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Archives for 11 May, 2007

Cheese eating surrender monkeys slammed

11 May, 2007
Posted in: Reading etc.

A bunch of MEPs went to the US to hear about CIA renditions. They heard Mr. Michael F. Scheuer, Former Chief, Bin Laden Unit, CIA describe us lot as follows

“effete sanctimonious Europeans who take every bit of American protection offered them while publicly damning and seeking jail time for those who risk their lives to provide the protection”

He added:

“If the Rendition Program is halted, we will truly be able to say, by paraphrasing the late film actor John Wayne, that: War is tough, but it is a lot tougher if you are deliberately stupid”

Hmm. He has a way with words.

“On the issue of how rendered al-Qaeda leaders have been treated in prison, I am unable to speak with authority about the conditions these men found in the Middle Eastern prisons they were delivered to at President Clinton’s direction. I would not, however, be surprised if their treatment was not up to U.S. standards, but this is a matter of no concern as the Rendition Program’s goal was to protect America and the rendered fighters delivered to Middle Eastern governments are now either dead or in places from which they cannot harm America. Mission accomplished, as the saying goes.”

I feel I’ve heard that before somewhere. Mission accomplished, mission accomplished, why does it ring a bell?

“Finally, I will close by saying that mistakes may well have been made during my tenure as the chief of CIA’s bin Laden operations, and, if there were errors, they are my responsibility. Intelligence information is not the equivalent of court-room-quality evidence, and it never will be. But I will again stress that no rendition target was ever approved or captured without a written brief composed of intelligence information that persuaded competent U.S. government legal authorities. If mistakes were made, I can only say that that is tough, but war is a tough and confusing business, and a well-supported chance to take action and protect Americans should always trump other considerations, especially pedantic worries about whether or not the intelligence data is air tight”.

The full text of Mr. Scheuer’s testimony is here. I think it speaks for itself, really.

Shoes

11 May, 2007
Posted in: Boys, Family, Michael

The boys love to go out. Michael often follows me round the house clutching his shoes and looking at me hopefully.

The boys have one pair of shoes each and one pair of sandals each. The weather has turned nasty and we have discovered that one of the shoes has disappeared. In rotation, our unfortunate sons have been guilty of the fashion solecism of wearing sandals with socks. Also, more worrying, they have taken my keys and hidden them. I foresee vast expenditure.

When my father was a student in the 1940s, he had a friend who was a physics student. His friend said to him one day “I can’t wait for the Summer when I can get out of shoes again.” There is something about the juxtaposition of not wearing shoes and physics that appeals to me.

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