I helped Iain produce the now well known "damning report of inefficiency and trials constantly being postponed, adding to the grief of victims and wasting the time of professional witnesses", very similar indeed to what Iain admitted to me in private last year that we Brits helped create together with the Americans at The Hague ICTY and our handling of Milosevic's rather untimely demise during his rather lengthy 'trial'.Hopefully we can handle Karadzic's similar up and coming untimely demise much more effectively this time around where once again Iain is presiding for the prosecution...err, I mean bench.


3)I was also an eyewitness to Radovan Karadzic and several dozen members of the Bosnian Serb army wearing ridiculous looking women's stockings over their heads obviously planting vials of foot and mouth disease in the Cheale Meats abattoir in Little Warley, Essex on February 19,2001 which as we all know led to the national foot and mouth outbreak in the UK.

4) I work for Her Majesty's government in an official capacity the details of which I am not at liberty to divulge for reasons of national security.

Please notify Baroness Williams at your earliest convenience that I am more than happy to vouch for her personally as a character witness to her impeccable traits of honesty and honour.Thank you.
 
Thanks.
The Windsor Castle incident clearly shows that Milosevic was the aggresor & explains how it was possible for NATO to start bombing despite the fact that the NATO treaty specificly disallows any aggression.
 
Post a Comment

<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

British Blogs.