UK Collusion in Gazan killings

from: thewallmustfall@riseup.net

*On trial: Anti-Nato protesters who demanded Barclays divest from the arms trade*

Barclays Bank will be back in the spotlight today at Newport Magistrates Court, when 4 activists stand trial on charges of aggravated trespass. The activists were arrested when they occupied the Newport branch of Barclays as part of the anti-NATO week of action organised by Stop NATO Cymru at the beginning of September. The trial is set to last for a day and a half. All defendants have plead not guilty to all charges

On Friday 5th September this year, scores of people occupied the bank on Newport high street. They held banners calling on Barclays to divest from the arms trade and to stop investing in Israel's war crimes.

The protest was part of a campaign, called for by Palestinians in Gaza,[1] aimed at persuading Barclays to pull its money out of Elbit Systems, Israel's largest military company which manufactures the unpiloted drones used to bomb Palestinians in Gaza.

During July and August 2014, 2,150 Palestinians were killed as Israel carried out another massacre of Palestinians in the besieged Gaza strip. Entire neighbourhoods were destroyed and mosques, market places, UN relief compounds and schools were deliberately targeted. There was no safe place for the 1.7 million people in Gaza to take shelter from the Israeli bombardment. Israeli drones, carried out over 800 major strikes.

Barclays has been condemned in recent years for its excessive use of tax havens, for creating a special 'tax avoidance division', for paying well below the nominal UK rate of corporation tax and manipulating the Libor rate. But this protest was more reminiscent of those which plagued Barclays through the 1970s and 1980s when the bank was heavily invested in apartheid South Africa.

The activists claim that Israel's drone programme is dependent on the investments of companies like Barclays. They called on customers and staff to boycott Barclays, just as anti apartheid campaigners did over
30 years ago.

The occupation of Barclays had been timed to coincide with the NATO summit. Elbit's drones are also used by NATO members. The company is part of a partnership manufacturing the Watchkeeper drone for use by the UK military.

*Campaigners will hold a demonstration outside Newport Magistrates Court on Monday morning in support of the defendant. The four defendants are due in court at 10am. *

For more details or to interview the defendants please email thewallmustfall@riseup.net or call07907385974.

Instead of going to war to get peace and quiet in your towns ...

... O Israel, try being nice and generous to your enemies.  Try talking instead of killing.  Try using the Police to arrest, not kill and, then, bring to court for the judicial process to be used, instead!  Loving enemies and turning them into friends is not our way, naturally, for any of us but then, "My ways are not your ways; neither are my thoughts your thoughts", says the Lord.

Embarrass and astonish your neighbours with your concessions (but not the way you gave away Gaza without a long-term and permanent peace agreement).  Neighbours whom you have always distrusted, hated and killed can be lived with, even if it is only peaceful co-existence although, perhaps, even friendship may be possible eventually, as we have seen in N Ireland.

You,  O Israel have all the trump cards and must take the initiative to try a new approach to get peace and justice for you and your neighbours.  You cannot wait for them, the powerless with so little but hatred in their hearts to change unless you come up with new strategies to get peace and quiet - to get Shalom.  Show them love and you maybe surprised with what you get returned to you - after the unbelief, the cynicism, the scepticism and suspicions!

In other words, O Israel, try being like a fundamentalist Christian and literally obey the life and teaching of the Jesus Christ of the Gospels, particularly his revolutionary advice in the Sermon on the Mount.  Instead of warfare to bring peace that never comes, try the exact opposite approach.  Generosity, concessions and sheer magnanimity but, above all else, listen and meet their wishes and dreams, if at all possible.  You might then find that they are exactly like you (fellow terrorists - v naughty!!).  Heaven forbid!

I have read, Steve Mitzer's 'An Idiot's Guide to the Middle East Conflict'.  For me, the idiots are the people who continue with the conflict.  The idiots are the tough, show no mercy, but hammer-them-all-hard folk who are convinced that peace can only come from warfare and violence, rather than the established rule of law.  Just as we have seen since the foolish, right wing religious man prayed at the Temple Mount in an act of stupid provocation.  The flare ups since, this month, demonstrate for me that Israel behaves like those who flush spiders down the plug hole, rather than helping them out of the vertical sides of the slippery bath.

For the State of Israel, Hamas is exactly the same as Islamic State and both, it seems, must be exterminated by genocide.  Not very ethical, to put it mildly!


These children of Abraham, rather than being a blessing on the rest of us as Yahweh promised, have been a curse, I'm afraid to say.  And they still are.  Yet, all the children of Abraham originate from the same earthly father (two mothers) but with the three different names for their same heavenly Father that the Christians, the Jews and the Muslims have for Him.

Learn, O Israel from the Sermon on the Mount, from the way the Nazis treated your ancestors and, from the tortuous peace process in N Ireland (channels of communication with the IRA were opened in 1972 to eventually bring the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement).

Let Scotland rule themselves from Holyrood to make for Conservative rule at Westminster - for ever!!

On September 18, David Cameron lost a golden opportunity to lose for ever his opposition Labour MPs from Scotland.  He would have lost only one Conservative MP but all of Scotland's Labour MPs - all 41 of them would have gone for ever to make Conservative governments ruling the rest of the Union much more likely at future General Elections.

How foolish, then for Cameron not to send a signal to Scottish voters that the English establishment would not be obstructive if they voted 'Yes'.  It only needed 5% who voted 'No' to change to 'Yes'.  That might have happened if Cameron had agreed with Paul Johnson, Director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies that Scotland was wealthy enough to be independent, if they so wished.  They would still have been British; still have had the pound in their pocket that was their pound as well as England's; would have kept their banks in Scotland and the other financial institutions would not have fled to London; they would still be part of Britain but not part of the UK's unethical foreign and aggressive 'defence' policy.  That is all.  It would have meant however, that their oil, gas and shale gas would have been sold to the other three countries of the union.  And, that is fair enough.  They would even have had a sovereign wealth fund for those precious natural resources, to help conserve them.

Now life is much more complicated for Cameron working out a way of giving devolution to the English regions when, in recent years, there was no great demand for regional government with, certainly, city mayors.  Perhaps, the government will dole out the cash to the major cities for them to spend as they wished.  That is going some way to giving them independence.  An independence that simply means raising the taxes for what you want to spend that money on.

Empty rail lines; trams replacing buses and trains; but, growing congestion on road and rail!

Dear Peter and Toby - and copied to Geoff Inskip, for his information.

I am looking forward to meeting with you this afternoon at 3 at Centro House.

I would like these matters to be discussed, please:

1. The UK's rail (and even road, at peak times) congestion bottleneck - New Street Station.
2. Birmingham's second rail station - Moor Street.
3. What can be done with the above problems?

In addition, I would like to hear your views on my assertion that we should concentrate on the two main public transport modes - road for buses, rail for trains, only.  Complete electrification and consider giving buses a bigger role in reducing rush hour car congestion.  Avoid further complication and expense with trams.  Learn from Edinburgh.

Double trouble is worsening with -

• resource depletion and human climate change from:
• living infinitely on a finite planet
• living unnaturally on a natural planet
• UK's indigenous population is growing and worsening the above.

There is always an unanswerable business case for every expensive and flash project that the London government wants.  Never a flawless business case for super expensive (many tens of billions) military schemes, projects and ventures in far flung corners of the planet for every single year over the last 100 years, however.  Never a mighty tome of files on why the economic argument is made for a re-organisation of the NHS and social care.  And how funny; indeed, how very strange that the economic and business case is so incontrovertibly made for spending £50 billion of our taxes on high speed, green field rail lines but never for bringing back into use our unused or underused 38 miles of double track rail lines. Every metre of which is continuously welded and with concrete sleepers, too.  That business case never, ever stacks up, even though some of the miles run alongside, or very near, to commuter congested roads!  And, could even ease the gridlock on the approach roads to New Street Station 'Drop and Go' tunnel (actually, 'Stop and Crawl' tunnel) of nicely perfumed exhaust gases.  There is simply no economic argument for doing anything about all that!

The decades of unfair funding for the Wider (or Larger) Birmingham region continues.  The North of England economic powerhouse and a 'Transport for the North' is promised for them but nothing for us.

Best wishes

Tim

Land grab or land gift? From whom?

How many times do God's promises have to be fulfilled before we accept that they have been?  The one I am thinking of was first fulfilled using fear, terror and the death of men, women and children on a grand scale during the fulfillment - and in its maintenance to this day.  Therefore, was /is this really God's doing or the Devil's doing?

About 2,500 years ago it was the land of Canaan that became the Promised Land for the people of Israel.  In 1948, it was the British Mandate of Palestine that became the Promised Land - a homeland for the Jews who had been dispersed to all corners of the earth.

Are we Brits really as bright as we think?

Millions of British and empire casualties in 4 years to stop Germany rivaling the British Empire with their own collection of countries ruled by Kaiser Bill.  Were we out of our minds?

It was not as though we were attacked first, either.  We were safe and sound, well away from all the action across the North Sea.

It was not as though we were in danger of being invaded.  And, we were never at risk of invasion throughout this four year idiocy.

Our army was far too small a band of five divisions to ever stop Belgian neutrality from being violated by the plucky Brits coming to their rescue to drive the German troops back to their own border.  The 1839 treaty was simply an excuse for doing what Churchill was desperate to do - go to war.  Throughout the mad month of July 1914, we failed to take the normal precautionary measures: to put our troops on the Belgian border with Germany; we failed to bring in conscription, failed to rearm.  In the 19th century, we had staid our hand and chose our own time to go to war on the mainland.  Even then, it was not unknown for us to break our international obligations, treaties and promises when it suited us.  The 1839 treaty was a less than honest excuse that the politicians put about to justify their idiocy.  It was not the reason for war.  And, we were not in danger of being attacked.

Yet, Asquith and Churchill somehow thought that our security was being threatened.  The Cabinet was wrong to take us to war.  Less than honest and competent - and war mongering, in my book.

In addition, according to historian Niall Ferguson (Feb 2014 'BBC History Magazine'), the Liberal government thought they had better go to war to prevent resignations that would then have brought in the Tory government.  What a disgraceful reason to send young men to war!  Even after more than four years, there was still so much unfinished business, resentment and even hatred after the one-sided Treaty of Versailles, that many historians believe it led to part two of the Great War in 1939.

Just as we all believed our security was being threatened after the attack on the twin towers in New York in 2001.  Millions then lost their homes, or became refugees or were injured and killed in the War of Terrorism against Arabs in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Was this fair and proportionate?  Or, are we the war criminals?

WAS MY RUCSAC GUARANTEED FOR LIFE - I'm 66, the rucsac is 40?!

Useful feedback on superb Berghaus quality when climbing over 1,000 major summits in the UK and ROI.

Forty years ago, this month, November 1974, I bought a Berghaus 272 rucsac.  I only ever bought three in all those years of climbing and walking in the UK and Ireland but my old rock climbing sac, the 272, is still my favourite.  Still my favourite because it is so very, very light but strong.  I don't use it for backpacking, though and no longer rock climb.

However, the left strap now slips on the metal fastener after tens of thousands of times that it has slid up and down in use.  I now have to use a reef knot to tie the ends of the straps across my chest.

Two safety pins hold together the corner of the pocket on the flap but the holes - friction burns caused by my ice axe rubbing against the nylon when, in the early days, my new Primus stove was being carried - are too small ever to stop me using the sac with a plastic liner.

Could you please replace the two shoulder straps and stitch the corner pocket?

Does God have a conscience?

I think Israel, the guilty party with their illegal, immoral and unnecessary attacks on Gaza, should be paying for the rebuilding.  They were wholly responsible for US$4.5 to US$5 billion worth of destruction in fifty days and many thousands of casualties, mainly non-combatants.  2,100 killed, including over 500 children.

Between the three Gazan wars, Israel was bumping off Hamas fighters - called extra judicial assassinations.  That was suspended with their indiscriminate killings of Gazans over the fifty days.  Yet, Israel is God's one and only Chosen/Favoured nation that is meant to be a blessing to all the other 190 nations!

Do you have no conscience, Derek?  Does God not have a conscience?

Letter to SASRA

Comment on your article: '1914-2014, the same but different'

IN EXPLANATION for even those Christian believers who try and avoid employment in the arms trade and the armed forces:  By our taxes and the parties we vote for, we are all implicated in the Middle East violence.  I think, we all have blood on our hands - even the most righteous of the righteous of the Lord.

SASRA stands for Soldiers Airman Scripture Readers Association

It was very good to have your area rep, Mike speak at our morning service yesterday at Hasbury Christian Fellowship.  I was the guy who spoke to him afterwards about compromising Christians serving in the military who have to put their allegiance to their Commander in Chief before their allegiance to their Lord and Master - or their conscience, for that matter.

Even if the Lord was/is yet another man of violence and aggression, I think the 1914-18 war was a most inappropriate action for true Christians to be engaged in.

Our politicians were in far too much of a hurry to declare war on Germany.  They knew that our island status had deterred Germany from including an invasion of our shores in their 1914 war plans.  The mainland of Europe (and conquering France and Russia) was their preoccupation.  In other words, we committed an act of aggression when our country was not in danger of being attacked.  Not even in serious danger of invasion, even after we declared war on Germany.  Not at any time during the 1914-18 half of the 20th century world war.  Therefore, our declaration of war was illegal, as it was not an act of self defence, in my opinion.

Defending Belgium neutrality from an outdated 1839 treaty by going to war was all too late when German troops were sweeping through the country and all we had was a far too small an army of only five divisions of 'Old Contemptibles', as you put it in your article.  Our army was no match for the German army in August 1914 - and the politicians and military knew that.  Yet, they still foolishly marched off to war instead of biding their time, bringing in conscription and re-arming, in case they did have to defend Britain's shores.

Our premature declaration of war was strongly argued for by Churchill in July 1914 in order to defend the biggest empire in the history of humanity and to maintain the balance of power in Britain's favour.  Again, for Christian believers to be fighting for an empire is a total betrayal of their Saviour, Lord and Master who, even before His ministry began, rejected empire building in the temptations.  Even if, as so many believers argue that the Prince of Peace is in favour of violence and aggressive acts, they have to admit he was against earthly empires.

In His time we had the Roman Empire; now we have the US/UK/NATO empire ruling the world and deciding what is allowed and what is not.  For Bible believing Christians to defend and promote earthly empires and, in so doing, reject the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, is a betrayal of the Gospel.  When that involves them having to accept that Christ was a man of violence that is, in my book and the Bible (and possibly the Koran), nothing short of blasphemy.

The one World War in two halves was the culmination of centuries of off and on warfare between the supposedly Christian Western European nations - including the true, Bible believing, born again Christians who should have had no truck with gladly going off to Europe to kill Germans on the 4 August 1914.  That decision led to the Nazis and World War part two: '39-'45.  The Muslims have had 1400 years of far less violence and aggression and killing - until their patience, finally snapped with 9/11.  This came about after nearly one hundred years of military intervention, British duplicity and coercion in the Middle East by the Western Christian powers.  Churchill seems to have started it with his decision to convert our coal fired warships to oil when he was First Lord of the Admiralty.  He then had to secure Muslim oil for that purpose.   Militant, extremist, militaristic Islam is now as rampant in the Middle East, as Judeo/Christian militarism is in that region.

In my opinion, the three great Abrahamic faiths are morally flawed.  More so now than they have ever been from the sheer level of violence and of human inhumanity to human.  There seems little difference to death by beheading or death by fire and flame.  One man beheads another (Muslims) or mass, anonymous, push button death by being vapourised or bombed to smithereens (Jews and Christians).  The USA Empire, like the Roman Empire from 300 AD, is devout and is largely a Jewish/Christian majority - both nominally and in practice.

Repentance and salvation should begin and end in the House of the Lord.

With best wishes and every blessing

Tim

What a true patriot I am!

Letter to his PA

So far, I have read most of Owen's speech that is good to read (Owen Paterson MP: speech to Global Warming Foundation on 15 Oct).

Could you please tell him that I have generated for the national grid, 4,700 kWh in the first eleven months of having 24 solar panels on the E/W facing roofs of my three storey 1967/68 terraced house, here in the West Midlands.

Before I went for solar electricity we used 2,200 kWh from 12 October 2012 to 11 Oct 13.  In the next twelve months, I used 1,300 kWh (to 11 Oct 14) that I imported from the grid for use when the panels were not generating electricity or, not generating enough.  Therefore, 4,700 minus 1,300 equals 3,400 kWh for others to use and all free of finite fossil fuels.  This is a remarkable achievement that could be replicated by every other roof in the land.  My small, three bedrooms, terrace house is a mini-power station.  And what a true patriot I am!

Complete withdrawal from Afghanistan - today!

4,000 Afghan soldiers killed this year, alone and 453 UK soldiers killed since 7 October 2001, Radio 4 announced.

Scottish independence by stealth!

Before the referendum, they had 50% independence; now, all of a sudden, 60%!

In less than three weeks after the Scottish Parliament fell 5% short of getting, supposedly, 'full' independence, more tax raising powers - the hallmark of what independence means - was granted to them.

Radio 4 News had, "For the first time in more than 300 years, a Scottish government has delivered a budget in which it can levy and collect some of its own taxes.  These are a property transaction tax to replace stamp duty and a landfill tax.  "These new responsibilities will generate a small proportion of the devolved budget and Holyrood's share of UK funding will be cut accordingly."

True national hero who has not had to engage in warfare to be a hero.

​

Dear Ian Kirk-Smith - and copied to my war voting MP, James Morris Esq

I drove over to a meeting with Ludlow Quakers last night to hear your outstanding and veteran, national hero, John Lynes speak about the history of the Middle East and its present turbulence.

For 

​one

 decade, John 

​was

 part of Christian Peacemaker Teams, observing and recording man's inhumanity to man.  He explained that such work does have a moderating effect in abating violence.  If these brave men and women are held, they and their spouses have signed that no ransom is to be paid and no rescue launched.

From last night's meeting I have concluded that talking to terrorists is invariably done, sooner or later and that Islamic State, that we call murderous barbarians, akin to Hamas trying to wipe iron clad Israel off the face of the earth with pinpricks on a map, are wanting a caliphate based on the First Caliphate of the 7/8th century.  John said that it was a golden age of Islam, with a level of civilisation well ahead of that of Europe. 

​

 Jews and Christians mostly lived peacefully in Muslim countries, but often had to pay an additional tax.  Before the 18th century, Jews were certainly better treated by Muslims than by Christians.

I was reminded that Islamic State is fighting for a caliphate free from Western interference, and modeled on earlier caliphates.  Perhaps, we can hardly be surprised at that after 100 years of off and on Western military intervention and of British duplicity in the Middle East!

Further, can UK aerial bombing of Islamic State be justified when our Parliament chose to commence air strikes only after two American held hostages were beheaded in retaliation for American bombing of Islamic State?  Free humanitarian gifts from the air for all the refugees would be more in line with the life and teaching of the non-violent Christ of the Gospels whom some Muslims feel that the 'Christian' West should be following.

Finally, when I mentioned to the organiser that I was a visitor, he kindly gave me a copy of the outreach issue of 'The Friend' and invited me to write when I said, "What I would really like is for Quakers to conscientiously abstain from voting for the three main political parties who so love to conduct their crimes of aggression and warfare in the Middle East."  I might also have added that there might be a non-violent Green Party candidate standing, however, that would fit the bill nicely for the ethical voter!

Yours sincerely

Lawless Israel does not bother with the inconvenience of a court of law

FROM  Christian Peacemaker Teams website - http://www.cpt.org/cptnet/2014/09/23/al-khalil-hebron-israeli-military-locates-and-kills-suspects-kidnappings-and-murde 

Early this morning, Tuesday, 23 September 2014, the Israeli military discovered the hiding place of and killed Amer Abu Aisha and Marwan Qawasmeh, the two suspects in the kidnapping and killing of the three Israeli settler youth in June.

The killing took place on the first floor of a wood factory in the Hai El Sharma neighborhood near Hebron University after a firefight.  The building has three floors:  the first is a wood factory; the second contains shops and the third is residential.  Due to the live ammunition, small bombs, and tear gas thrown into the building by the soldiers, a fire started, which burned one of the two suspects almost beyond recognition.  The blasts from the bombs, and the military tractor used to cave in the building also damaged adjoining homes and buildings.

The military took the bodies to the Israeli DCO at 9:00 a.m.  Families identified them and retrieved them for burial.  According to Muslim religious law, the bodies must be buried before sundown the same day as the death.

During the course of the morning people began to gather; clashes between the Israeli soldiers and Palestinians ensued and soldiers shot at least three people, one in the chest and one in the head, but no one died.

Following a 12:30 prayer service, Abu Aisha and Qawasmeh were buried in Hebron’s Shuhada cemetery with thousands of family, friends, and neighbors attending.

Life for the unborn and the dying but death for the rest!!

Joan asked me for evidence, the other evening.  All I can offer is an absence of specific evangelical engagement in stopping the killing of civilians in our UK wars of aggression on first Communists and, now Muslims.

Working in the UK's major arms industry and in the armed forces has never been off limits for 95% of true, born again Christians for the last 1700 years.  Yet, it was 95% unheard of for the followers of the Way in the first 300 years.  Indeed, some Bible believing Christians (in line with Deuteronomy 20 v 1-20 and, in Joshua and Judges) argue for the extermination of Hamas, Islamic State, and all jihadists, as the West achieved over the Nazis in 1945 and as the Nazis failed to do with the Jews and the other minority groups in Germany.  All out total war is the only answer!

Yet, there are specific evangelical organisations campaigning for the life of the unborn and for the prolonging of life for those who, like me, want the option to be assisted to die in their last days or hours.  No evangelical campaigning organisation for the poor civilians in the prime of life, who don't want their life ended, who get cut down by our immoral but so well-meaning and foolish foreign policy!  Hence, my jaundiced thinking now, compared with my young, know it all, idealistic, Westhill days of Eric Rolls rightly calling my RE teaching "dogmatic and doctrinaire".  I did not last long!

Death of Alan Henning

Dear James Morris

Your vote last week helped to seal the fate of Alan, who is now dead.

You have always been in full agreement with a foreign policy, since the War of Terrorism began on the 7 October 2001, that has killed, injured and displaced many hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Perhaps, millions in 13 years of warfare and rising.  You and your fellow politicians, so well meaning but deluded, have slaughtered innocent men, women and children in lands far from our shores and, it has now led to the rise and advance of Islamic State, it seems.

Deluded because your foolish foreign policy led to 7/7 in London, the death of drummer Lee Rigby and others, when your unethical foreign policy was supposed to make the UK safe from such horrors.

Think again.  Develop a more empathic and sensitive conscience.  Work for more humane and tolerant foreign policies that will implement UN resolutions and that stop the sale of our weapons ending up in the arms of Islamic State.  Our weapons should be there in case we get invaded by a foreign power or, put at the disposal of the UN.  Not to attack other countries in a crime of aggression.  Or, to be sold to any old dodgy regime - democratic or dictatorial makes not a scrap of difference - that we prop up with our armaments of every size, shape and description.

Tim

re Stephanie's letter to Archbishop Welby

Excellent letter, Stephanie that I fully agree with.

I wrote this before I read Jeremy Bowen, 'The Making of the Modern Middle East', published

For me, vapourising mainly Muslims, largely civilians since the 7 October 2001, in horrific fire and flame from our safe, secure, aircraft cockpits or missile launchers or from our computers operating drones, is far more reprehensible than one-to-one beheadings of a handful of 'Christian', Western journalists and aid workers.  And, their deaths it seems, came from the reactivation of our attacks on the Muslim military in Iraq.  This time, known as Islamic State.

Since we have our democratic, capitalist 'Judeo-Christian' states, even in the very heart of the Arab Middle East (Western-aligned Israel is our regional superpower), is it really so surprising that some fundamentalist Muslims want their own Islamic state on what they strongly believe to be holy, Muslim soil for only Muslims to tread?  We even have much difficulty in letting them have two or three Muslim schools in Birmingham!

There seems to be almost total incomprehension of the Muslim point of view, as well as abject ignorance of the non-violent Christ of the Gospels, whom many of us in the wicked West claim to follow!

A Muslim perspective on beheadings

Yesterday, I met a most helpful Muslim man at the Wigtown Book Festival.  We had both been to hear the three panelists - Clare Short, Sir Menzies Campbell and Angus Roxburgh - talking about the 'New World Disorder'.

He told me about 'umna' that means affinity to explain that although there is hatred between Muslims, there is also so much on which they agree, that draws them together in a common bond - in affinity.

 

As there is between Jews and Muslims.

He explained that beheading in public is capital punishment that is meant to show that justice is being done in an open way, as well as to be a deterrence to show what happens if the law is broken.  The Christian West also has capital punishment with a viewing gallery for those invited.  My thought is this: with fatal injection, as has been reported on Radio 4, it is often done cruelly so that many minutes of suffering elapse before the convicted person eventually loses consciousness and dies.

I felt the most important point he said to me was that Western, 'Christian' fighters vapourise their fellow humans by fire and flame that can hardly be said to be more humane than a one-on-one, 'eyeball to eyeball', public beheading to

do justice according to Shariah law 

and, to deter similar crime.  My point is this: in addition, the West kills with no fear of injury for themselves that makes killing Muslims so painless for the Christians.  I would add that the Judeo-Christian world kills many times more innocent civilians and Muslim fighters than they kill of Americans, French and British - all of whom are combatants.  My thought: non Muslim, Western, non-combatants - two American journalists and two aid workers - are civilians but were killed to teach the West a lesson and in revenge for the Christians attacking them, first."

Islamic State v Judeo-Christian States or,

Muslim fighters and civilians wiped out, versus not even a scratch on us lot.

AIR STRIKES BY NATO ON IRAQ - more cowardly asymetric warfare but so popular when we can kill foreigners without being killed ourselves.  524 in favour; 43 against on Friday 26 September 2014.

As with Israel in attacking Gaza with almost complete impunity, we are also waging our wars from the air, alone so not one of our armed forces people stand any chance whatsoever of getting killed.  Drones and war planes to bring death for Muslims from the skies but, our soldiers risking their deaths on the ground to effectively deal with Isis, is ruled out.  For me, these are immoral, unjust wars but very popular with the 'Christian' West and Israel when their own soldiers are immune from harm.

In all our wars, we end up killing mostly civilians, the non-combatants who simply want to be left alone from American, British, French and Israeli attacks from the air.    Once you start down that road, in order to win your war, you have to commit genocide and slaughter the lot, which is obviously impractical and immoral.

As we found with our wars of aggression in SE Asia over many decades of killing 'Communists', the people we are trying to kill simply melt away into 'nowhere'.  We lost every single war, too!

As we waged war on Muslims and others in the Middle East, we found with the failed War of Terrorism, that many of our weapons simply ended up in the hands of the Jihadists.  We should never have started.

As we found with our friend and ally Israel, trying to stop the noise and inconvenience of Hamas rockets by sending over their/our much more lethal missiles, it still ends with killing and injuring many more Gazan civilians than Hamas fighters who never did stop their rocket firing - until the ceasefire took effect.

If they want to have a pure, Shariah law, Islamic State let them.  We have our pure, democratic, capitalist state.  In the West, after centuries of intolerance and brutal religious persecution, we now pride ourselves on our political and religious tolerance - until recent years.  Muslims in the UK are no threat to ourselves and are not even campaigning for the imposition of Shariah Law, apart from in a few domestic/marital matters affecting Muslims, only.  In Iraq, I understood, IS gave the people the choice of converting to Islam, paying a fine or leaving.  When Christians fled to the mountain top, American humanitarian aid was dropped but, also, the bombing and missile attacks from the air began.  In retaliation, the beheadings of Western journalists and aid workers started.   Revenge is sweet for the religious and irreligious of both 'Islam' and 'Christianity'.  We all like to get our own back in some way or another.

Allan Little on the Scottish referendum

"Think of the heavy artillery that was pressed into service in defence of the Union in the last weeks of the campaign.  Almost all of the mainstream media were hostile to independence.  The Banks would move to London, the financial services industry would collapse, mortgage payments would rise, Scotland would have to get in the queue behind Kosovo for EU membership, the oil was running out, there would be no pound in your pocket and, the supermarkets would put their prices up.  We love you Scotland, London politicians said but if you vote 'Yes' we'll send armed guards to the border.  Yet, still 45% of those who voted, voted 'Yes'.  I think the three main parties at Westminster should be worried about that.  Even 15 years ago when the Scottish Parliament was established, that would have been unthinkable.  Labour should be particularly worried about that.  40% of their traditional voters crossed to the 'Yes' camp.  Glasgow and Dundee both had 'Yes' majorities. ... The 45% they have started to call themselves on social media this weekend.  I don't think that genie is going back in the bottle."

Self: With all this coercion from the political and business establishment in England that Little has outlined, could the campaign be really called a free and fair election?  In the light of all the pressure to vote 'No', I think it is astonishing that 45% of those who voted, voted 'Yes'.  And, the membership of the 'Yes' parties - SNP  and Green - has rocketed.

Equally astonishing, what independence really meant in practice was wholly dependent on the 18 mths of negotiations between Holyrood and Westminster - up to March 2016.  In other words, if voting changed anything, they would abolish it.  Yet, we sacrifice thousands of human lives to bring democracy down the barrel of a gun to nations who don't have it!