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Clare Short

Hypocolius said:
What with old CND stalwarts like Jack Straw and Clare Short supporting the war, there must be a good reason, even if we haven't been told what it is. This of course ignored the blindingly obvious fact that the fact that they were CND stalwarts means they are both a little short in the critical thinking department.
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Like the vocal CND supporter Tony Blair? (in his 1983 election manifesto, when first elected to parliament, Blair was vocally committed to unilateral nuclear disarmament and to Britain withdrawing from the European Community - how times change eh). ;)
 
Originally posted by iain:
Like the vocal CND supporter Tony Blair? (in his 1983 election manifesto, when first elected to parliament, Blair was vocally committed to unilateral nuclear disarmament and to Britain withdrawing from the European Community - how times change eh).
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That Manifesto.
 
I noticed that most of the NPR pundits I listen to seem quite unsurprised by the whole affair, pointing out that the UN has been full of spies since the inception.

Also that the secretary expressed not outrage, but simply a demand that the practice stop, if it's going on.
 
geni said:
Will some make her shut up?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3520095.stm

What part of national security dose she not understand.
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Sorry, I don't agree with "my country, right or wrong". There's more to being patriotic than keeping something secret because the leader of the day says it should be secret.

Obviously there's a huge grey area and without knowing the facts, we can't say where Clare Short is in that; but I don't think you can say that this sort of thing has to stay secret no matter what.
 
iain said:
Sorry, I don't agree with "my country, right or wrong". There's more to being patriotic than keeping something secret because the leader of the day says it should be secret.
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However there is a resposiblty to keep a secret unless there is a very good reason to release it. On the baisis that by revealing the information now she can't do anything to change things there is no reason to release this stuff. If she though this inofrmation had to be made pulic she should have resigned and released it imedetly. Giving out inteligance information for purely personal gain is not a good thing.
 
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/02/27/1077676963516.html

This article seems to imply that it's all true. It was actually Katharine Gun who kicked off the whole deal. What was happening, according to what I have read, is that the US asked Britain to spy on Anan.

Saying that everyone does it is hardly a defense. In what way is the UN a threat to Great Britain and the US? It can only have been to get some information on how to help the war get going.

Ms Short's allegations followed a surprise decision by the Government on Wednesday to drop a prosecution against Katharine Gun, an intelligence whistleblower, who leaked a memo disclosing that the US had asked Britain to bug UN diplomats in the lead-up to the war in Iraq.

The affair dominated the British papers yesterday. The Independent ran with the headline: "Britain's spying shame". The Daily Mail - in a reference to Iraq's undiscovered weapons arsenal that has also plagued Mr Blair - labelled Ms Short a "Woman of Mass Destruction".

The Guardian described her as a "lonely figure waging personal war on Blair", while The Independent and The Daily Telegraph both dubbed her "Calamity Clare".
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Clare Short has merely confirmed what everyone in the UN already knew. There are 2 issues here: (1) Is it right to bug friendly nations/organisations? (2) Should Ms Short expose such bugging?
My opinion:
(1) Yes. I imagine the spying is so prevalent in the UN that the organisation probably couldn't operate without it.
(2) Probably not, even if she was doing it for the right reasons (and not the selfish motive she is currently guided by).

Kofi Anan knows that anything he says, or transmits, by an electronic medium is read by all the member states who can afford the technology. Even when he has a 'private', personal conversation with a colleague (face to face), he still has to bear in mind that the person may turn on him and divulge the contents of the discourse.
Sad, perhaps, that this is the case but modern diplomacy relies on such techniques.
 
geni said:
However there is a resposiblty to keep a secret unless there is a very good reason to release it.
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Agreed.

On the baisis that by revealing the information now she can't do anything to change things there is no reason to release this stuff. If she though this inofrmation had to be made pulic she should have resigned and released it imedetly.
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I don't agree with you here. You're right that it's too late to do anything in this case. However, the whole issue of the Iraq war is still very much open. Whether the war was right or wrong, legally, morally and practically, has huge implications on how international affairs are conducted in future (e.g. with Axis of Evil nations).

I don't see that anyone can make a good reasoned judgement on how to go about tackling these problems in the future without understanding what happened in Iraq : what was done right and what was done wrong.
 
In the article linked to by Geni....

The government says it was his duty to remind her of her obligations.
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It is.

She broke the law. She signed the OSA.

Like all laws it's not perfect, but being an MP she has avenues to the truth that ordinary people don't have. Unfortunately she also has the ear of the press. I think she made and is making (In this case going public on her b@llocking) an error of judgment.

I have signed the OSA, and even though the work I did was many, many years ago I would not consider discussing it openly.

I'm still not sure why this all comes as such a revelation. Those signals are bouncing all over the place, someone is going to listen in. In fact I would say that anyone who states categorically that they are not is either lying or not technically capable of doing so.

I'm never quite sure exactly what type of Utopian world people like Ms Short want to live in. Maybe she should clarify what level of transparency she considers appropriate for a government.
 
Here I was thinking this was a SCEPTIC forum!!!!


Please correct me if I have some facts wrong here, but did Claire Short in fact indicate that she had read transcripts of telephone conversations of Kofi Annan??

This in itself does NOT mean anybody bugged Kofi Annan. It could be the intelligence services were bugging the end of the line.

For example, does anybody know if Kofi Annan had a telephone conversation with Saddam Hussain, or one of Iraq's senior politicians prior to the war?


There, is of course, still the question of whether bugging anybody is acceptable. However, I would wait for more information before reaching the conclusion that Kofi Annan has been "spied on".
 
Reginald said:
In the article linked to by Geni....



It is.

She broke the law. She signed the OSA.

Like all laws it's not perfect, but being an MP she has avenues to the truth that ordinary people don't have. Unfortunately she also has the ear of the press. I think she made and is making (In this case going public on her b@llocking) an error of judgment.

I have signed the OSA, and even though the work I did was many, many years ago I would not consider discussing it openly.

I'm still not sure why this all comes as such a revelation. Those signals are bouncing all over the place, someone is going to listen in. In fact I would say that anyone who states categorically that they are not is either lying or not technically capable of doing so.

I'm never quite sure exactly what type of Utopian world people like Ms Short want to live in. Maybe she should clarify what level of transparency she considers appropriate for a government.
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She did not raise the issue, someone else did. She just confirmed it. Britain has been bugging an organisation that is not a threat to it. "everybody else does it" is not an excuse.
 
Drooper said:
Here I was thinking this was a SCEPTIC forum!!!!


Please correct me if I have some facts wrong here, but did Claire Short in fact indicate that she had read transcripts of telephone conversations of Kofi Annan??

This in itself does NOT mean anybody bugged Kofi Annan. It could be the intelligence services were bugging the end of the line.

For example, does anybody know if Kofi Annan had a telephone conversation with Saddam Hussain, or one of Iraq's senior politicians prior to the war?


There, is of course, still the question of whether bugging anybody is acceptable. However, I would wait for more information before reaching the conclusion that Kofi Annan has been "spied on".
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Point well made. I quote my opening line of an earlier post in this very thread...

From what has been surfacing in the papers and on TV here, it seems that she is not entirely sure that what she saw were intel documents.
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Ms Short was the one who cried "foul!"
 
a_unique_person said:


She did not raise the issue, someone else did. She just confirmed it. Britain has been bugging an organisation that is not a threat to it. "everybody else does it" is not an excuse.
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Oh come on!

What world do you live in?

Who said it needs an excuse......it happens.

An employee of GCHQ says something.......thats a problem.
(It's still an abuse of trust).
An ex-cabinet minister wades in with some details and at this stage a possible cofirmation, that's another thing altogether.
 
a_unique_person said:


She did not raise the issue, someone else did. She just confirmed it. Britain has been bugging an organisation that is not a threat to it. "everybody else does it" is not an excuse.
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I don't care if not one other government in the world does it; I still want the intelligence services that are responsible to my government to be doing it.

I want my government to be using resources to ensure it has accurate intelligence of any major power or organisation that does, can or could have an effect on the lives of UK citizens (nee subjects).

I would not vote for any political party that did not support an active and through intelligence service.
 
Reginald said:

...snip...

An employee of GCHQ says something.......thats a problem.
(It's still an abuse of trust).

...snip...
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Even though I've stated what I have in my post above I still think there can be moral and legitimate reasons why an individual would and should break the OSA.

But I just can't see how Short can claim any moral "high ground" with her current antics; her actions have happened beyond what I can consider to be reasonable period of "soul searching". Looking at the other actions she has taken recently to put her in the public view, that have had nothing to do with the “war” it still appears to be a case of sour grapes and self-seeking publicity.
 
Darat said:


Even though I've stated what I have in my post above I still think there can be moral and legitimate reasons why an individual would and should break the OSA.

But I just can't see how Short can claim any moral "high ground" with her current antics; her actions have happened beyond what I can consider to be reasonable period of "soul searching". Looking at the other actions she has taken recently to put her in the public view, that have had nothing to do with the “war” it still appears to be a case of sour grapes and self-seeking publicity.
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You are right there are no absolutes. I can think of a couple of examples where someone would be right to break that ruling. For example if the current government were to be bugging the opposition, some fundamental domestic abuse.
 
Darat said:


I don't care if not one other government in the world does it; I still want the intelligence services that are responsible to my government to be doing it.

I want my government to be using resources to ensure it has accurate intelligence of any major power or organisation that does, can or could have an effect on the lives of UK citizens (nee subjects).

I would not vote for any political party that did not support an active and through intelligence service.
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That is crazy talk.
 
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