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Kumara Republic

Wed, 04 May 2011 16:41:50 +1200

I also noticed in NRT's blog that the leftist NDP has displaced the centrist Liberals as Canada's biggest Opposition party. Even factoring in the discrepancy of the vote share, it's still a big-time drubbing for the Libs. Could the same happen here?

Russell Brown

Wed, 04 May 2011 15:53:05 +1200

Mapp comes clean.

Yes, they're acknowledging the key point of the story — and still choosing to smear Stephenson? How very odd.

Stephen Judd

Wed, 04 May 2011 15:41:06 +1200

Where in central Wellington still has this month's Metro in stock? Tried a couple of places today and they'd already sold out.

3410

Wed, 04 May 2011 15:11:02 +1200

No Right Turn: The SAS takes prisoners after all.

Mapp comes clean.

Russell Brown

Sun, 01 May 2011 11:02:33 +1200

Russell, that's a bloody great show you've got going there!

Thank you!

Paul Williams

Sun, 01 May 2011 10:59:23 +1200

Russell, that's a bloody great show you've got going there!

Jan Farr

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 19:17:22 +1200

Islander, in reply to Islander, 2 days ago

(including sort of continuing our 'sheeplike' (fuck you too mate) Labour voting- better the devil etc.)

Well that's fine, Islander, as long as you don't mind the people who do have an opinion choosing for you. Our politicians might be seriously…

Kumara Republic

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 09:41:34 +1200

And while we're on the subject of lies, come on down,
TVNZ spokeswoman Megan Richards.

[[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HaveAGayOldTime|... and "cock" is not dirty all the time, that's one of those words that's only partly filthy. Cock, if you're talking about the animal, it's perfectly all right! They used to read that to…

Russell Brown

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 22:58:24 +1200

The Media7 show is available for viewing online.

Steve Parks

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 20:08:29 +1200

Best show we’ve done.

Man, between this, Wallace’s pending announcement about Back Benches, and Doctor Who, this week's been all about…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v16KFXa2njo

Russell Brown

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:31:10 +1200

Media7 tonight, TVNZ 7, 9.05pm, with Jon Stephenson and Simon Wilson.

Best show we've done.

Craig Ranapia

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 11:44:45 +1200

Steve:

Thanks for the party political broadcast on behalf of the Labour Party. Now, I'd like to know whether we've had a string of Ministers over the last decade TELLING BALD FACED LIES TO THE PUBLIC AND PARLIAMENT about possible complicity on the part of New Zealand troops handing foreign…

Steve Withers

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:57:57 +1200

Craig: NZ's "moral high horse riding" was based on working through the UN using legal means to deal with the problems. What NZ (Labour, actually....as National were happy to ignore the UN Charter). asserted was the primacy of the UN in resolving situations like Iraq. As we now know, the…

Alex Coleman

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:49:49 +1200

and the threadbare plausible deniability at every level of this story, from Clark to Key, from Goff to Mapp, from Ferguson to Mateparae, and so on, will go without serious challenge just like everything else.

I'm not sure they pulled the plausibility off. The Red Cross lines look like demonstrable…

3410

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:24:07 +1200

That is so so sick-

Yep, but that's the way of the world these days. New Zealand sold its soul to the US (and everything else to Australia) and the threadbare plausible deniability at every level of this story, from Clark to Key, from Goff to Mapp, from Ferguson to…

michael mccrohon

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:15:51 +1200

The New Zealand involvement in the American War on Terror is inexcusable.
The events of 11/9/2001 being the casus belli event thou no proof has ever been shown that Afghanistan or its people had any involvement in the planning or execution of the events of 11/9/2001.
In fact the…

Islander

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:57:29 +1200

(including sort of continuing our 'sheeplike' (fuck you too mate) Labour voting- better the devil etc.)

Paul Williams

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:54:31 +1200

The Prime Minister has, inevitably, dismissed any prospect of an inquiry. We should not let him off so easily.

Russell, I don’t doubt this but can’t see an online statement. Was it in a particular interview or post Cabinet brief? I’m curious to know what reasons he gave? If he…

Islander

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:04:45 +1200

All of which is why people of my generation are totally cynical and will vote randomly because we have come to hate ALL politicians-

Sacha

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:05:33 +1200

Just following the path forged by Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush and their merry band of neolib accomplices. Such as evil attorney John Yoo who decided that the Geneva Conventions meant whatever the supreme being, I mean commander, decided they did. And yet not one of them in prison.

Nice to see…

Islander

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 19:56:40 +1200

O dear goodness! That is so so sick-

3410

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 19:46:11 +1200

__No one should pretend that the SAS and its political masters weren't in a terribly difficult position here: the lawlessness of both the Americans and, later, the Afghan security forces presented a problem that was in some ways intractable. But the British found a way: they instructed their forces not…

DexterX

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:57:03 +1200

Thanks for the post.

On the matter of war generally, “the first casualty of war is the truth” and then after that it is women, children and the elderly in considerable number.

With the matter of NZSAS handing over prisoners for “torture” by "allies" as reported, I have to say…

Idiot Savant

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:49:29 +1200

BTW, anyone who can find the assessments of the three prisoners apparently taken from Band e Timur (the Americans officially spell it "Band Taimore") in the Wikileaks files gets a chocolate fish from me.

Gone through all Afghans in the Guardian release; no-one stands out.

Idiot Savant

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:46:54 +1200

What do the British do with their prisoners? Or for that matter the Australians, Canadians, Danes and other ISAF partners. I'm curious as to why we can't or won't follow their protocols.

The Canadians have turned them over to the Americans. In fact, a couple of years back the raid…

Russell Brown

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:45:11 +1200

This morning’s Australian suggests that Hicks simply told the Americans what they wanted to hear to secure his release from camp. At the very least, he can argue that any statements he made were obtained under “duress,” to use the parlance of our times:

And no one will ever be…

Terry Baucher

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:37:45 +1200

What do the British do with their prisoners? Or for that matter the Australians, Canadians, Danes and other ISAF partners. I'm curious as to why we can't or won't follow their protocols.

Jonty

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:29:28 +1200

... or they could have followed the British example.

Kyle Matthews

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:17:59 +1200

We should feel glad that Assange’s attempt to limit the publication of the files on the basis that they were his commercial goods never got anywhere

There's some crazy irony going on there that he apparently missed.

This is a US-based plea in which an accused person can agree to…

Bart Janssen

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:04:38 +1200

Oh, bullshit. Perhaps I’m hyper-sensitive because members of my family are in the military – and none of them signed up to be, at best, unwitting torture enablers if not outright war criminals.

Huh? Did you misunderstand me completely? I never suggested the SAS were in any way to blame.…

Caleb D'Anvers

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 15:45:02 +1200

Also, Sally Neighbour is suggesting that the accusation that Hicks went to Timor (for which there is no evidence) stems from the Americans' confusing him with another would-be Australian jihadist, Matthew Stewart, who served with the Australian Army in Timor in the late '90s.

Caleb D'Anvers

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 15:41:04 +1200

(Australian would-be jihadist David Hicks' file is fascinating for different reasons: assuming he told his interrogators something like the truth, he was able to simply to turn up in Kosovo, East Timor, Pakistan, Afghanistan, present himself for military training — and meet very senior Al Qaeda officials.)
This morning's Australian…

Craig Ranapia

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 15:31:38 +1200

But we don’t vote for honest answers, we vote for the best spin.

Oh, bullshit. Perhaps I'm hyper-sensitive because members of my family are in the military — and none of them signed up to be, at best, unwitting torture enablers if not outright war criminals. What they have done…

Russell Brown

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 15:00:31 +1200

Which were what… perhaps I just have to buy and read the article.

Making misleading statements, it would strongly appear.

Paul Williams

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 14:49:27 +1200

This is a lot to process. If there's evidence to suggest NZ forces inadvertently broke international law, we must examine it further without a concern about who it might reflect badly on.

No one should pretend that the SAS and its political masters weren’t in a terribly difficult position here:…

Bart Janssen

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 14:25:27 +1200

need honest answers rather than PR spin

But we don't vote for honest answers, we vote for the best spin.

This is just another example of how depressingly awful our governments have been over the last decade or two. They can't dare to tell us, the people they are meant…

Paul G. Buchanan

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:23:07 +1200

Thanks Russell, for keeping this story alive. The duplicity of successive governments when it comes to national security issues, set against the backdrop of ongoing erosion of civil liberties and expansion of the state security apparatus post 9-11, is cause for concern for anyone who believes in the democratic values…

Sacha

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:13:22 +1200

this isn't going to be good for Goff

Has anyone told Danyl? #meme

Russell Brown

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 12:24:18 +1200

And would I be wrong to suspect that Wilson and Stephenson spent many, very expensive hours with lawyers vetting every syllable and punctuation mark before the story went to press?

I gather that was very much the case.

Craig Ranapia

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 12:19:37 +1200

He’d admit himself that he’s not always the easiest guy for an editor to work with, so extra props to Simon Wilson for making that commitment.

And would I be wrong to suspect that Wilson and Stephenson spent many, very expensive hours with lawyers vetting every syllable and punctuation mark…

Craig Ranapia

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 12:16:46 +1200

No. I do suspect this isn't going to be good for Goff.

Well I would agree with you there, wouldn't I? :) But more seriously, I don't think New Zealand's reputation at home or abroad should come out of this unscathed. God knows we've collectively done enough moral high horse…

Russell Brown

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 12:09:01 +1200

Russell Brown

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 12:04:06 +1200

I would just like to compliment Jon Stephenson. On the two times I have seen him on TV explaining his story he has been composed and knowledgeable. I thought he had explained himself very well.

Jon is an extraordinary journalist. He'd admit himself that he's not always the easiest guy…

andin

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 12:01:21 +1200

I would just like to compliment Jon Stephenson. On the two times I have seen him on TV explaining his story he has been composed and knowledgeable. I thought he had explained himself very well.

But the Guantánamo system piled lie upon lie through the momentum of its own existence,

…

Russell Brown

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 12:00:59 +1200

nor should we tolerate being lied to (whether by commission or omission) by successive governments.

No. I do suspect this isn't going to be good for Goff.

Russell Brown

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:59:42 +1200

Note: I've added the name of another former Defence minister, Mark Burton, to the list of likely dissemblers, based on something I was told this morning.

Kumara Republic

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:53:07 +1200

Other media organisations have baulked at this story, perhaps concerned about political fallout.
For "fallout", read "loss of advertising revenue".

Toby

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:23:01 +1200

WikiLeaks imply that the NYT/NPR/Guardian source is Domscheit-Berg. As others pointed out yesterday, there's a rather desperate irony in the sight of WikiLeaks, the great defenders of source anonymity, outing a source – and without offering any evidence, to boot.

Craig Ranapia

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:16:51 +1200

The Prime Minister has, inevitably, dismissed any prospect of an inquiry. We should not let him off so easily.

Well, no we shouldn't — but at least he'd answer questions about the SAS, as Jon Stephenson pointed out. I don't think anyone is naive enough to think the SAS are…

Public Address

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:16:51 +1200

Discussion from blog post.