Torture and international law in our little world

So Mike Pompeo and the Orange baboon are openly advocating torture now. Openly.

Newspapers report on this as if it was about discussing the weather, or perhaps some mildly embarrassing issue, like a herpes infection.

Nobody screams their bloody heads off about the "Freest Country" on earth advocating torture. I find this incredible. Apparently rules do not apply to some. International laws do not apply. The previous round of war criminals are still living their lives in complete safety and without being bothered by sharp questions (and I don't even mention tribunals), and here we go, the next round comes about. In other words: the US -don't forget, they are the "torchbearers of democracy, equality, whatever" can without any consequence break the law that governs international relationships. It should be discussed, it should be talked about: if the strongest nation decides the rules does not apply to them, they are essentially jeopardising the whole international legal framework, even if the whole Western world seems to do its best to ignore this. (As they undoubtedly realize this issue.) Keeping up the illusion of strong international laws does not help actually making them strong. It only shows off the hypocrisy and utter lack of moral principles of the West, enabling others to do whatever they wish to -after all, if the US does not care, why should they? Nobody is fooled by this display. You may pretend the US, the UK and other paragons of democracy are governed by laws, the stink of torture chambers and bombed weddings is still permeating every meeting room you are discussing these high-minded ideals of international law.


So let me say it again: the USA has broken, admitted breaking, and openly considers breaking international law. The perpetrators were not and are not being investigated. And the media reports it without even raising a single fucking eyebrow, as if torture was not really a big deal.


I guess you really should not be surprised that people tend to be cynical when it comes to the "bad Ruskies" or "bad Iran" routine, and cannot be adequately bothered to be outraged. I have to say I myself start to feel sorry for Milosevic and other small-time war criminals.

All this crying about fake news and the post-truth world...

Since Brexit and the Orange Wonderboy there has been much lamentation about all the fake news on Facebook, the Evil Russian Misinformation Factories, and in general, how inaccurate and untrustworthy the information is you get from social media. We live in an era when facts don't matter anymore; when not a couple of well-dressed talking heads are giving out the information, but the rabble makes it up for themselves.

If only everyone stuck to the real journalists is the unspoken (or spoken) conclusion. You know, the real McCoy; guys (and gals) in trench coats and sharp pens, investigating leads, running around and striking fear into the heart of the Establishment.

There are two problems with this. The first is: they lie as much as the "fake news" does. (I have no idea how the Independent dared to publish this article; it discredits them and every other news agency in the Free World... It's something we knew, but seeing it in print in a large -well, relatively large- newspaper is nothing if not miraculous. And this is the second time...) This has been quite obvious in the case of Aleppo, the Iraq War, the migrant crisis, the Russian hacks (I've still not seen anything that can constitute as proof of the accusations), or anything, really. It's not hard to see them; you just have to spend five minutes to find ample proof of the media being dishonest either by withholding information or by straight-out lying to the reader/watcher. They don't report, they manufacture facts to conform their agenda. We always have lived in the post-truth world.

The other is this. So here we have a very brazen (but not unique) example where a "real" journalist simply stole something from the social networks. It seems like there's a positive feedback here: something gets posted or Reddit (or Digg or Facebook or whatever), this gets nicked by the "real" media, and gets posted on Reddit again, which, in turn, gets reported in the media. They do it so shamelessly, they even quote reddit users. It's a self-sustaining perpetual machine that produces an endless stream of shit.

These people are part of the problem; the people who are supposed to be doing the journalism became simply content-thiefs. They killed journalism by replacing investigation with "cats that look like Hitler" (yes, a Bridget Jones reference; figure that, the movie actually had something meaningful to say), and "you would not believe what happened after this man told a woman not to apply makeup on the tube". Guess what I don't give a fuck. I would have, however, appreciated an honest assessment of the situation in Aleppo. As in: why did certain politicians call the members of Al Quaida "moderate rebels". And maybe a mention of how people of Aleppo did not support them to begin with; this kind of puts their heroic struggle into a different light. But we got "she did not know why the crowd was cheering her", and "can you go through all 10 of these horrible photos".

And, ladies and gentlemen, this is why the system is rotten to the core. This is why we have Brexit, why the Right is getting stronger, and why the Orange Ape (sorry, apes, I know I'm smearing your reputation) got into the White House.

Aleppo and Mosul again - the double standards and the media

I guess the hypocrisy cannot increase indefinitely; sooner or later others -who work for the very media outlets I've been criticising, and who have been responsible for forming the public opinion and pressuring politicians-  tend to realize, or rather, face the facts.

Enter the Independent.

Weirdly they finally admit what I've been saying all along. I wonder what it took to make them to do so. Mind you, I'm not claiming to be a prophet of any kind; I just used common sense and a wee bit of history. Something, that apparently can be ignored freely by the media and politicians, without any repercussions whatsoever.

Very few articles acknowledge the Western media and political elite's hypocrisy about Israel, the Middle East, and those great allies they keep in the region. Heck, 40 000 are dead in Mosul, but there's Boris anywhere yelling war crimes.

The media has a real responsibility for the reasons outlined above. They should not just be able to get away with an "oops, sorry". Heads should roll. They helped their political masters to get countries into wars since the time of Yellow Journalism started; some accountancy should be expected by now. These people helped to spread death and suffering, and now they look around innocently, saying "what? Us? But we're just reporting the news!"

They should burn in hell.

Interesting look on "collateral damage"

Weird. The media and the political machine is still raging about how the Syrians and Russians are monsters and war crimes for bombing hospitals, and operating in a heavily populated area against the moderate rebels. (Which is, admittedly, a horrible thing to do. I'm not trying to say that it's all daisies and rainbows; it is a brutal and quite frankly, hard to justify thing to do.)

However... let's see what the very same people say about doing the very same thing when they themselves are doing it. (I've already written about the interesting contrast about Mosul and Aleppo, so let's leave that part out for now.)

Bombing hospitals - Russia vs USA. (Or Saudi Arabia, but they did bomb a school, so it's not the same I guess.) Mind you, bombing hospitals (and their parking lots) is against the law even IF enemy combatants are hiding in it, yet Israel is quite happy to do so; again, no angry accusations of war crimes there. (Even though in this case it is a deliberate action. As is using white phosphorus in built-up areas against humans.) It seems like you cannot avoid making mistakes when fighting in a city; and the Russians hit a hospital by mistake. Still a war crime, I guess, right?

Well...

What happens when the US and its allies kill people?

Well, of course, it's unintentional, so it's not a crime. It's a kind of weird logic, since you normally can't claim this in front of a court, but let's just think about this. The US and its allies conduct operations in a sovereign country against the wishes of its legitimate government, and kills the soldiers of said government. (The US also supports "moderate" rebels fighting said government, let's add hastily.) But it was unintentional, so it's cool. It's also regrettable when they unintentionally drone weddings and innocent people in general, who happen to be in the wrong place (in their own country) at the wrong time. While we KNOW that any collateral damage the Syrians and Russians cause is absolutely intended and should be condemned.

Interesting.

Snooper's Charter

So finally, the government has gone through with the mass surveillance bill even the Americans would admire: the so-called Snooper's Charter.

Good job, you. I wonder what would Orwell say, but let's forget about that part.

What I'm really curious about is the muted response from the EU and Western powers. You would expect a general outcry, based on what happens whenever a newspaper goes bust in Hungary (never mind it was seriously in debt), or the government flaunts some shady surveillance bill idea, but no. While these things are obvious signs of dictatorship and totalitarianism in Hungary, clearly it's not the case in the UK. No general condemnation, no fiery speeches about Western values (sorry, Values). So to recap: the UK enacts a bill that would make any Stazi leader wet his pants, and nobody bats an eye. It's fine. Some left-leaning newspapers write some alarmist articles, but in general the political landscape (and the media) does not give a shit. Not one little bit of shit. No calls to impose sanctions for breaching EU's fundamental values, or exclude the UK from the EU (I know, I know, but it is a symbolic gesture, OK? You're not leaving, we're throwing you out because, guess what, you are shitting on the fundamental values we hold dear). This is quite telling about the whole issue of hypocrisy, doesn't it? The tone is similarly muted from the Hungarian Left; somehow there are no hysterical cries of totalitarian take-over of the most admired democracy... they are fine with this; the "West" is still the idol to look up to. Sure. Let's ignore the worrying signs that things are seriously going wrong everywhere. And if you don't think the UK is in danger of losing personal rights and freedoms, think about these issues:

1. Spying on MPs
2. Forward Intelligence Team
3. Special Demonstration Squad

and let's not forget about surveillance of peaceful groups, to the extend of undercover officers having families with the subjects of surveillance. Good job doing this democracy-thingy. And even the Germans are doing it: as usual, they prefer to do it so that they can be seen as clear.

What we see here is a general trend moving towards a totalitarian surveillance state in the Western World, but of course it's only a problem when a shitty little country is trying to emulate the big brothers (the term used in more than one meaning here, in case you miss the reference). Nobody wants to point out that the emperor has no clothes; perhaps the supposedly free press is not so free after all. (Who would have thought? They must be free, since about 70% is owned by one individual...)

How Trump is already betraying his voters

So the Independent (among others) is already loud with articles about how Trump is already backtracking on his campaign promises, and betraying his voters. Ha-ha. What an asshole- already betraying everyone.

Can I ask you a question? Would you like him better if he actually meant all the shit he said? Count your blessings, you idiots, that he might not be as crazy as he seemed...

Some people...

Terrorism and the Balkan route -perceptions last year and today

So it seems like Abdeslam did use the Balkan route for smuggling terrorists into Europe. So did others.

Let this sink in for a while. Even though it seems like people have a memory of a goldfish (not to mention politicians and journalists, who are entirely possible that not members of the same species as the rest of us), let's just recall a couple of things from last year. Like that infamous cartoon with the rats. (Let's forget that the whole outrage was manufactured since the cartoon did not suggest what the outraged journalists said it did.) Or that the EU's counter terrorism chief said there was unlikely to be a connection between migrants and terrorists. Or ask the UN High Commissioner for refugees. Or the fact that the entire Left in Hungary (and the international press) used this as a political tool against the Hungarian government instead of actually recognising the threat unchecked migration (or worse, if they did, they used it as a weapon against Orban nevertheless. Priorities, I guess.)

Curiously all these people are silent now. The news that terrorists indeed used the Balkan route is quietly dropped and forgotten. No mea culpas, no retrospective analyses how they could been so wrong, how the others who were right were painted as the villains... No; this whole business is best left forgotten, and move on to the next shouting campaign without any lessons learned.

Guess what. This is what gave you Brexit and Trump. This is why the Far Right is getting stronger everywhere. You can't just call everyone you disagree with a racist neckbeard, and you especially can't do that (and keep doing it) when they are right and you are wrong. You might have the bullhorn to shout, but the credibility deficit is growing. You probably should have noticed after the Brexit vote or Trump's victory that things are not so swell outside your bubble, but you apparently have not.

I guess we're all going to suffer for it.