I found the above map via boingboing. It shows attacks by unmanned robotic drones committed by the US within Pakistan. The analysts who produced it write:

“Our study shows that the 114 reported drone strikes in northwest Pakistan, including 18 in 2010, from 2004 to the present have killed approximately between 834 and 1,216 individuals, of whom around 549 to 849 were described as militants in reliable press accounts, about 2/3 of total on average. Thus, the true civilian fatality rate since 2004 according to our analysis is approximately 32%.”

Of course, what defines a militant in this kind of situation could be pretty elastic. But what this seems to be showing us is that at least a third of the people we are sending robots to kill are completely innocent Pakistani civilians.

Earlier this year The Guardian reported how a group of police forces and government agencies are working with BAE systems to adapt military drone robots for use in spying on UK citizens.

The flying robots are currently used in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world to monitor and mount attacks by remote.

When the US invaded Iraq in 2003 it had no military robots on the ground, and only a few unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the air. Today, just in Iraq, the US military is using 7000 drones and around 12, 000 ground robots. Although the US military is driving the development of military robots, the UK and other major arms manufacturing countries aren’t far behind. The Ministry of Defence has hosted robotics competitions to design new surveillance bots, and recently bought 100 Dragon Runner robots. Canada, South Korea, South Africa, Singapore and Israel. China, Russia and India all have military robotics programmes of their own.

Without any real public scrutiny or comment, the way our governments conduct war, and indeed carry out police operations at home, is becoming increasingly robotocised. What’s wrong with this? On the face of it surely less human casualties for our soldiers is a good thing?

In Vietnam 58, 000 US soldiers died, compared to a few thousand in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. A lot of this has to do with advancing technology, better medical techniques etc. However, over the past century civilian casualties in war have rocketed. In World War 1 civilians were only 10% of those that died. Today they make up as much as 90% of war casaulties. For example, it’s been reported that 1 million Pakistanis have fled their homes because of threat of US drone attacks on the border with Afghanistan. The people of the North-West Frontier Province must be wondering where their John Connor is.

Military chiefs have recognised since Vietnam that it’s often difficult to make ordinary people pull the trigger and kill a fellow human being. Even unconsciously, many will aim their guns high rather than shoot someone. It’s one of the reasons that the US moved away from using conscription to recruiting their army. They wanted a professional force of highly motivated trained killers.

Since Vietnam, the US military has becoming increasingly dependent on air power, and satellite monitoring from space. Now the sudden upsurge in the use of robots continues the trend-increasingly US soldiers in other countries are able to kill at a distance, probably with a video screen in between. This makes it much easier to indiscriminately destroy any suspected threats, meaning more civilians get killed in the process. For a generation of military robot operators who have grown up doing similar tasks in computer games again and again, it’s easy to see how they get desensitised to the misery they’re causing from afar.

Anti-war campaigners are currently able to get a lot of support because many people in Britain and the US are angry about the numbers of our troops dying in imperial wars. One of the main drives behind developing new robots is a hope by the government that this means they can reduce the numbers dying significantly. While nobody wants to see working class kids sent to die, we also don’t want to see the government feeling free to intervene anywhere it feels like it using robot troops.

The boom in military robots is also making a lot of money for arms manufacturers, like the privatised UK government agency turned international evil megacorp QinetiQ.

And now, with the news that the police in the UK are going to have access to surveillance drones, we’re about to see a dramatic increase in the ability of the state to spy on us wherever we go. The people of the UK already have more CCTV watching them than anywhere else on Earth. There’s about 1 CCTV camera for every 14 people in Britain.

But with the use of drones the police will be able to cheaply monitor anywhere they want from above, which obviously has implications for political activists that get up to things the government don’t like.

The good news is that anti-war activists are starting to wake up to the threat posed by military robots and take action, especially in the US. In January there was a protest outside the CIA headquarters against the use of drones. Members of the Pittsburgh Organising Group blockaded the National Robotics Engineering Center at Carnegie Mellon University, one of the largest academic military contractors in the country. Fourteen activists were arrested in the action, which successfully shut down the robotics lab for the day.

Some companies, like iRobot, make both civilian and military robots. iRobot manufactures both the PackBot and the Roomba home cleaning bot. Such companies are potentially worried about public pressure, and should be targeted.

An interesting possible future development would be that the enemies of the US and its allies could get in on the military robot revolution. There’ve been reports that Hizbollah have used drones against Israel. There’s also been the news that Iraqi insurgents have been able to hack into the live feed from US predator drones.

Just in case you think I’m making this up, or exaggerating the threat, here’s a look at some of the latest developments in robotics.

This is the SWORDS robot, that is armed and able to kill:

Here’s some footage of the truly terrifying (but still cool to look at, I know) BigDog robot, designed with funding from the military to be an artificial pack mule carrying gear over difficult terrain:

BigDog has got a little friend, the LittleDog.

This is a group of swimming robots based on a fish, with obvious potential naval applications.

Something that is especially creepy is the potential now to remotely control insects and intercept what they see for the use of surveillance. Check out this cyborg moth:

Perhaps the most crazy idea of all though is the EATR. This stands for Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot. The basic idea is that it would be able to operate alone out in the field for a long period without going back to base to refuel. Hence EATR-it can take organic matter from the environment and turn it into fuel. This has, unsurprisingly, got a lot of people worried. The idea of a potentially flesh eating killer robot on the loose is something that does not appeal to anyone who is even half way sane.

The manufacturers and government agencies working on this technology have strictly denied that the EATR would ever start using the “organic matter” contained in the corpses of those it kills as fuel. They claim it is strictly vegetarian. Yet their own documents talk about chicken fat as a potential fuel, so the possibility that it could use fuel derived from animals, including humans, is clearly there.

Although many of these robots are developing the capacity for autonomous action, that is to take decisions on their own without the need for a human operator, we’re still quite a few years away from something with the intelligence of a Terminator or a Cylon.

And we shouldn’t be against the advances in robotics technology going on per se. It’s just that no technology is neutral-people design things with a goal in mind. And in our society one of the main goals is to make sure that the world’s most powerful countries are able to dominate the planet and exploit its peoples at the minimum cost to themselves.

But even with the prospect of robots becoming self-aware and nuking humanity isn’t quite on the horizon yet, some experts are already calling for serious thinking about military robots. Many have demanded that governments start thinking now about the implications of taking the decision of whether or not to kill someone out of human hands and putting it on an autonomous robot.

But SSY has a slightly more radical idea: how about we just don’t build KillBots. Doesn’t sound so crazy really, does it? Here’s a couple of documentaries that might win you round if you don’t agree:

XKCD: More Accurate:

When people were protesting against the war in Iraq, “No war for oil!” was one of the main slogans around the world. Of course it’s easy to see that at a simple level the reason why Britain and America invaded Iraq was to do with oil.

But things are rarely simple and straight forward when it comes to the operation of big, nuclear armed empires trying to control the world. For example, as much as the war in Iraq was about American control and access to Iraq’s oil fields, it was also about making sure that when that oil was bought and sold on the world market it was done in dollars, not euros.

The same is true of the long, and escalating, war in Afghanistan. On one level the reason British and American soldiers are killing and dying there is clearly to do with oil pipelines, and keeping strategic control over Asia in a battle for world domination. These big reasons why the war grinds on are about to be explained in an upcoming SSY pamphlet looking a bit deeper into why we should campaign for an immediate withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

But in any big war operation like this, there are secondary reasons why the governments of NATO are willing to commit lives and huge amounts of money. Something that’s been overlooked as a reason motivating the war in Afghanistan is the global importance of the heroin economy.

Estimates put the value of the global heroin trade at more than $64.82 billion per year. Today, over 90% of that product originates in Afghanistan. Only a small proportion of these massive profits can be held in cash or recycled through unofficial banks. The vast majority has to be laundered through the global financial system. In other words, the drug trade contributes billions of dollars a year to the revenues of major global banks.

Just because something is illegal doesn’t mean that when it’s traded for huge profits it isn’t a vital part of the world economy. The story of the growth of the heroin trade since the 60’s is one that’s inextricably linked with the history of US imperialism and its wars around the world. There’s a long and well documented history of the involvement of US government agencies like the CIA in the drug trade. During the US wars in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, American support was given to anti-communist rebels that used heroin production to fund their operations with the support and approval of the CIA. The areas where the drugs were produced were known as ‘The Golden Triangle.’

Later persistent allegations surfaced that in the 1980s the CIA collaborated in assisting the Contra rebels (who were waging war against the left wing government in Nicaragua) in selling crack cocaine into the US. This was uncovered by investigative journalist Gary Webb. The point of the operation was to generate a stream of profits through the drug trade that provided the money to sustain the Contras’ war. If the CIA has asked the US Congress for this funding they would have had to justify its use, but crack money provided funds whose use they weren’t answerable for.

With black communities across the US flooded with crack cocaine, many affected by the resulting wave of social disruption blamed the CIA and US foreign policy. By 1996 CIA Director John Deutch was forced to appear at a public meeting in Watts, Los Angeles to answer to the allegations. Despite his denials of CIA involvement in the drug trade, he was confronted by a former LAPD Narcotics Officer turned independent investigator, Mike Ruppert, who told the meeting he had direct evidence of CIA involvement in trafficking crack.

The point of all this background history is to show that the CIA and other US government and military agencies have long had involvement in the highly profitable global drug trade. The profits from this trade have helped to provide funding for secret military operations not subject to any kind of democratic scrutiny.

Beginning in 1978 the CIA embarked on its biggest operation ever, which was to fund and arm warlords and Islamic fundamentalists to make war against the Soviet-backed left wing government of Afghanistan. They worked hand-in-glove with the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency This war dragged on throughout the 80s, draining lives and resources from the USSR, and contributing greatly to its final collapse. The mujahideen rebels, equipped by American arms and money, were eventually able to drive the Soviet armies out, and then depose the government.

In the chaos of the war and its aftermath Afghanistan became the world’s leading supplier of heroin. As you might expect, very little of the profits are made by the actual farmers. The money is made by government officials, police, warlords and power brokers. Indeed, the western-backed President Hamid Karzai’s own family have been implicated in the drug trade.

Of course, when the mainstream media reports on the Afghan heroin trade, they usually do so to imply that it provides funding to the Taliban and al Qaeda. However, the truth is that the vast majority of the profit goes to NATO allies, people who our forces maintain in power. Many of these same forces work with figures in the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment, providing a major source of income to Pakistani state (another US ally.)

In fact, in 2000, before the American invasion and while they were still in power, the Taliban actually banned the growing of poppies needed to produce heroin. The Afghan heroin trade temporarily collapsed in value, cutting off a massive source of revenue for the Pakistani state. And ultimately, the impact was felt on the profits of western banks through which the money would have been laundered.

When the US and its allies invaded in 2001, revival of the heroin trade proved to be one of the main ways to finance the operations of the Northern Alliance, the western backed gang of brutal warlords now in power in many parts of Afghanistan. Some of the warlords have become millionaires as a result.

In addition, there is a significant profit being made by someone in the marketing of the chemical precursors needed to manufacture heroin in Afghanistan. Acetic anhydride, a chemical needed as part of the process, is regularly intercepted being smuggled into Afghanistan. The trade in this chemical is thought to be worth $45 million. A portion of that money makes its way back to western chemical corporations as profits.

There are an estimated 16 million opiate users worldwide, and the main market is in Europe, where the annual profits are estimated to be around $20 billion. One of the main ways that peace could perhaps be achieved in Afghanistan would be to do something to curb the demand for illegally produced heroin in Europe.

In Scotland, the SSP and SSY has campaigned for years in favour of a system of clean, pharmaceutical heroin being prescribed to addicts via the NHS. We’ve been villified, even effectively being called drug dealers by the Daily Record. But the fact remains that heroin on prescription is a safer way to help people with an addiction than the current system of blanket prescribing methadone. In a pilot scheme in the English town of Widnes where this was tried the effect was a drop to virtually zero levels of acquisitive crime by drug users, as well as new infection rates for HIV.

The urgency of removing the need for Scotland’s 50,000+ heroin users to buy from the illegal market was illustrated graphically last year. At least 9 people were killed after using heroin that was contaminated with anthrax.

But at least part of the reason that the pilot scheme in Widnes was shut down was that it threatened the profits of pharmaceutical companies manufacturing methadone. And at least part of the reason that NATO forces remain entangled in the Afghan war is that our allies rely on the heroin trade, which in turn produces a tidy profit for western banks. In the wake of the economic collapse of 2008, banks are now less keen than ever to ask too many questions about where their money is coming from. As UN drug official Antonio Mario Costa puts it:

“Interbank loans were funded by money that originated from drug trade and other illegal activities, and there were signs that some banks were rescued in that way. . .At a time of major bank failures, money doesn’t smell, bankers seem to believe.”

What all this shows is that the fight against the war in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to the fight to change society here. Their problems are largely a result of our governments’ policies. A socialist drug policy in Scotland would go a long way to ending the misery caused by illegal heroin in Scottish communities. But it would also go a long way to pulling the fuel from the fire of the war in Afghanistan, giving the Afghan people a chance at last to have peace and determine their own future.

If you were in  a city centre or on the train over the weekend you might have noticed a much larger police presence than usual.

This follows the Home Office announcing the latest bout of the “don’t-be-worried-but-we-should-all-be-scared-shitless-game” with the raising of the government’s terror threat level from “substantial” to “severe”, meaning the government apparently believes an attack is “highly likely.”

Telling people they shouldn’t be worried, whilst also telling them there’s a pretty fair chance they might get blown up, unfortunately for the government, loses quite a lot of its impact after 9 odd years of similar “scares”, and people just seemed to be ignoring the high police presence.

But if you weren’t worried about the imminent threat of exploding underwear, the security services have a new terrifying development in the world of ingenious terrorism – the “clean-skins”.

According to an article in the Sunday Telegraph, the wannabe-Jack Bauers are worried that al-Qaeda have been training women who may not be Arabs. These are what they call “clean-skin” agents.

“There are others who are still out there who have been trained and who are clean skins – that means people who we do not have a record of, people who may not look like al-Qaeda terrorists, who may not be Arabs, and may not be men,” said Richard Clarke, a former White House Chief Couter-Terrorism Adviser.

The term “clean-skin” has its origins in the War On Drugs that came before the War On Terrorism, in relation to people bringing drugs into the US from Latin America or elsewhere who did not fit their pre-conceived profile of what a smuggler looks like. Dictionary entries for the term offer “lilywhite” as an alternative, showing that, although officially about criminal records, immigration processes always were driven by a fair dose of racial profiling.

Now the term has transferred to the ongoing process of classifying people undertaken as part of the “War On Terror”. So, according to British government analysts, the London bombers, who were British citizens, would be classified as “clean-skins”.

Now apparently, security sources have said that it was “inevitable” that al-Qaeda would eventually turn to using women with a “western appearance” to carry out suicide attacks. The fact that such a blatantly racist term as “clean-skin” is reinforced here as meaning “white” without blushing really shows how much racism underlies most of what we get told about what the secret agencies we all fund get up to.

Anjem Choudary in happier times

Fundamentalist nutjob Anjem Choudary’s bottled it. After a week of hysteria in the British press over a planned Islamist march through Wootton Bassett, he has cancelled the demo – as many already predicted he would do. Choudary previously claimed to be organising a march for Shariah Law in London before bottling it, unfortunately not before the Daily Express ran with the story “Now Muslims Demand Full Sharia Law”.
In both cases the reasons for shitting it are obvious; Islam4UK has a membership base of only dozens and would be outnumbered in the hundreds if not thousands by far-right counter demonstrators.

Full credit must be given where it’s due however. While the Left and secular Muslims can hold sizeable demonstrations against war, terrorism and in defence of secularism they are lucky to get any coverage. Islam4UK on the other hand can picket a homecoming march with a couple dozen demonstrators holding placards and make national headlines.

People who demand that more secular Muslims speak out against Choudary, or that their voices are not being heard because they have sympathy for Islam4UK should remember how the media works. Choudary is given more publicity than any other religious Muslim leader (and possibly anyone of Muslim background in the UK) not because his ideas are popular but because they sell newspapers. A bearded lunatic raving about the flag of Allah flying over Downing Street, flogging drunks, attacking British Soldiers and generally acting like something Chris Morris would cook up is someone much more interesting to read about than some nondescript spokesperson for the Muslim Association of Britain – particularly when he’s on 25k of YOUR taxes Great Britain!

It’s this massive outpouring of hatred for Islam4UK that’s probably resulted in their banning. After being banned in their previous incarnation Al Muhjahiroun, they rebranded themselves as Islam4UK. Expect them to do the same in a couple of months – Jihad4Anglia? Scouser Muhjahadeen? Nice Cup of tea and a sit down Martyrs Brigade? The potential name changes for British Islamists are almost endless.

As much black humour Choudary and Islam4UK can provide with calls for a fundamentalist Islamic programme across the UK they are much more dangerous than their small numbers suggest. The coverage they obtain provides crucial justification for a variety of “think tanks” and a growing cottage industry of anti-Muslim bigots. Every time Islam4UK carry out a demo it can be used as evidence for massive, concealed sympathy for Islamist ideas among British Muslims. This is almost certainly Islam4UK’s strategy; punch above your weight with some mental slogans then when these are used to justify an anti-Muslim backlash pose as the defenders of Muslims.

One such organisation which has used Islam4UK to bolster it’s own anti-Muslim bigotry is the Centre for Social Cohesion. Their spokesperson agreed to debate with Anjem Choudary but then pulled out when he demanded the audience be divided into male and female. Who would have thought a religious fundamentalist would be so unreasonable. The Centre for Social Cohesion snatched headlines recently by conducting a poll claiming that one third of Muslim students supported killing in the name of religion.

The reality was that the poll showed completely different results. Only 4% of Muslim students thought it was acceptable to kill to “preserve and promote religion”. 28% thought it was acceptable to kill “only if that religion was under attack”. The second question was specifically designed to be vague enough to get the results the poll wanted.

In other questions asked, only 6% of Muslims believed that those who became apostates (converted from Islam) should be punished under Sharia Law. The poll reveals that there are only about 4-6% of British Muslims who support Islamist ideas. There were some disturbing results however – there were significant minorities who had “little or no respect for homosexuals” for instance. Also large sections of Muslims polled said they would welcome the introduction of an Islamic Caliphate, and Sharia Law in the UK. Unsurprisingly though the poll did not ask if they thought it should be forced upon non-Muslims through violence.

The only Sharia Law that is present in the UK has no legal standing whatsoever, where Muslims go to an Imam to receive a religious judgement on aspects of their lives. The Imam has no legal power and his authority is based on Muslims deciding to accept his judgements. This is not unique in the UK – Jewish Religious courts arbitrate on affairs in the Jewish community, but can only act when Jews recognise it’s authority.

Religious law shouldn’t be whitewashed – there is often pressure in marriages, families and communities to accept arbitration from religious figures even if they carry no official power. Deciding to reject it can come at a high cost in terms of personal relations with your friends and family etc. But the people who will suffer that will be Muslims and not non-Muslims in the UK, and Muslims won’t be able to challenge religious authority if there is a cloud of suspicion cast over all of them. Instead a siege mentality will develop, with these religious figures finding their authority in the community increasing.

Polling consistently shows tiny support for hardcore Islamist ideas in the UK – only 4-6% of the Muslim population support killing in the name of Islam even if its not attacked or punishment of apostates. And this is 4-6% of a religious minority. Across the UK Muslims make up 3% of the population. In Scotland it is only 0.8%. The base of support for turning the UK into an Islamic Republic would not be able to organise in telephone boxes – matchboxes would be more appropriate.

When people like Choudary are promoted throughout the media it’s not just to laugh at his ideas, or because of his sexist, and bigoted ideas. He is used by many anti-Muslim newspapers and commentators as a stick to bash all Muslims in the UK with, and to raise a nightmare scenario of Britain becoming an Islamic State. Once you have that nightmare vision you can go on to justify any kind of attack on Muslims that wouldn’t be suggested for any other minority in the UK. That makes Anjem Choudary very dangerous, but not in the way he or his opponents in the tabloid media would think.

Who would you want to investigate if the Government had lied about going to war in Iraq? Columbo? CSI? Jonathon Creek? If your answer was 4 Knights of the Realm and a Baroness, congratulations you have won and can now become the Government of the UK.

The Government announced earlier this year, at long last an inquiry into the decision to invade Iraq would be conducted. In true New Labour fashion however, the people leading the Inquiry were all picked by the Prime Minister. As Craig Murray points out on his blog, several of these “independent minds” were on record as backing the war.

Its a unique case of the guilty selecting the judges they want to put them on trial. Those leading the inquiry are also, along with being Knights and a Baroness, Privy Counsellors. The Privy Council itself is an undemocratic medieval hangover, so quite suited to the kind of “investigation” the government would want.

It’s likely there will be damning testimony against the Government throughout the Inquiry. There simply was no case to answer on Iraqi WMD and this was known before the invasion itself. The head of the UN weapons inspections Scott Ritter was vocal in opposing the invasion for example, arguing correctly that no Iraqi weapons programme existed.

Nevertheless this is an Inquiry and not a trial. There is no penalty for lying at any point in this inquiry. The most likely result will be some “recommendations” to the intelligence services to pay more attention in future, but that the UK Government just made an honest mistake and it was probably Saddam’s fault anyway. Or as one foreign office official, Sir William Ehrman put it in an unfortunate turn of phrase, “Saddam was black and he had to prove himself white. He did not do so”.

As fellow civil servants the honourable Knights and Baroness, will cover up for the establishment like all Privy Counsellors are trained to do.

Even these guys would be far more damning Judges than them…

It’s been a pretty busy week. Here’s a wee update of what’s been happening with SSY and beyond…

EDUCATION: Glasgow Uni Tutors Fight for Fair Pay
Post Graduate  Teaching Assistants at Glasgow University could be set for strike action in their ongoing battle for fair pay and conditions. A series of meetings this week among tutors,who carry out the majority of undergraduate teaching at the university, have decided on a series of demands that will be put to university management. Key among them is that tutors are given adequate time to prepare for teaching – currently, they are given twenty minutes per hour of teaching time. University management are, however, now looking to cut this back so that the already miniscule preparation time will not be allocated for repeat classes, amounting to a serious cut in pay.  Other demands include a maximum class size for tutorials, and a guarantee on the number of essays they will be asked to mark per hour, both of which currently set by individual departments, some of which insist on tutors marking  4 x 2000 word essays… per hour.

SRC careerist bureaucrat wankers make a great job of SCABBING on the 2006 lecturer’s strike. We can be sure of lots more of the same this time!!

Glasgow Uni Left Soc. have offered their full support to the tutors in their fight, which comes as new principal Anton Muscatelli arrives at the uni, with plans to ‘restructure’ faculties into ’schools’ with departmental budgets said to be ‘under review’. This will, as is happening at Strathclyde Uni, inevitably mean cuts, which must be resisted wherever they hit. Supporting the PGTA fight for fair pay is an important first step in this battle; there’s much more support that needs to be built, however, before any action can take place – less than 5% of post grad tutors are unionised, for instance. There’s strong grounds for their battle though – the Glasgow tutors face some of the worst terms and conditions of any Scottish university and at current rates of pay often find themselves carrying out hours of unpaid work – which, averaged out, comes out at less than the minimum wage.

POSTAL WORKERS: Royal Mail posties are looking set for nationwide strike action after an overwhelming majority voted in favour of industrial action last week. This is an important struggle to save one of the last mass nationalised industries, and to resist creeping privatisation, cuts in service and redundancies. The SSP’s Richie Venton spoke to post workers in the CWU union about the coming action, which you can read here. See you down the picket lines…

ANTI-MILITARISM: Students from Strathclyde and Glasgow Uni Stop the War Coalition succeeded in shutting down the army recruitment centre on Queen St. on Friday. Despite intimidation from the police, who requested names and addresses, and threatened arrest, of nearly everyone at the demo, the 30 strong group persisted and blocked off the entrances to both ends of the building for around an hour. SSY also hit the streets of er, Buchanan Street on Saturday afternoon with petitions and leaflets calling for troops out of Afghanistan, and got a warm response from the public, sold MILLIONS of Voices and Leftfields, and brought the revolution that bit closer. Maybe.

LEFTFIELD: The time has come… for a new Leftfield fanzine! Yay. This means one thing though.. in fact, several things, like not getting any sleep for two weeks, but also.. WE NEED ARTICLES!! And photos. And pictures. And cartoons. And RECIPES. And like, other lefty fanziney things. Send submissions to scottishsocialistyouth@hotmail.co.uk during the next couple of weeks.. pleaaase! Hopefully we’ll have it done in time for the SSP’s upcoming march for jobs in Springburn,which now looks set to take place on Saturday 7 November . Get it in the diary folks!

A Nato airstrike in Kunduz is believed to have killed approximately 70 civilians

Nato faces fresh and unusual criticism today after it emerged that booze has been banned from its HQ in Afghanistan after its staff were too hungover to give an explanation as to how 70 civilians were killed in an airstrike

Nato command HQ, Afpak. Just be thankful there wasn’t a toga party on, Russia might not still be here

This comes after a UN report detailing that 30% of civilian casualties in Afghanistan arise from attacks from the Afghan army and Nato – most of them airstrikes.

Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan. Is he pissed here? Lets hope not

Nato airstrikes have been condemned even by pro-Nato Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who may or may not have rigged the Afghan elections.

George Best. Also liked the drink, but did not bomb Afghan villages.

Being so pissed you can’t remember details of operations, or that they’re not even recorded shows a new level of contempt for Afghan lives though.

Commander in Chief of Nato. Cannot find his car keys, wallet, mobile phone or last name.

Nato may reassure us that the pilots who did it weren’t drunk, but accountability exists for a reason – if there isn’t any cos people are too fucked then it puts this occupation of Afghanistan in the same bracket as all the others; unjust, and unwinnable.

Lets bring the troops home, and make sure they can experience a safe transition to £1.20 a Deuchars atWetherspoons, with as few F-15 airstrikes as possible along the way.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed Al Megrahi, convenient scapegoat for Lockerbie

SNP Justice Minister Kenny MacKaskill’s decision to free convicted Lockerbie bomber Al Megrahi on the grounds of compassionate release has unleashed a tornado of criticism upon both himself and the devolved administration.

SNP Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill

He has been attacked by virtually all other opposition parties, tabloid newspapers, and even the current director of the FBI Robert Mueller who said his decision empowered terrorists.

The decision itself opens a can of worms for Socialists – is it possible for a mass murderer to be rehabilitated? Should a justice system keep a dying man in prison, even when he is almost certainly in no position to re offend?

There are powerful arguments for having compassionate release, to provide convicted criminals with the option to spend the last months of their lives with their family and friends.

It’s an act of humanity which they might not have treated their victims with, but it’s something a civilised state can do for people who are in no position to commit crime again.

In Megrahi’s case however there is a far more powerful justification for his release – he is innocent.

Megrahi has spent 8 years locked away from his family, friends, in a foreign country for a crime he did not commit and has been made a scapegoat for.

As part of his compassionate release he has been forced to drop his appeal, meaning he will die as a convicted mass murderer.

While Megrahi may unfortunately never live to see his name cleared, it is important that those who are still living speak out against his politically motivated conviction; not only for the sake of his and his family’s name, but for the victims of Lockerbie as well.

The Lockerbie Bombing – the worst air disaster in the UK

The bombing itself occurred on the 21st of December 1988, when Pan Am 103 was blown up over the skies of Lockerbie. All 259 passengers and crew were killed, along with 11 people on the ground.

The investigation into the bombing was undertaken by the Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary – the smallest force in the UK – alongside international agencies like the FBI.

Megrahi’s conviction was based on evidence obtained from the wreckage of Pan Am 103 – specifically a brown Samsonite suitcase, and a minute timer fragment.

The debris from the suitcase that held the bomb

The Samsonite suitcase was identified as the case which contained the bomb, through the use of modern forensic techniques.

The contents of the suitcase were also put together, by identifying items of clothing which must have been in the same case as the bomb due to scorching etc.

Tony Gauci’s clothes shop on Malta, where Megrahi allegedly bought items to disguise the bomb

These clothes were identified as coming from a shop on Malta owned by the trials key witness, Tony Gauci.
Megrahi was alleged to have used these clothes to pack the suitcase containing the bomb.

This bomb was then supposed to have been loaded on to a flight from Malta to Frankfurt, then from Frankfurt to Heathrow where it was loaded on to Pan Am 103

Gauci made a positive identification of Megrahi as the man who bought the items of clothing from his shop.

Megrahi himself was named as an agent of the Libyan Government by another witness, Abdul Majid Giaka a defector from Libya.

The timer circuitry that had been supplied to Libya

The minute fragment of a timer found at the crash site was identified as being manufactured by Mebo AG, a telecommunications company whose employees identified the fragment and admitted to selling the timers to Libya.

At first glance the case appears to be relatively solid. But on closer examination of the trial, and with some new developments relating to the evidence and witnesses the credibility of the trial falls apart.

The evidence used to convict Megrahi was at best circumstancial and at worst a calculated attempt to frame him.

Tony Gauci saw this picture of Megrahi before identifying him

The star witness of the trial, Tony Gauci was found to have seen pictures of Megrahi a few days before “identifying” him. Contrary to procedure, this information was not turned over to the defence.

Gauci initially described Megrahi as being in his fifties and six feet tall – he is in fact five feet tall and was 36 when the bombing occured.

Gauci was labelled as “not the full shilling” by the Lord Advocate due to his contradictory testimony, and was reported to have received a $2 million dollar reward from the US.

The so-called defector Giaka who accused Megrahi of Libyan intelligence was revealed to be a fantasist, who was milking his CIA handlers for all he could get. His other “revelations” included evidence Gaddafi was involved in Masonic plots with the President of Malta.

The judges themselves were totally unable to account for the movements of the “magic suitcase”.

The case alleged to contain the bomb is supposed to have travelled from Malta to Heathrow unaccompanied.

There was no explanation given as to how this was possible, as the Judges accepted in their verdict below,

“As we have also said, the absence of an explanation as to how the suitcase was taken into the system at Luqa is a major difficulty for the Crown case but after taking full account of that difficulty, we remain of the view that the primary suitcase began its journey at Luqa”

Megrahi’s defence argued that the bomb was probably loaded on Pan Am 103 at Heathrow. A retired security guard gave Megrahi’s defence team a sworn affidavit that there was a break in early on the day of the Lockerbie bombing.

This break in would have allowed access to the baggage at Heathrow. The security guard commented that he was surprised this information was not made known at the trial.

The minute fragment of timer discovered in Lockerbie that was used to identify Libya as the state sponsor of the bombing has also been exposed as misleading.

An official of Mebo has signed a sworn affidavit to Megrahi’s defence, claiming that he was not only asked to lie in the trial regarding identifying the timer fragment but that he also stole a timer on the behalf of “someone investigating the Lockerbie case”.

Megrahi’s defence team also had a sworn statement from a Scottish Police chief, alleging this fragment was planted. The timers themselves were also sold to many other countries, including East Germany who may have provided them to the real Lockerbie bombers.

Newly released memos from the US Defense Intelligence Agency also claim that it was Iran, not Libya that was believed by US intelligence agencies to have carried out the bombing. The memo states,

“The bombing of the Pan Am flight was conceived, authorised and financed by Ali-Akbar Mohtashemi-Pur, Iran’s former interior minister.
“The execution of the operation was contracted to Ahmad [Jibril], Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command [PFLP-GC] leader, for a sum of $1million [£600,000.
"$100,000 of this money was given to Jibril up front in Damascus by the Iranian ambassador to Sy [Syria], Muhammed Hussan [Akhari] for initial expenses. The remainder of the money was to be paid after successful completion of the mission.”

All of this evidence is what lead to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission granting Megrahi a second appeal – one that would likely have proved his innocence.

So if it wasn’t Libya or Megrahi, who did bomb Pan Am 103? For once US intelligence was (originally) right. The most likely suspect is Iran, using the a Palestinian militant group the PFLP-GC to do it’s dirty work.

Iran had a clear motive to bomb an American airliner. 5 months before Lockerbie an Iranian Airbus was shot down by the USS Vincennes, an American warship. The Vincennes mistook the Airbus for an Iranian fighter jet, and killed 250 people on pilgrimage to Mecca.

Iran commemorates the downed Airbus with a series of stamps

Both the Airbus and the Vincennes were in Iranian territorial waters at the time of the attack. Unlike Megrahi, the Captain of the Vincennes, William Rogers was not indicted for murder or even manslaughter. He was given the Legion of Merit for his command of the Vincennes.

Will Rogers III, Captain of the Vincennes and recipient of the Legion of Merit

Iran clearly had a motivation for revenge.

The Lockerbie bomb itself also points at the PFLP-GC and Iran. 2 months before the bombing a PFLP-GC cell was arrested in Frankfurt.

The improvised explosive device hidden in a Toshiba radio that blew Pan Am 103 out the sky.

They were found to be making bombs disguised as Toshiba radios – exactly the same kind of improvised explosive device used to bring down Pan Am 103.

The evidence linking Iran to the bombing was dropped, and suspicion cast on Libya because the US needed both Iran and Syria to remain neutral during the Gulf War.

The price for that neutrality has meant an innocent man has been jailed for 7 years, his name destroyed and justice for the Lockerbie victims may never be done.

Part of Megrahi’s compassionate release involves dropping his legal appeal. CIA agent Robert Baer wrote that the appeal would be so damaging to Scottish Justice that Kenny MacKaskill had two choices, “to release Megrahi or smother him in his sleep”.

McKaskill chose the more humane option. But it’s still not justice. The truth about Lockerbie cannot be allowed to die with Megrahi, it must be exposed regardless of the shame it causes legal establishments both sides of the Atlantic.