Convicted of nothing, murdered by an illegal airstrike – smeared by the British press
Let's say that Rashid Rauf was guilty of everything he wasn't found guilty of. Let's say he did plot to blow up planes over the Atlantic, even though there wasn't enough evidence against him to charge him with this, and even though none of those people who actually were found guilty of terrorism charges were not found guilty of plotting to blow up planes over the Atlantic.
Let's imagine all that is true. Even if it is all true, he's still been murdered. He's been killed by the latest in a series of rocket attacks by US forces based in Afghanistan, where missiles have crossed the border into Pakistan, murdering citizens of a sovereign nation. Sometimes the victims have been Bad Men. Sometimes they have been Insurgents. Sometimes they have been Terrorists. Other times they have been innocent victims blown to pieces by some of the most advanced military hardware in the world. One thing's for sure: we'll never really know whether the dead men were Bad Men, or Insurgents, or Terrorists, because now they're dead. There will never be a trial to determine their guilt. Their guilt was decided from afar, not by a jury of their peers but by military forces; and justice was exacted in the form of their bodies being ripped apart.
We'll never know if Rashid Rauf was guilty. All we know is he was never charged, let alone convicted, with terrorist offences in this country, and even those people who were charged and convicted were not convicted on charges of blowing up planes. Sure, there was an outcry over the jury doing its duty correctly, and deciding that it could not convict the men beyond reasonable doubt, but in this country it's unfortunately the case that that's how cases are decided, not by snotty off-the-record briefings by the security services. And that's important to remember when you read this on the BBC website:
A fugitive British militant linked to an alleged UK plot to use liquid bombs to blow up transatlantic airliners has been killed in Pakistan, reports say.
Let's unravel that a little shall we.
Fugitive - from Pakistani authorities, who arrested him because they were told to by US forces, acting on intelligence based on suspicions over other terror suspects, for which there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute him.
Militant - what's he been convicted of to make him a militant? Nothing is mentioned in the story. Maybe he was a self-confessed militant, in which case fair enough, but was he or not? Where's the evidence? How have we decided he was a militant? How did we reach this conclusion?
Linked - linked, because he was never charged or convicted of anything. In my book that isn't linked. If that is linked, then you or I are also linked to that trial, seeing as we weren't charged or convicted either. Arrested does not mean guilty. Suspected does not mean guilty. Don't bother with the "9-11 changed everything" nonsense. No. Either citizens have the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty or they don't. Which country do we want to live in, the one that presumes innocence or the one that presumes guilt?
To an alleged UK plot to blow up transatlantic airliners - Because, as I can't stress enough, no-one was convicted of any plot to blow up airliners. Men were convicted of planning to cause explosions, but not on planes. Sure, you or I (or the whispering source who's been briefing journalists on this story) might think that surely they did mean to blow up planes. But that's not enough to convict someone in this country, in the absence of compelling and irrefutable evidence, much as there were howls of protest at the lack of a 'correct' verdict and much as the jury were happily smeared by the press, who wilfully ignored completely understandable reasons, which they knew about, why jurors were not present on certain days.
I think this is the worst thing I've read on the BBC's website in ages. It's utterly appalling and a disgrace to journalism. The official sources are always happily parroted and never questioned; if a British man of any other background or colour had been murdered by military forces, and those forces hadn't been American, would the story be all about how he kind of deserved it? I rather think not.
Pakistani media said Rashid Rauf, born in Birmingham, was killed in a US air strike in North Waziristan, a haven for militants and the Taleban.
Oh well then, he must have done it. Apparently everyone who's there deserves to die. So that makes it OK, does it, to kill a man who's not been found guilty of any crime, just because you suspect he's up to no good? Is that what our country and our allies support nowadays, even in the brave new world of Barack Obama?
Here comes lying by omission and downright lying:
Mr Rauf, on the run after escaping from a Pakistani jail, was alleged to have helped the group planning the attacks.
Three men were convicted in the UK in September of conspiracy to murder.
News of the liquid bomb plot paralysed global air travel, prompting authorities to implement stringent security measures at airports around the world.
No mention in the BBC report that no-one was convicted of a plot to blow up airliners. Then 'news of the liquid bomb plot', as if it's an irrefutable fact, turns up in the next sentence. It's not. That's a lie. You can't say there was a plot when no-one was convicted of it. What conclusion is the reader invited to draw? For all I know this could be lazy ctrl+C and ctrl+V journalism rather than downright lies, but it's still an absolute shambles.
And yes, it is important to be accurate. Yes, men were convicted of wanting to murder, but it does matter that they weren't convicted of blowing up airliners. That's a separate offence for one thing. No, they can't sue, but that's not enough reason to say something that's not provably true. Did it happen or not? Not what your trusted source said, but what actually happened? Can you be sure? Was a jury sure after listening to days of evidence? What gives this journalist the right to decide they know better? I mean, I don't know, but without wanting to sound like Rumsfeld, I know that I don't know.
Terrorism charges against the Briton were eventually dropped but he remained under detention in Pakistan as a "preventative measure".
Yes, the charges were dropped. And then he was detained without charge in Pakistan. That doesn't mean he's done anything - detention without trial is an affront to justice and the right to a fair trial, which is something I think we used to give a shit about in Britain.
Unnamed Pakistani intelligence sources said that a wanted Egyptian militant, Abu Zubair al-Masri, was among the others killed.
Any evidence against him either...? Or doesn't it matter? If you're a 'militant' as defined by a third party, do you simply not have the same human rights as other people? Is that what we've arrived at?
Here comes a sliver of what the BBC call 'balance':
On Thursday the government summoned the US ambassador in Islamabad to protest one day after an attack deep inside Pakistani territory killed five people - including at least one alleged militant.
So perhaps five innocent deaths. Five people killed without trial, perhaps four totally innocent of any activity, even the 'militant' streak which means you're allowed to be murdered and for it not to be a crime.
Pakistan says the constant missile strikes infringe its sovereignty. The BBC's Barbara Plett, in Islamabad, says the attacks spark widespread anger in Pakistan - especially among tribal figures.
Yes, 'Pakistan says' that murdering people in its country is a bad thing, but we can only report that as what someone's said as we can't editorialise. Though of course if it's the intelligence services saying a man not convicted of anything deserved to die, or that a plot that hasn't been proven really did exist, then we can report that as fact. See how this works?
In that context, Saturday's attack will be reported in Pakistan as another violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and not for the possible killing of Rashid Rauf, our correspondent says.
Well, like er, yes. I imagine so. I don't know what the Pakistani news media are like, but perhaps they don't just endlessly parrot everything the security services say to them without stopping to think whether it might be true or not.
I'm not saying Rashid Rauf was innocent. I'm just saying we can't say he was guilty, because there appears to have been no evidence whatsoever. And even if some poor soul in Guantanamo or Pakistan or wherever did reveal his name after days of torture, that still doesn't mean that confession was true. If that were the case, and that's why the intelligence services have been briefing journalists off the record, then that needs to be explained, not left out. And even then, he still was never convicted of anything - suspicion is not the same as guilt. I'm just asking what he's been convicted of, and what makes him a militant, given that the BBC have no evidence. I'm asking why it's OK to kill people if you suspect them of something, and that's something that's never regarded as a crime, and can only be described in terms of what the victims might think about it.
A shockingly bad piece of BBC journalism. Will there be 42,000 complaints about it, as there were about two fools phoning up an elderly actor? No. Probably not a single one. Upset a celebrity and you get crucified; tell lies in the 'war on terror' and no-one gives a shit. Add to that the fact that the BBC's biggest tormentors will be spinning the same lies about Rashid Rauf, based on their own agenda, and you can see why the corporation will get away with it.
There’s a time and a place…
...for running exploitative 'documentaries' about policemen chasing people in cars. It's called ITV4. There's a whole fucking channel devoted to car crashes, police chases, Sheriff John ('Do you think he might be?') Bunnell, Mancunian voiceovers chortling "Well this fella's got a bit of explaining to do down the station", people in cars, people chasing people in cars, coppers talking to each other in cars about chasing other people in cars... all that shit. It's there, in an easy one-stop shop, so you don't have to fucking go anywhere else for it.
Seeing as this - as opposed to local news, which apparently can be jettisoned like a fat man in a falling balloon - is what ITV has decided to focus its resources on, then let the fuckers do it. There's no benefit for the viewer other than to see a few cars crashing, a bit of crashporn with the added spice of a ridiculously hammy Bunnell linking sequence. Which I imagine is the best thing in the world if it's 5am and you're forcing down the remnants of a Vesta 99p curry (or is it your own sick? It's hard to remember, through the haze...) - but ordinarily, no.
There's no point. There's no justification. It's pure titillation, and everyone knows it. No point in the BBC pretending it's anything other than that, or trying to claim it's some kind of 'unique insight' into how the traffic police do their jobs. Well, er, I imagine they go round driving cars and arresting people - oh look, I'm right! How's about that then? I got it in one! Oh and look, that's what it looks like when a car crashes. Yes, not particularly pleasant, but then I had kind of guessed that already as well.
And for the BBC to pretend that a puff piece for its forthcoming Cops n Cars series is anything remotely approaching a news item is complete shite. I'm not a BBC basher: I've written recently about good things on the BBC website; this isn't one of them. This is utter bullshit dressed up as news, and it drags down the integrity of those useful, intelligent and insightful pieces elsewhere.
Better late than never
BBC News 24 previously called it 'AIRLINE TERROR PLOT', despite the accused in the trial denying all the charges against them.
Now they're calling it 'AIRLINE TERROR TRIAL'. Well, better late than never, I suppose. Maybe someone somewhere realised that calling something a 'plot' when there are not guilty pleas might, you know, not be entirely fair.
Or maybe they just couldn't care less?
I can’t believe I’m actually typing these words, but…
...the Express and Mail have shown more balls and integrity with their coverage of today's Madeleine McCann story than the BBC.
That hurt to write that. I hate the Express: it's a juvenile, dirty, nasty toilet bowl of a rag that gives a free platform for racists, bigots, idiots and scum to promote their ignorant views. The Mail is similarly disgraceful, but with an added dose of pomposity and a woman-hating streak that rears its head in the Femail section. But when you look at how today's story has been covered, I can't help coming to the conclusion that the Express and Mail have written the story in the way they wanted. And the BBC? Well, I'm really not so sure.
Mail:
Mummy, why didn't you come when we were crying last night? What Maddie said to Kate McCann the day she vanished
Madeleine McCann was left sobbing for her mother the night before she vanished, it was revealed yesterday.
Kate and Gerry McCann left their daughter, then three, and twins Sean and Amelie, two, crying in their bedroom and did not respond to their tears.
ANGER OVER MADELEINE COMMENT LEAK
Madeleine McCann asked her mother just hours before her disappearance: "Why didn't you come when we were crying last night?", it has emerged.The three-year-old's stark question was revealed amid leaked passages from police interviews given by Kate and Gerry McCann directly after their daughter's disappearance in Praia da Luz, Portugal last May.
Though their original headline can be see on today's front page. Ah look, the printers have ordered a fresh batch of the special bright red 'Madeleine' ink, which has made a welcome return to the front-page splash:
Where, then, has this 'ANGER OVER MADELEINE COMMENT LEAK' headline come from, when their original headline would seem to have encapsulated the story better? Who decided that it should be changed? Where did the pressure to do that come from? I think there's a clue to be found in the BBC's coverage of the story:
The parents of missing Madeleine McCann have responded angrily to publication of leaked transcripts of interviews with Portuguese police last year.
The transcripts suggest that on the morning she disappeared she asked why her mother did not come when the children were crying the night before.
Their spokesman Clarence Mitchell said the leak was a "deliberate smear".
The BBC's spin is the parents' anger. Why might that be? Is there a clue in the third paragraph as to why the BBC have decided to present the story this way around, rather than leading with the details of the leak? Somewhere along the line, the BBC has decided that the important bit of the story is not that Madeleine McCann's parents admitted she was crying the day she vanished because they had left her alone the night before, and then went to leave her alone again; but that the parents are unhappy that this story was leaked.
Well they might be unhappy about it; I daresay they are. But they're certainly not denying the content of it. And that really does shed new light on the events surrounding the little girl's disappearance, in my opinion.
Clarence Mitchell says the leak is a deliberate smear. How can he say that? Why do the BBC leave that unchallenged? How can it be a 'deliberate smear' to reveal something that someone actually said, and which they don't deny saying? That's not what a smear is at all, Clarence. He's a journalist; he knows that - the reporter who put together this piece should know that's not what a smear is either.
The BBC carry on with Mitchell, seeing as he (a former BBC journalist) is supposedly the arbiter of everything in the entire world:
Mr Mitchell said: "For a document covered by Portugal's judicial secrecy laws, to be leaked to the Spanish media on the very day they went to the European Parliament, is stretching all sense of belief to believe it's anything other than a deliberate smear."
He added: "This was the sort of relevant detail that Kate and Gerry put to the police immediately, and that's been in the files for 11 months and it emerges on the day they go to Europe.
"This was a blatant attempt to undermine their work in Europe."
An attempt by whom? What kind of smear? You can't smear someone by just revealing something that is factually correct about them, Clarence - that's not a smear in the slightest. Yes, the timing is suspicious; but journalists do, as you would actually know because you are one, like to time certain stories to make a maximum impact. It's not necessarily some big conspiracy; these documents may have been known about for some time.
The Express, meanwhile, has gone with the headline 'ANGER AT MADELEINE COMMENT LEAK' when, in fact, the only anger to be found about it comes in the very last paragraph - and guess what, it's Clarence saying it! So why, then, should they change the headline of a story to reflect what is a minor detail within it? Why should they do that?
Remember the other day, when a story about the McCanns went mysteriously missing all of a sudden and was replaced by a much more positive one about how great it was going to be that they were leading the way in Europe with their pioneering work? Do you think there's something else going on? Why are these changes coming about?
The Mail, meanwhile - and I'm crying a little as I write this - has stood the strongest. Of course the evidence in the leak is the most interesting part of the story; Kate 'n' Gerry's anger at it, while important to mention of course, surely shouldn't form the basis of the story, in terms of pure news values.
They also flag this up pretty early on:
It also emerged that Mr McCann said Cuddle Cat, his daughter's favourite toy, was "almost in the same place" as where he had last seen it.
The couple had previously said that it was found high on a ledge, at adult height, which is how they were so certain that Madeleine had been abducted.
That is genuinely fresh information about the story, which is certainly important to mention in the light of what the couple have previously stated with regards to the events of that night. And yes, Clarence has his say, as it's right and proper that he should, but he certainly doesn't dictate anything else.
So, the Express has buckled a bit, the BBC have just written a peculiarly slanted version of the story, while the Mail come out as defenders of journalistic freedom. That's rather an unhappy ending for me, isn't it? Ah, but there's always something that proves to me what a nasty bunch of bastards Mail readers can be, and it comes, as it frequently does, in the comments section (although there are other comments giving an alternative view):
Kate McCann is a strong and brave woman. She smiles despite knowing that her daughter is probably in the hands of paedophiles! She travels around the world for the safety of all children! Admirable!
- Marianne, Germany
What? Seriously, what?
I heard the McCanns say from Brussels, the "onus is on the authorities to publicise details of missing children" Should not the onus be on parents not to leave their precious children alone in a foreign country while they eat?
- Maureen, Southampton UK
You know, I think those parents are well aware of what they did that night.
Prevention is better than cure - so this pair really should be promoting not leaving your very small children alone to fend for themselves whilst you go off on a jolly with your mates.
- Daisymay, Northants
Ouch.
If they had not left their children alone in a foreign country, they would not be in this situation.
- Hyacinth, England
I almost laughed at that one. Yes, it was because they were in Bongobongoland that their kid got captured! You can't leave your kids alone around Johnny Foreigner!
"Kate McCann gave a rare smile." Rare smile! Haha. Where have you been for nearly a year?! Don't you remember the smiles from both Kate and Gerry when they were holding up the find Madeleine T-shirt, and then there are the pictures of them leaving the church on Mother's Day. Isn't Kate McCann too fragile to go back to Portugal?
- Clarissa, UK
I don't quite see the point. Should Kate McCann never smile again?
Well there we are. Begrudgingly, I must praise the Express and the Mail, and question what on earth the BBC thought it was up to. Leak or no leak, the new information about the Madeleine case is certainly something worth reporting, especially when you consider the coverage given to previous statements by the parents. Fine, if you never reported what the parents said at the time, then there's no need to report these statements; but if you did, then you must. It seems simple enough to me - whatever Clarence Mitchell might try and tell you.
AIRLINE TERROR PLOT
...was the headline on BBC News 24 for this story yesterday.
Not in quotes. Not always with an explanatory subheadline.
Does that make it sound like there was a plot - denied by the accused - or not?
*edit*
Of course, it's the old staple defence that goes like this: "People don't just read the headline; you can't take the headline on its own as being representative of the story." So you can say what you like, pretty much, in a headline, so long as somewhere there's some contradiction of that headline, or some balancing factor. I tend to disagree, especially when it comes to front-page splashes or teases with no explanatory text.
The Hate's front-page today is PLOT TO BLOW SEVEN PLANES FROM THE SKY (denied by the accused) with the strap 'British Muslim gang planned worst atrocity since 9-11, jury told'. See the jury are told about the strap, but not the headline; the reader is sophisticated enough to know that PLOT TO BLOW SEVEN PLANES FROM THE SKY doesn't mean there was a plot to blow seven planes from the sky, just as AIRLINE TERROR PLOT doesn't mean there was an airline terror plot - or so goes the Get Out of Jail Free card defence of 'headline doesn't equal story'.
Over at the Express, there's a tease box on the front page that reads 'Terror gang's plot to blow up seven planes over Atlantic'. And that's it. Not a single other word anywhere. From those words, with no explanatory text, you're supposed to know that there wasn't necessarily a terror gang and they didn't necessarily plot to blow up seven planes over the Atlantic. See? Simple.
The thinking behind it, I can only guess, is that "Well, they did it, didn't they? They're bound to be convicted".
But what if they aren't? And what if they didn't do it? Does this mean newspapers can just decide who's innocent and who's not?
So that’s all right then
Is there anyone in the world - seriously, anyone - who believes that after six years of illegal detention and torture, the six Guanatanamates are going to get a fair trial?
Let's assume you think it's the right thing to do to bang up brown people for years without any evidence, force them to confess through torture in the interests of 'national security' and the 'war on terror' and deny them their basic human rights. Even then, do you really, deep down in your heart of hearts, think that a military tribunal with the power of the death penalty - risking humiliation on the world stage if the men are found not guilty and go free - is going to represent a fairer trial than a jury of 12 citizens in the United States?
Anyone? No...?
Oh sorry. One person. And that one person is allowed to dominate the BBC's coverage of the story.
US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff has promised a fair trial for Guantanamo prisoners accused of organising the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
Senior figure = authority = journalistic trust = 'promise'. Not 'says', which is the neutral verb given to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and a BBC correspondent in the same story. Not for them the first paragraph and the headline. No, because Michael Chertoff 'promises'.
So that's all right then.
Mr Chertoff told the BBC that there would be "full due-process and defence lawyers and all of the fundamental rights that would bring to justice those were responsible for one of the worst war-crimes in world history".
Really? Have you checked the facts? 'Sorry, deadline's in ten seconds - got to file the story first! He might be completely bullshitting, but it's not my job to find out, I'm only a journalist! But anyway, I won't question what he says about 9-11 being one of the worst war crimes in world history, because I'm sure it is, isn't it?'
Paragraph 26, and we finally get to hear what representatives of the accused say:
Responding to the new charges, a representative of Mohammed al-Qahtani said they would create "show trials".
See, that's writing a balanced story at the sopping-wet 'liberal-left BBC'. Put the political US source first, give them primacy in the story, imply that his words are more important and more honest than anyone else's, don't question anything and shove in a tiny bit of what the man who's been tortured and is going to be executed has to say about his impending doom down the bottom.
There, job done.
Targeting the poor, sick and disabled
In our happy 'liberal democratic' political consensus in this country, it's an accepted fact that you can't raise taxes by targeting the rich. Indeed, inherited wealth is something to be protected and cherished, as both 'Labour' and the Tories agree.
Even the 'liberal-left' BBC is so worried that rich people might have to pay tax and therefore not be quite as rich as they otherwise would be, so they offer handy tips on how to 'minimise your liabilities' for capital gains tax and inheritance tax. Do they offer a similar guide for the poor on how to 'minimise' the taxes they pay? No, funnily enough, they don't.
So there comes a problem. How to raise some money when the easiest way of doing so, while perhaps being morally justifiable and acceptable to the vast majority of the population if it was explained properly to them, isn't politically expedient because enormously rich newspaper owners, the CBI and the corporate sector will squeal like scalded pigs and lie that the poor will suffer?
Simple. Target the poor, sick and disabled.
The Conservatives are to unveil plans for incapacity benefit reforms which would require all claimants to be assessed to prove they cannot work. The Tories say their plans, to be announced later, would mean 200,000 people losing their benefit.
Hooray! 200,000 people will lose their benefits.
And do what? Get jobs straight away - or just go onto job seekers' allowance rather than incapacity benefit when it turns out it's not as easy as some Tory cunt sat behind a desk might think to get a job when you have a disability?
Sure, people with disabilities or mental illness might be able to work, but that doesn't mean they're necessarily employable in the real world or that they face a level playing field when it comes to employment. The Tory plan assumes that all employers are fair and good people who wouldn't mind taking someone on with a disability or mental illness. It assumes that the reason why people with disabilities can't get jobs is because they're not trying hard enough, not that society is prejudiced. It assumes that employers don't see people with disabilities as an insurance risk, as unsightly, as a problem - which, unfortunately, many do. It assumes that an employer, given the choice between two equal candidates, one of whom has, say, cerebral palsy, will choose to employ the person with cerebral palsy. I'd love to hope that that would be the case. But is that what really goes on in the real world? Is that the experience of people with disabilities or mental illness? How many people with disabilities are employed by the Conservative party? How many of their prospective parliamentary candidates have a disability or a mental illness?
Incapacity benefit is claimed by 2.64m people across the country at an estimated annual cost of £12.5bn.
About £40,000 a year each on average, if my rough mathematics is correct. So under these Tory plans, how much money will be saved if, as they say, 200,000 people are forced off incapacity benefit? About £800million. Except... it won't be. They won't 'lose their benefit', as the Tories lie, and as the BBC repeats, because it can't be bothered to think about things in stories. Those people might not find it as easy to get jobs as the Tories think they can. They may just claim benefit elsewhere in the system, as they're perfectly entitled to do. They may work on a low income, and be eligible for income support and other benefits there.
And how do the Tories know it's 200,000 people anyway? How has a political party managed to do the kind of thorough research that would be required to get these numbers? We don't know, because they won't tell us. But I'm guessing it probably has more to do with plucking a figure out of the air that will get The Sun hot under the collar about 'scroungers' than research and science.
So what does Labour say about these proposals to target the poor, sick and disabled?
Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain accused the Tories of copying the government's ideas.
He said: "They are plagiarising plans already announced by us before Christmas and seeking to present them as their own.
So that's that, then. We have consensus. The only matters for debate are questions of to what extent people claiming benefits are just scroungers who should just get on their bikes and go to work.
Welcome to Britain, 2008. Targeting the most vulnerable in society, to protect the rich. Under a 'Labour' government.
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