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Reid Wants To Scrap International Law

BBC (Retort by me) | 04.04.2006 20:56 | Repression | World

Just as a car thief would like to make stealing cars legal, this War Criminal, with intentions for Perpetual Aggression, wants to scrap all international laws pertaining to Acts of Premeditated Aggression and Illegal Detainment/Torture.

But since he violated the laws before he could change them, the man is still a War Criminal. Becoming what you claim to fear in the name of "democracy" ...

Reid urges rules of war 'rethink'

Defence Secretary John Reid, War Criminal
Mr Reid said the 20th century rules needed reassessing

The defence secretary has called for sweeping changes to international rules of war to counter global terrorism.

(aka: To enable his criminal Regime, with many planned Aggressions left on their agenda, to avoid the repurcussions of their actions.)

John Reid warned the world was facing a threat from groups unconstrained by any sense of morality or convention.

(So we should destroy the law to enable those, like him, who are unconstrained by any sense of morality or convention, to carry out their planned Perpetual War.)

"We risk trying to fight a 21st century conflict with 20th century rules," he said in a speech to the Royal United Services Institute.

(Who's "we"? "We" risk fighting "your" conflict. You certainly won't. Don't act as if this conflict is the fault of anyone else but your own.)

He warned legal grounds for mounting pre-emptive strikes or intervening to stop genocide were no longer adequate.

(Perhaps if he were doing such things, there wouldn't be a problem. Naked Aggression isn't the same thing.)

Mr Reid also called for a review of the Geneva Conventions, signed in 1949, governing the treatment of prisoners of war.

(To protect his military, who routinely tortures innocent people, in order to demoralize, control, and frighten others.)

He said the international legal framework governing rules of war had been drawn up at a time when the main international threat came from conflict between states and "did not contemplate the type of enemy which is now extant".

(You mean the undefined 'enemy', just vague enough to allow you to pursue any Aggressions you like? These laws were created while the Horrors [Terror?] of War were fresh in the mind, who wished to spare future generations from this Madness.)

'New century'

(www.newamericancentury.org - The Architects, 911 Culprits.)

"The laws of the 20th century placed constraints on us all which enhanced peace and protected liberty. We must ask ourselves whether, as the new century begins, they will do the same," he said.

(Not if you refuse to obey them, and remain intent upon destroying peace and liberty, no ...)

Mr Reid told the institute the world was facing a threat by unconstrained terrorist groups which were known to be trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction.

(But the member of a Criminal Regime, currently prosecuting Illegal Wars based upon LIES, armed with WMD of all sorts, didn't produce any evidence to back this up ...)

"We now have to cope with a deliberate regression towards barbaric terrorism by our opponents," he said.

(So allow us to regress into barbaric terrorism, which we've already carried out, but want to be spared prosecution for ...)

"The legal constraints upon us have to be set against an enemy that adheres no constraints whatsoever, but an enemy so swift to insist that we do in every particular, and that makes life very difficult for the forces of democracy."

(So let us become what we want you to fear, and help destroy this enemy, this thing called democracy, once and for all ...)

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4873856.stm

BBC (Retort by me)

Comments

Hide the following comment

Reason Hinder Bliar/Bush/PNAC Madness

07.04.2006 01:26

If the Law must be altered in order for you to carry out deadly invasions - perhaps you should be rethinking your agenda.

International laws hinder UK troops - Reid

Defence secretary calls for Geneva conventions to be redrawn
Richard Norton-Taylor and Clare Dyer
Tuesday April 4, 2006

Guardian
John Reid demanded sweeping changes to international law yesterday to free British soldiers from the restraints of the Geneva conventions and make it easier for the west to mount military actions against other states.

In his speech, the defence secretary addressed three key issues: the treatment of prisoners, when to mount a pre-emptive strikes, and when to intervene to stop a humanitarian crisis. In all these areas, he indicated that the UK and west was being hamstrung by existing inadequate law.

Mr Reid indicated he believed existing rules, including some of the conventions - a bedrock of international law - were out of date and inadequate to deal with the threat of international terrorists.

"We are finding an enemy which obeys no rules whatsoever", he said, referring to what he called "barbaric terrorism".

The conventions, he said, were created more than half century ago "when the world was almost unrecognisable". They dealt with how the sick and injured and how prisoners of war were treated, "and the obligations on states during their military occupation of another state", he said.

Given the big changes undertaken by the military over the past 50 years, he added, "serious questions" must be asked about whether "further changes in international law in this area are necessary".

Mr Reid declined to say whether he had come round to the US view that detainees at Guantánamo bay should not be allowed the protection of the conventions or the courts. Similarly, he would not say if he thought Britain should support the US practice of extraordinary rendition, the transferring of prisoners to secret camps where they risk being tortured. However, he said, it was not "sufficient just to say [Guantánamo] is wrong".

Mr Reid said yesterday that while domestic laws had been introduced to deal with new threats - he referred to the new offence of "glorifying terrorism" - international law had not changed.

He also spoke of the "concept of imminence" - the circumstances when a state could strike without waiting for an attack.

It was a principal issue during the debate over the invasion of Iraq([search]) and has clear implications for any possible future action against Iran.

Mr Reid noted that last year Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, advised that force could be used only against imminent attack, that it must only be used as a last resort, and that it must be proportionate.

"But what if another threat develops?", Mr Reid asked. "Not al-Qaida. Not Muslim extremism. Something none of us are thinking about at the moment." Terrorist groups were trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction, he said.

The Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, Nick Harvey, said: "After the disaster of Iraq, the idea that the doctrine of pre-emptive strike should be expanded will be met with incredulity in the west and alarm in the ministries of Tehran."

Sir Adam Roberts, professor of international relations at Oxford University, said: "Some of the biggest coalition problems in both Afghanistan and Iraq have come from failures of the coalition to observe basic norms on certain matters, especially with regard to treatment of prisoners.

"Dr Reid is certainly right to raise the question of whether we need new rules in face of imminent attack. This problem above all requires confidence in government and coalition decision-making processes - confidence that has sadly been undermined by Iraq."

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329449669-111274,00.html

What commentators must understand is that for the Bush/PNAC/Bliar fanatics, Iraq is not a disaster. This is exactly what they wanted to see happen.

The Guardian


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