MH17: who is to blame?

I had planned to write about something else, but I feel compelled to write about the shooting down of the Malaysia Airlines aeroplane, but first some background.

On September 1 1983, the Soviet Union shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007.  All 269 people on board were killed.  The aeroplane had entered Soviet air space without permission, and the Soviet authorities apparently decided that is was a spy aeroplane.  The President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, called it an act of barbarism, which I won't argue with.

On July 3 1988, a ship of the United States navy - USS Vincennes - shot down Iran Air Flight 655.  All 290 people on board were killed.  The President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, did not call it an act of barbarism, and the captain of the Vincennes was never prosecuted as a war criminal. 

Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, presumably either by Ukrainian forces, or by Russian separatists in the Crimea, or else by the Russians. Let us consider the options.


This quote is from The Daily Mail:

Hours before the Malaysia Airlines plane came down, Ukrainian authorities said one of their fighter jets was shot down by an air-to-air missile from a Russian plane.

Ukrainian troops have also been fired upon by missiles from a village just across the border inside Russia.

On Monday a military transport plane was also shot down by a missile fired from Russian territory.

In other words, the Russians might be to blame, but if they did shoot down Flight MH17 then presumably they mistook it for a Ukrainian aeroplane.  I am not commenting on how likely that might be, but the Russians do not appear to have had any motive to shoot down this aeroplane except in a case of mistaken identity.

Russian separatists might also be to blame, but they too had no motive for shooting down a Korean aeroplane, and so if Russian separatists are to blame then presumably it would likewise have been a case of mistaken identity.

The Ukrainian authorities alone among the three suspects have a clear motive for shooting down Flight MH17, that being to pin the blame on the Russians.

I know what I believe.

Update: a newspaper report indicates that a rebel leader called Igor Strelkov claimed responsibility for shooting down MH17 in a Twitter post, and has posted video footage online in which he boasts about the destruction of the aeroplane.

While these reports may be genuine, they may also be a carefully orchestrated hoax.  For example, the Twitter account may not be genuine, and the video footage may relate to the previous shooting down of a Ukrainian aircraft.

I will believe that Igor Strelkov is to blame if the Russian government says so ... but will they?  Time will tell.

Another update: there is a lot of hostility towards Russia in the national press today.  I wonder how much hostility there would be towards the USA if the press believed that the USA was to blame for shooting down MH17.

Related previous posts include:
Why only three hours Mr Putin?
Vlad, get a life
Pompous claptrap from Tory veterans

A new kingdom in Africa

It appears that something akin to colonial rule may be making a return to Africa.  An American man has planted a flag in an apparently unclaimed area of land in Africa, declared it a nation, and appointed himself as its king.

The area of land in question - Bir Tawil - is uninhabited and unclaimed by either Sudan or Egypt, its two neighbours.  It is slightly larger than Buckinghamshire, and slightly smaller than County Durham.  I have made a search on the internet, and found at least one other person who claims to be the king of Bir Tawil, or at least part of it.  The difference with Jeremiah Heaton is that he appears to take his kingdom seriously, although it appears that he is not planning to surrender his American citizenship.

Then again, why should he?  Zimbabwe in the 1970s had a prime minister with a British passport, and lots of people have dual citizenship.

I have already commented before on the lawsuit brought against the British government by an Ethiopian man.  Apparently the government objects to the fact that at a time of austerity this man is able to secure legal aid to fund his lawsuit.  Maybe the evil ConDem government could explain why at a time of supposed austerity Britain can afford to use taxpayers' money to bankroll oppressive regimes in poor countries.

Zimbabwe flourished without aid in the 1970s because its government was able to make do with the country's available resources.  Somaliland has flourished for more than twenty years with little or no aid, but somehow we are expected to believe that aid is beneficial - even when it is used to enrich dictators and their families.

Another way in which we supposely help people in Africa is by donating clothes to charity banks.  On the one hand people in Africa like buying cheap clothes, but the trade in cheap imports has devastated the native textile industry.

Presumably though African countries can ban the import of cheap clothes.  If they did so, then people in those countries would have to pay more for their clothes, but there would be more jobs in textile factories.

A charity bag came through my door earlier today, and asks for clothing and bedding and so on.  I have just phoned the charity named on the bag, and was told that the bags are distributed by a private company which donates money to the charity each month in return for the use of the charity's name.

Basically, do not put your old clothes into either charity bags or clothes banks unless you want people in poor countries to be able to buy cheap clothes.  If you want people in poor countries to have jobs in textile factories, then dispose of your old clothes in another way.

As for the Kingdom of Northern Sudan, I hope that it will flourish under the benign rule of its American king.  Maybe one day he will even have some subjects to rule over.

Update: I originally used the term colonial rule in the opening sentence of this post.  I have since amended it to something akin to colonial rule, as I have become aware that Mr Heaton has explained why his kingship should not be regarded as colonialism.

Related previous posts include:
The lawsuit of Mr O
Patriots are not to blame for malaria
Mandela was a communist thug
Mariah Carey is not sorry

The Church of England, race, and paedophiles

The House of Bishops of the Church of England have voted to make membership or support of the British National Party (BNP) or National Front (NF) a potential disciplinary offence for its clergy.  This vote was taken some time ago, but I believe that it has only just come into effect.


The Church's hostility to the BNP and the National Front appears to have something to do with the vague concept of racial equality.  If races are equal, then perhaps they would like to explain why native Americans never constructed a dam across the Colorado River, despite having North America to themselves for hundreds or perhaps thousands of years.

We sometimes hear it said that there is only one race, being the human race, but that is grossly misleading.  There is one humankind, but there are races, and The Bible appears not only to confirm this, but also to undermine the concept of racial equality.

So far as I can make out, the Church of England has never supported its views on racial equaliy with reference to The Bible, but I have just conducted an online search.  The word racial does not appear at all in the popular New International Version of The Bible, but the word race does appear, and I quote two example below:

Genesis chapter 6 verse 5 refers to humankind as the human race.

Ezra chapter 9 verse 2 refers to the Israelites as a holy race, and this is from a chapter which is scornful of miscegenation.

These two verses contradict one another.  If there is a human race, then logically there cannot be one particular race among them which is expected not to marry with other races. As it happens, I have checked both passages in another translation, and neither passage contains the word race in that translation.

There are many other issues I could raise here, but to save time I will concentrate on just one - paedophilia.  It is reported today that a close friend of Margaret Thatcher was a paedophile, and this does not surprise me at all.

It is now widely known that the Labour Party has historic links to the Paedophile Information Exchange, although Margaret Thatcher apparently never took any action about it when she was Prime Minister.

She also took no action against the Liberal MP Cyril Smith.  This quote is from Wikipedia:

In May 1979 [the month in which Mrs Thatcher became Prime Minister], a local underground magazine, the Rochdale Alternative Press, alleged that in the 1960s Smith had spanked and sexually abused teenage boys in a hostel he co-founded. The matter was investigated by the police but Smith was not prosecuted. ... Smith never publicly denied the accusations of abuse, nor did he ever take legal action.

Does the Church of England allow its clerics to be members of either the Labour Party or the Conservative Party?  Has the Church of England ever publicly condemned either the Labour Party or the Conservative Party for their cowardice in the face of child abuse?

Maybe one of their bishops would like to comment.

Update: the issue of sexual perversion in the political establishment continues to be reported:

Police ignored victims of the rich and famous
Pervert speaker
Underage boys at Tory conference

Related previous posts include:
Christians could do more
Black violence: a black woman speaks out
Are you a racist?
Racism at the movies

BBC bias: criminal law and global warming

The BBC has recently been the subject of two negative reports in the national press.  The first concerns a drama about what is known as the joint entreprise law.  This law allows for more than one person to be convicted of a murder which only one of them could have committed, and is useful in a situation where a murder is committed by a gang.

I have not watched the drama in full, and so I will admit that what follows may not be entirely correct.  A teenage boy called Johnjo drives his friends away from the scene of a fatal stabbing.  He is arrested, and it is made clear to him that he could perhaps be convicted of murder using the joint entreprise law.  He avoids this fate by pleading guilty to a lesser charge, and thereby ends up in prison for a crime he did not commit.

According to a press report, the programme attracted the following negative comment:

The BBC's Royal Charter states the the corporation exists to serve the public interest. It is not in the public interest to broadcast a drama with such obvious political motivations that do not educate, but instead try to rubbish a law that has helped put many violent criminals behind bars.

I am not an expert on criminal law, but it appears from the ending of the drama that there may in fact be some instances of where the joint entreprise law has led to unjust convictions.  If that is true however, then maybe it would have made more sense for the BBC to broadcast a documentary about those specific cases, rather than try to entertain us with an imaginary case.

Nevertheless, I am not convinced that it was wrong of the BBC to draw public attention to a controversial area of criminal law.

The other news report concerns global warming, and contains the following quote from the evil former government minister Nigel Lawson:

The fact is that, on this issue, the BBC has its own party line (indistinguishable from that of the Green Party) which it imposes with quasi-Stalinist thoroughness. 

The one occasion, last February, on which it permitted a balanced and civilised discussion is now seen by the Corporation as a colossal error for which it must grovel and undertake never to repeat.

This amounts to a policy of outright political censorship.

I will not comment further on this right now, but intend to do so at a later date.  The full essay by Lord Lawson can be read here.

Related previous posts include:
The archbishop speaks out

A stupid fuss over immigrant abortions

As a result of open door immigration, large numbers of women in Britain have a cultural dislike of giving birth to daughters.  Not surprisingly, this has led to a rise in gender-selective abortions.

Of course a lot of people in Britain do not have a cultural dislike of daughters, and many of them find gender-selective abortions distasteful.  Nevertheless they are happening and cannot easily be stopped.  Don't believe me?

The government said recently that gender-selective abortions are illegal, but it is reported that the the British Pregnancy Advisory Service has published a pamphlet which claims the exact opposite.  Now consider this quote from another national newspaper:

In Britain abortions are legal only where the mother’s physical or mental health would be risked by continuing the pregnancy, or where the child would suffer ‘seriously’ with physical or mental abnormalities if born.

This means the Abortion Act 1967 technically bans abortions on the grounds of the baby’s sex alone.

So let's get this straight.  If an immigrant woman asks to be referred for an abortion on the grounds of gender-selection, then she will apparently be turned down.  However if she then asks to be referred for an abortion on the grounds that her mental health would otherwise be at risk, then she will be allowed her abortion.

The plain fact is that abortion is available on demand in this country.  Any woman can claim to be at psychological risk, and there is no objective test that her doctor or anyone else is required to carry out in order to assess whether or not she really is at psychological risk.  In fact the government has recently stated that a woman seeking an abortion is not even required to meet either of the two doctors who refer her for an abortion.

In other words the ongoing debate on gender-selective abortion is pointless.

As an aside, it appears that almost ten percent of couples in this country are mixed race.  Nevertheless more than ninety percent are not.  Surely gender-selective abortions among certain immigrant groups are likely to result in a large number of young men from those immigrant groups being celibate for life, and either living their entire lives as virgins or else having sex only with prostitutes.

Let's be honest.  There are only two ways in which to stop gender-selective abortions from happening.  One is to amend the abortion laws so to preclude abortion on demand.  The other is to change the cultural values of the immigrant women who dislike giving birth to daughters.

I repeat: gender-selective abortions cannot easily be stopped.

Update:  an abortionist called Dr Rajmohan has been suspended for three months for persuading a woman who wanted a gender-selective abortion to ask for an abortion for another reason.  It appears that his offence was dishonesty.

Related previous posts include:

How immigration changes countries

I believe in the moral mandate

The word mandate derives from the Latin word mandatum, and has several meanings, but is commonly used in politics in the context of the electoral mandate.  A basic rule of democracy is that when you win an election to public office, then the electorate has given you a mandate to serve in that office for an allocated period of time.

I believe in democracy, and yet I am aware that the concept of the electoral mandate is open to abuse.  In fact it is very rarely not abused.  What we need is for people to recognise the need for a moral mandate.

Following a general election the winning party forms a government.  The members of that government should then move fast to ensure that between them they address the needs of the country.  Unemployment must fall, as must crime.  Standards in schools should rise, and so on.

If they realise after a year or two in government that they are not delivering, then they should abandon power, and let the public choose another ruling party in a general election.  Sadly this never happens.  Either our rulers do not realise that they are not delivering the policies that the country needs, in which case they are too stupid to be in power; or else they are too obsessed with their own self-importance to care, in which case they are immoral and should not be in power.

Has there ever been an example of the moral mandate in British politics?  The best I can think of is that Oswald Mosley quit as a minister in the Labour government of 1929 to 1931, apparently on the grounds that it was not taking the action necessary to bring down unemployment.

While this can be seen as a noble act on his part, it could also be construed as preening petulance.  Mosley had written an employment policy document, and was frustrated when it was ignored.  He did however resign from the Labour Party, to which he never returned.

There are other instances of government ministers resigning from office, such as Peter Carrington resigning as Foreign Secretary in 1982 over his failure to foresee the Falklands War.  However he did not resign from the Conservative Party, and so his resignation can be seen as an attempt to deflect criticism from the government as a whole.

Despite his failure in high office, Peter Carrington was happy to return to high office just two years later - as Secretary General of NATO.

Also there is nothing remotely honourable in a politician defecting from one mainstream party to another.  It is merely exchanging one form of oppression for another.

I urge all readers of this site never to vote in elections for any government which has failed to move fast to address the needs of the country.  This is not merely a matter of morality, but possibly also of self interest.  If you allow bad politicians to remain in power, then you could be the next victim of their wickedness.

Related previous posts include:
What is an Act of Attainder?

Spending cuts: will you take a stand?

A national newspaper is reporting on the impact of cuts to the police budget in one of our larger cities, and a few weeks ago there was a letter in my local newspaper which inveighed against cuts to the armed forces budget.

For many years now - in fact for many decades - the British people have voted in their masses for politicians who had no intention of reining in public spending.  Government ministers would talk about being prudent, but it was never more than wishful thinking.

When was the last time that any government in this country reduced public spending in absolute terms?

When was the last time that any government in this country reduced public spending as a percentage of national income?

We now have a government which appears to be intent on making at least a half-hearted attempt to be prudent with the national finances, and thus we see the benefits cap and the sanctions.  We are also seeing cuts to police budgets, legal aid, and the armed forces budget.  For some reason though there has been no reduction in the overseas aid budget.  In fact that budget has increased.

At the general election next year, we have a choice.  We can give David Cameron a second term as Prime Minister, and suffer more cuts that will leave us worse off; or we can give Ed Miliband a chance.  Of course there is no chance that he would rein in public spending, and I would not be surprised if he plunged Britain into a recession at an early point.

If you don't believe me, consider what his good friend the President of France is up to.

Miliband and Cameron are not our only options however, but time is running out.  Why don't you find a political party with policies which make sense, and donate it some money?  Or even join it?

Of course your donation on its own will make little difference, but if enough people around the country donated some of their money and maybe also some of their time to a political party, then it could easily mount a serious challenge to the two main parties at the next general election.

The ball is in your court.

Related previous posts include:
How the ConDems waste your money
Austerity versus democracy