the British Foreign Secretary in the Commons.

a Tory asked can Colombo be suspended from the Commonwealth.

the gentle reply was we haven't the numbers.

I feel... thin. Sort of stretched, like... butter scraped over too much bread. I need a holiday. A very long holiday. And I don't expect I shall return. In fact I mean not to.

- Bilbo Baggins

note, from that Wahiu and Tesfagiorgis piece

The move from sovereignty as an alibi for inaction to constitutional legitimacy as a basis for action is a watershed.

although re my casting about in the dark on the previous post, here is Peter Ryley, eternally relevant

tbc re yday's post, a 'blood on hands' rejoinder to my support for Geras doesn't work re the invasion of Iraq as both those in favour and those against sadly have blood on hands practically (if one is to go down that route) - we all do, don't we - owing to the monstrously tragic character of humanity (and to the infernal nature of the vile Saddam regime).

i don't wish to be misconstrued as making light, speaking lightly (this would be barbarous, heartless and as wrong as i could be) of people being bombed, people being shot at check-points, people, say, being maimed through the use of white phosphorous or killed in wicked numbers during the spring 2004 American assault on Fallujah (a collective punishment, it is surely uncontroversial to say, which amounts to a violation of the laws of war - for which, of course, insurgents also bear responsibility), and apologise for making obvious sixth-form statements but, just, you know, tbc.

3OD

Ending Chechnya’s counterterrorism operation - or not, by Tanya Lokshina

Life in the world’s largest refugee settlement, by Anna Husarska

Africa: constitution-building vs coup-making, by Winluck Wahiu and Paulos Tesfagiorgis

Naomi Wolf thinks this should happen.

tbc on the torture debate, Vim handily locates some of the keystones, including the excellent Mark Danner's laudable excavations, and, also tbc, Geras on the Holocaust, mutual indifference, Nuremberg, etc means perhaps he is coming at things from a different perspective to Wolf and although i don't know if some critics might query if his long-time initially pro-war stance underpins this, i would certainly think not, because he has always articulated a commitment to universal rights, that has included a complete opposition to all forms of torture.

Geras is also, i would argue - though i may be entirely wrong here - consistently more morally serious on world affairs than Wolf, a partisan woman, who, utterly ludicrously after all, in a column for a mass-circulation American chattering class organ foresaw the forthcoming "Palin-Rove police state", after coming into power, denying their subjects any subsequent proper elections.

(i couldn't resist.)

also tbc, in many respects i remain something of a Wolf fan-boy, as she has a lot of worthwhile things to say, eg on pornography.
it is not that the 'shames us all/all guilty' argument is entirely without foundation, after all - eg where does one draw the line on the guilt/complicity of mobile phone users in wealthy democracies and their investment funding horrors associated with the mining/exportation of coltan - but just that, as Geras surely correctly points out, the wooly practical aspects of this argument run into problems.

N.B.
the framing above re "some critics might query" deliberately alludes to, say, certain SWP-types, not because i necessarily agree with the SWP programmatically, but because i thought i would anticipate the daftest possible leftist or social-liberal counter-argument to Geras and demonstrate its innate lack of merit.

(the daftest possible counter-argument in general would clearly be from some conservative cunt who could care less about people getting tortured in a vast network of illegal, clandestine sites by the USA or her allies.)

the amazing No Good Boyo on some other charities

"Waugh on Want. Dyspeptic High Tories rove the wretched places of the Earth - The Levant, Afghanistan, Kurdistan, Scotland - telling the slovenly locals to shut up, leave the livestock alone, read some hardback books and restock their wine cellars with decent but affordable claret."

Russell Blackford has a pop at Terry Eagleton, and i must say, the final sentence of the penultimate paragraph (the stuff about colorful hyperbole and the OIC) is well worth supporting

the situation has developed.

it is moving.

things are moving.

it is not good.

the situation is grave.

what, you're just going to let him bleed out on the table?

that'll kill him.

you need to think this through, son.

i honestly never fail to be amazed (not yet, anyway) by the frequency with which Simon Jenkins chats out of his arse.

how does he do it?

this blog has linked to pieces of his in the past (at least one i can recall) that have showed sense, but more often than not, it is the reverse.

"More than 120 migrants arrived Monday in Sicily after being stranded on a cargo ship in the Mediterranean for four days while Italy and Malta argued over who should accept them...A pregnant woman drowned when she fell between boats while being rescued. Crew members had to keep seabirds from her body, which lay on the cargo ship, Ms. Boldrini said."

and

Ibrahim Bajiran, a former member of Diyala’s provincial council, blamed Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia for Monday’s attack, saying its Iraqi wing was coordinating operations with the group’s leadership outside the country. He stressed the need for better security, including modern equipment to detect explosives.

Another provincial council member, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity for fear of his safety, warned that the attacks would intensify. “Armed groups are working to make the situation unstable to prevent the American forces from withdrawing from Diyala,” he said.

Violence against Iraqi security forces continued elsewhere in Iraq. An improvised bomb attached to the car of an Iraqi police captain in Falluja in Anbar Province killed two children standing nearby: the captain’s daughter and nephew. Another aimed at a police patrol in Mosul killed two civilians.

he's not interested in what that fat cunt has to say.

i wouldn't waste my piss.

why you be all up in their shit anyway?

it is a retreat from your old comrades.

a deal has been cut.

it is no use protesting through any channel.

we cannot guarantee the safety of any of your people if you choose to continue, and this even after we have given you our advice!

what are you going to do?

turn up to an international donor meeting, raise a few cuss words, and tell everybody to go fuck themselves?

smooth.

why, what happened to your uncle there?

i did not know that.

something has to give.

from a narrow British media view - quite unusual to see even by the standards of Britain's two finest news strands, these near simultaneous offerings - there has recently been two similar programmes on BBC2 and Channel 4 in under the past two weeks regarding North Koreans attempting to escape to the South, with the arduous busman odyssey through China and parts of southeast Asia that this entails: a risk-fraught, dangerous enterprise.

This World's Escaping North Korea showed families ripped apart, whilst reporter Oliver Steeds - for episode 6 series 2009 of Unreported World - noted, in one Chinese border town, there is a reward equivalent to twenty pound UK for those Chinese citizens who grass up escapees to their local authorities.

(related: another Mick Hartley h/t.)

OTP