The Labour Party has to protect its political back but few take Lord Ahmed very seriously. As many have previously argued in threads here, a case can be made for indicting Blair for war crimes. Try:

The International Criminal Court in the Hague is being asked to probe allegations of war crimes by Tony Blair, Jack Straw and Geoff Hoon. The claims surround the UK’s role in invading Iraq and have been raised by the group Legal Action Against War. They say a “principal charge” is “intentionally launching an attack knowing it will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians”. Michael Mansfield QC said the group wanted to re-establish the rule of law. [BBC website 2 March 2004]

In this letter to the Guardian on 7 March 2003, almost a fortnight prior to the invasion of Iraq on 20 March and the beginning of hostilities, these eminent academic teachers of international law had no doubts about whether the war would be illegal or not:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,3604,909275,00.html

Harsh I know, but people have to learn not to make uncosted spending commitments off the cuff.

Try this submission from Philippe Sands QC to the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war:

The Iraq war inquiry has asked international lawyers for their analysis of the arguments relied upon by the UK government as the legal basis for the military intervention in Iraq. Here is the submission made by Philippe Sands QC, barrister at Matrix chambers and professor of international law at University College London.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/interactive/2010/oct/04/iraq-inquiry-submissions-philippe-sands

So Ahmed made a reasonable point satirically (“if the US has the right to offer money to have people murdered, then why shouldn’t I have the right to do the same back at them?”), and is being treated like someone who *actually* called for assassinations as a result?

You don’t have to be a supporter of L-e-T to think that extra-judicial executions are wrong, nor to make satirical points about how the Americans would react if the situation were reversed.

But john b – what about Sunny’s point WRT his expressing/demonstrating solidarity with a terrorist organisation?

Well several Labour MP’s express solidarity with Hamas.

That doesn’t seem to worry Miliband too much.

Sarah: he wasn’t.

I think Sunny’s misread the Tribune piece. It says that the reception was organised by Pakistani businessmen in Lord Ahmed’s honour (not in Saeed’s honour), and Saeed wasn’t there.

In other words, in the course of a ‘thank you for throwing me this party’ speech, Ahmed made a comment about the US bounty on Saeed being an outrageous abuse of US power (which it is), and joked about putting a bounty on Bush and Obama in retaliation (which seems fair enough).

And hence, we have a massive teacupgate.

John –

…if the US has the right to offer money to have people murdered, then why shouldn’t I have the right to do the same back at them?

It’s not a bounty for his head. Indeed, according to the Yanks it isn’t even for his arrest but for information that could lead to his arrest. Why they’re offering money while the Indian’s aren’t is beyond me but them’s the facts.

http://dawn.com/2012/04/05/us-seeks-information-leading-to-arrest-or-conviction/

Wot john b said @4. Sunny, I think you’re wrong to assume that “Such a comment would of course be illegal anyway”, unless we’re also going to start jailing people for saying things like “If Fred’s late to work again today, I’ll kill him!” Metaphorical and satirical statements should not be taken literally, and I assume the law normally takes that into account (despite recent cases of people being punished for making jokes online).

He made these comments at a special reception for him, attended by politicians and tribal leaders. It wasn’t just an off the cuff joke, he added that he would make sure the money was paid at any cost to himself, including the selling of his house.

He wasn’t making a satirical quip on Have I got News for You, he was trying to impress people in the audience who would assume him to be speaking seriously and who evidently found it quite agreeable for him to speak up in defence of a local political extremist.

he added that he would make sure the money was paid at any cost to himself, including the selling of his house.

This is also a key point. That doesn’t sound like a off-the-cuff joke.

I wrongly said earlier the event was in support of LeT – I think the Pakistani papers implied that but it may not have been the case. Either way, when Ahmed was making his speech he wasn’t joking around. the Pakistani news org doesn’t report it as a joke.

Omar’s actually a British journalist who reports on pakistan for time magazine.

In tonight’s news on the BBC website:

Suspended Labour peer Lord Ahmed has told the BBC he is “shocked and horrified” at claims that he called for a £10m bounty for the capture of US Presidents Obama and Bush.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17732128

This is looking like another hurricane storm in the proverbial tea cup.

“Does anyone really give a fuck?”

The Labour Party must have worried that someone did or the Party wouldn’t have suspended Lord Ahmed.

In that BBC news report, Lord Ahmed is not denying that he implicated Blair in the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Very likely the Labour Party finds that embarrassing and doesn’t want old controversies reignited now when many are believed to be forgetting the damage that Blair did with launching the invasion and all the previous New Labour stuff about an ethical foreign policy.

What made the invasion even worse is that British troops were sent out to Iraq lacking essential equipment to protect them against Iraq’s potential use of WMD, supposedly the very justification for the invasion according to that infamous government dossier presented to Parliament on 24 September 2002:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/02/uk_dossier_on_iraq/html/full_dossier.stm

Sunny and Sarah AB – if you bothered to actually look at the new report then all it does is show Lord Ahmed speaking – not his words, and they then repeat thje claim the newspaper is making.

The point is that the report doesn’t actually show him saying anything!

As is usual the hysteria then takes off and these blogs go off on one.

It is rather sad that Muslims are told to participate in the political process and then told what is and isn’t allowed by rules mainly made up by right wing movements that essentially deny political rights and freedom of expression rights to Muslims.

Jonathan Freedland as ever had a great piece a few weeks ago about how right wing and neocon groups use these types of tenuious (sp?) links to discredit those who disagree with them. It is strange that Lord Ahmed has been picked out a lot since he started speaking up for the Palestinians.

As Freedland points out even members of the Jewish Community are being unfairly attacked simply for trying to build bridges across the communities because they may be speaking to someone who shared a platform with someone who knows someone who once made a statement that the neocons did not approve of!

The point is that many people are making judgements and yet the reports have no actual proof that he said it. So far no footage has emerged of him saying those words and yet he is suspended.

Does any other member of the House of Lords face such suspension without the party actually seeing the words stated first?! No and yet no one cares about that – it is assumed that because he is Muslim then he must have said it and thus its ok to suspend him without evidence.

Its a shame but once again there is not the same outcry when people make remarks about Muslims.

Why is there no outcry about the Murdoch clan being fit and proper people to own news reporting in the UK? Given what they are accused of?

Why is Fox News allowed to broadcast in the UK when it fails to meet impartiality guidelines which are applied so strictly to Muslim broadcasters?

Yet the hysteria being generated by something which no media outlet in the UK has verified is astounding!

Even the BBC is reporting but doesn’t have an actual transcript.

What about the concept of innocent until proven guilty?

Either you should have had a transcript or not be hysterical. The number of retractions so far even on this blog show this is in fact gossip and hysteria rather than factual at this stage.

4. john b

So Ahmed made a reasonable point satirically (“if the US has the right to offer money to have people murdered, then why shouldn’t I have the right to do the same back at them?”), and is being treated like someone who *actually* called for assassinations as a result?

Because it is not a reasonable point satirically or not. America is not paying to have anyone killed. They are offering a reward for information that might lead to an arrest. What is more they are a government. This moron is not. Justice is a monopoly for governments. That is why when the KKK does it, we call it a lynching, not an execution. Ahmed’s point is about a satirical as saying that the KKK has the same right to execute people the Pakistani government does.

You don’t have to be a supporter of L-e-T to think that extra-judicial executions are wrong, nor to make satirical points about how the Americans would react if the situation were reversed.

No except L-e-T and perhaps Ahmed is calling for extra-judicial executions. The situation is not reversed. Although the real question is why you are reaching for justifications for this comment.

The bounty on Saeed has been widely misreported as being a classic, dead-or-alive bounty. Given that, and given the circles in which he mixes, it seems entirely likely that Ahmed believes this too.

“Man believes same wrong information as everyone else” is both less interesting, and more likely, than “man believes giving information to the cops is the same as shooting someone”.

Ahmed’s point is about a satirical as saying that the KKK has the same right to execute people the Pakistani government does.

Which is true, ie none.

@nonsense – I don’t care for Ahmed’s position on other issues (attitude to Raed Salah for example, and to Rushdie). I am inclined to agree that Muslims (or those perceived to be Muslim) may be treated more harshly in certain contexts – eg the man who tweeted about the army, the researcher who downloaded terrorist materials for academic purposes at Nottingham. I didn’t follow either case in detail though.

18. john b

The bounty on Saeed has been widely misreported as being a classic, dead-or-alive bounty. Given that, and given the circles in which he mixes, it seems entirely likely that Ahmed believes this too.

Interesting place the House of Lords. But I doubt they are that interesting.

I love the pretzels people are bending themselves into to justify what this man said. The fact is none of us can be all that sure – but a lot of people here think they know. When really all they are doing is inventing excuses.

“Man believes same wrong information as everyone else” is both less interesting, and more likely, than “man believes giving information to the cops is the same as shooting someone”.

But we don’t know what Ahmed knows. You’re making sh!t up. What is more, why would he believe that? Look at what he is reported to have said:

“If the U.S. can announce a reward of $10 million for the captor of Hafiz Saeed, I can announce a bounty of 10 million pounds on President Obama and his predecessor George Bush.”

Captor. That is, his words reflect knowledge that America is not offering money for Saeed’s death but for his arrest. Which is also not true. But compare that with the words he is quoted as using in reply – on Obama. That sounds like for their deaths. So despite your frantic spinning in Ahmed’s defence, it is clear that he knows the difference between the two.

Which is true, ie none.

Which is an interesting statement of theology. Like the Trinity really. But not grounded in international or domestic law, reality, moral philosophy and pretty much anything else to do with the real world.

That sounds like for their deaths.

Nope, fraid not. What he said was:

“Even if I have to beg I am willing to raise and offer £10 million so that George W Bush and Tony Blair can be brought to the International Court of Justice on war crimes charges. Even if I have to sell my house I am ready to do it.”

Even the Torygraph agrees that he was misquoted.

Time for Lamia and SMFS to crawl back under their rocks, and Sunny to put up a clarification, I think…

Punjab University, another place where he spoke on his recent tour of Pakistan, had this to report on his speech;

He said that the US had fixed the head money of Hafiz Saeed purposively to keep Pakistan in defensive position. In reverse, he said, I announce 10 million dollars reward against Mr George W Bush. He said that he would collect the money whether he had to beg in the streets but Bush and Tony Blair should be charged with war crimes. He said that 43 militaries of powerful countries with all their might could not defeat Afghans who had no shoes to wear. If US President Obama is negotiating with them, then our president should also follow the suit, he added. He said that the president should invite Taliban, aggrieved Baloch in the mountains and us to President House for parleys.

http://pu.edu.pk/home/section/seminars/1445

@SarahAB – But that is the point we each may disagree with positions however these tenious associations that are put in place to detract from contact with Muslims is unjust.

If the same rules that your blog uses were applied to other religions then there wouldn’t be much engagement by the government!

All Ahmed did as far as I can tell was to highlight the double standards which operate in deciding who can and cannot be put up for trial.

I think the hysteria that is generated is a joke.

I disagree with many of the people the blog you comment on chooses to defend but if I took the approach that you are linked to someone on the blog who is writing to defend someone who works with someone who does not advocate peace in the Middle Eats then I wouldn’t even read what you say let alone talk to you.

That is the nonsense that Freedland was highlighting. It is similar to the hysteria here.

Why was there no similar hysteria when Blair quoted the Rand Organisation for his evidence in the recent enquiry? Rand is hardly impartial to the situation in the Middle East. Its affiliations are well known.

If Blair is using Rand to defend himself thenthere are greater questions to answer!

As a blog writer you need to consider that right or wrong people have grievences on both sides and people on both sides will end up talking to a range of people. Saying because so and so talked to so and so and therefore hysterically pushing the government not to listen to various views is counter productive and leads to no solution.

Ahmed made a point and the hysteria is unjustified. He was suspended without even given a chance to put forward a transcript. Don’t you find it worrying that rule wouldn’t be applied to a member of any other faith?

Why should Blair or Bush be exempt from trial when Blair now claims he went to war for something he said was never the goal prior to war starting. He made is clear it was not about regime change and now caught out he is pretending it was.

We had Blair’s personal assurances at the G8 summit in Avian in 2003 that the threat to Britain’s security from Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was the reason for the invasion. Try this news report from 2 June 2003 on the BBC website:

Tony Blair has rejected calls for an official inquiry into the government’s claims about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

Speaking at the G8 summit in Evian, Mr Blair said he stood “100%” by the evidence shown to the public about Iraq’s alleged weapons programmes.

“Frankly, the idea that we doctored intelligence reports in order to invent some notion about a 45-minute capability for delivering weapons of mass destruction is completely and totally false,” he said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2955036.stm

@Bob B – That was my point to SarahAB, that there is a double standard operating as as long as you are part of the hysterical right and neocon movement then you are deemed exempt from prosecution.

Ahmed has been suspended without the matter even being discussed and no one seems to find that wrong. He did not utter what is being claimed but he is suspended by gossip and innuendo.

Nonsense

We don’t know precisely what information about what Lord Ahmed reportedly said led to the decision to suspend him from the Labour Party.

Early media reports were saying that his offer of a bountry included President Obama, who, as a US Senator, opposed the Iraq war from the start. By later reports, Lord Ahmed was reported as denying that he had extended a bounty offer to include President Obama.

At the very least, Lord Ahmed was thoroughly silly to have made any bounty offer relating to leading politicians, which can so easily be construed in the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan as an incentive for the many jihadists there to mount assassination missions. Lord Ahmed could have made all the substantive issues he needed to by quoting what eminent international lawyers were saying about the legality of the Iraq war as linked @1 and @3 and that the UN inspectors had found no WMD in Iraq after the invasion.

From what the Butler inquiry found, Blair’s claims about the use of Iraq’s WMD within 45 minutes of a command from Saddam Hussein were based on one unproven source. See the Butler Report (paras 573-578) on the handling of intelligence relating to Iraq’s WMD and the 45-minute claim – which is made no less than four times in the government’s dossier on Iraq’s WMD published at that special session of Parliament on 24 September 2002, presumably the repetition was for greater effect.
http://www.archive2.official-documents.co.uk/document/deps/hc/hc898/898.pdf

Note in particular this passage in para 578 of The Butler Report:

“[David Manning] briefed [on 12 September] the Prime Minister on each of SIS’s [SIS = MI6] main sources including the new source on trial. He told us that he had underlined to the Prime Minister the potential importance of the new source and what SIS understood his access to be; but also said that the case was developmental and that the source remained unproven. Nevertheless, it may be that, in the context of the intense interest at that moment in the status of Iraq’s prohibited weapons programmes, and in particular continuing work on the dossier, this concurrence of events caused more weight to be given to this unvalidated new source than would normally have been the case.”

According to the (secret) Manning Memo to Blair of 14 March 2002, the objective of the Iraq invasion all along was regime change – which is illegal under international law without UN sanction – link available.

On any dispassionate, objective look at the evidence relating to Britain’s engagement in the invasion of Iraq, Blair emerges as thoroughly discredited. By a submission made to the Hutton inquiry by Dr Brian Jones, head of the branch in the Defence Intelligence Service tasked with monitoring intelligence on WMD, Jones had minuted line managers that he could not support the claims made in the government dossier presented to Parliament on 24 September 2002 – as linked 14.

I don’t know quite how or when the claims made by Blair about Iraq’s WMD morphed into regime change as a justification of the invasion but regime change as an objective for starting a war war without UN sanction is illegal in international law.

Ahmed is “Lord Ahmed” in quotes.

What did he do? I hate the link to this but I can live with it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazir_Ahmed,_Baron_Ahmed

In the above link, he was a councillor who became a lord. There is a logical problem. Councillor to Lord in six years?

From wikipedia: “At home, Ahmed speaks on wider equality issues, and has spoken several times on issues of race, religion and gender. He is seen as one of the leaders of the Muslim community in Britain.”

From the common man perspective, Ahmed fucks up by associating with revolting people.

Charlieman: “From the common man perspective, Ahmed fucks up by associating with revolting people.”

Ahmed was plain silly to have talked about putting “bounties” on the heads of politicians. He could have made all the necessary substantive points about the dubious claims made about Iraq’s WMD and the motives made to justify the invasion without any talk of bounties.

A little recap: A Paul O’Neill, GWB’s first Treasury Secretary, revealed in a TV interview after he was sacked, that the Bush administration started planning for the Iraq war on coming into office in January 2001, months before 9/11 that year.

As for motives for the war, try this Reuters news report from: 19 August 2004:

WASHINGTON – At least $8.8 billion in Iraqi funds that was given to Iraqi ministries by the former U.S.-led authority there cannot be accounted for, according to a draft U.S. audit set for release soon.

The audit by the Coalition Provisional Authority?s own inspector general blasts the CPA for ?not providing adequate stewardship? of at least $8.8 billion from the Development Fund for Iraq that was given to Iraqi ministries.

The audit was first reported on a Web site earlier this month by David Hackworth, a journalist and retired colonel. A U.S. official confirmed that the contents of the leaked audit cited by Hackworth were accurate.

The development fund is made up of proceeds from Iraqi oil sales, frozen assets from foreign governments and surplus from the U.N. oil for food program. Its handling has already come under fire in a U.N.-mandated audit released last month.
http://forums.anandtech.com/archive/index.php/t-1387014.html

With that and those lucrative contracts handed out to US companies for logistics support and security work by private armies there was a solid commercial rationale for the Iraq war.

Ahmed could have said all that needed to be said before the Chilcot inquiry reports by reminding us of what is in the accessible archives.

@nonsense – I think sometimes, as I said, the words and actions of Muslims *do* get subjected to disproportionate scrutiny – but sometimes, perhaps in different contexts or from different people, the opposite may be true. I think suspension seems a reasonable step in relation to the information – which seemed to come originally from sources without an axe to grind, though correct me if this isn’t the case – but of course should not be upheld if the info turns out to be (substantially) false.

Muslim sources are not necessary to assess whether Blair was lying to us.

Try this secret UK government memo of 23 July 2002 leaked to the Sunday Times:
http://downingstreetmemo.com/memos.html

Quote: “C [the traditional title for the head of MI6, Britain's Secret Intelligence Service - at the time: Sir Richard Dearlove] reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

The final sentence is absolutely damning: “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy”.

The invasion of Iraq was on 20th March 2003. At the time of the debate in Parliament just before the invasion, Blair was well aware that the Parliament and the public had been fed a diet of lies about the justification for the war. Few would want to dispute that Saddam Hussein and his regime were evil but an estimated c. 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed as a result of the war.

@SarahAB – As the blog you write on is going all out on Lord Ahmed and also Ken. The of course you’d support suspension of Jack Straw because of the far more serious allegations being made against him?

If true that he was at the leats complicit in Rendition which is contrary to UK Law then he should face the same fate as Lord Ahmed.

It is strange that a comment by a Muslim Peer gathers more hysteria than a far more serious charge against a Cabinet Minister.

It is strange that the people being attacked speak out against US/Israel Policy and those that follow it are not subject to the same rules.

Maybe you should remind your fellow bloggers of the need to suspend Jack Straw as they seem to have ignored or missed that one.

That is the central point though there is a double standard which we are seeing taking place in the same week before us.

In this context, putting bounties on the head of politicians for actions sanctioned by their own respective legislatures amounts to an incentive to perpetrate serious crime.

There were and are more effective ways of showing that Blair misled the public and Parliament about the reasons for the invasion of Iraq. All that is not to be construed as exonerating Straw for anything relating to whether he approved cases of extraordinary rendition, which the Police are currently investigating, according to reports.

@nonsense – I think you make a potentially fair point about Straw – but I understand it is sub judice.

Bob B – He didn’t put a bounty on anyone from what I have read, that is the hysteria again. He said they should be tried by the International Criminal Court and that he would be willing to help fund their arrest – fund their arrest. At least be fair in relaying what is said.

Being put on trial at the ICC is not the same as putting a bounty on someone.

By this logic those trying to get a citizen’s arrest on Tony Blair also put a bounty on his head!

Also just because a legislature makes a decision it doesn’t make it legal under international law. If Blair and Bush broke international law then why shouldn’t they be tried in the same way they demanded others be tried?

Are Bush and Blair above international law?

By this nonsense then Milosovic and his cronies should be free because their legislature approved what they did!

Utter nonsense.

@SarahAB – So you will be calling on the blog you write for asking for the suspension of Jack Straw from the Labour Party and of course as that blog is demanding answers from Ahmed then being fair they will demand answers from Straw? in fact they should have written about this already!!!

I still don’t think you see the bigger picture that this hysteria and association is counter productive.

Sometimes I like what you write, it is thoughtful, balanced and makes you think. But other times you fail to look at changes in people, adjustment in views and that makes talking very hard. You have to give people a chance and be fair.

At the moment in politics there is one rule for Muslims and one rule for others. Which Muslims can be spoken to is often preselected by hysterical media which fail to apply the same rules to others.

All I am saying to you is to keep a balance.

I look forward to your piece demanding that Jack Straw is suspended from the Labour Party

There are many sensible and important criticisms to be made and documented about the decision to engage in the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 while we know next to nothing about whether or not Jack Straw authorised the extraordinary rendition of someone to be tortured in Libya by Gaddafi’s security services.

The Chilcot inquiry is already looking into the Iraq war and will report in due course. By reports, the Police are investigating whether or not Straw authorised extraordinary rendition.

Ahmed’s public offer of bounties for Bush and Blair was at least silly and potentially a criminal incentive for the jihadists in Pakistan to engage in assassination missions.

nonsense – thanks – I have posted something as there do not seem to be any legal issues. If the comments disappear – it’ll be because, in fact, there are!

@SarahAB – Thank you for the update.

If you don’t mind can I ask you why there was hardly any press or blog attention to the disgusting article by Martin Bright and his calling the excellent Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg a “useful idiot”?

He should have been sakced for that. Rabbi Wittenberg is hugely respected individual and a tireless hardworking Rabbi who tries to improve community relations. I’ve read some of his writings and he is a caring individual who tries to honestly do what is right. Bright isn’t fit to utter his name let alone call him what he did. So why no hysteria against Bright? No media outlet in the UK has ever used such langauge towards such a leading Rabbi so why was Bright allowed to get away with it?

Why was Bright and Pollard’s Chronicle allowed to get away with such disgusting statements? Brigth should have been sacked and Pollard should have been told to leave.

Yet Michael Gove was allowed to publicly boast about doing his job in providing security funding to Jewish Schools and not a word said about it. Why did he need to boast about doing his job? The schools were entitled to the money, they needed the money and that is his job. So he wanted plaudits for doing his job. Also such fanfare does not help the schools and why should schoolchildren be used to big up a minister for doing his job?

This is why I don’t like hysteria because good individuals and communities are used to pit one against the other and at the end of it we all still need to live together. Sadly these types of individuals and their approach brings us no closer and it is time we recognise that and also make people stop this tactic.

What was the former head of the ISi , Hamid Gul doing at the speech given by Mullah Ahmed? Hamid Gul told the BBC World Service that the ISI provides training, logictic help and gives weapons to the Taliban to defeat the democratic forces fighting the ruthless killers of innocent people in Afghanistan. There were also Taliband and their supporters there. Kick Mullah Ahmed out of the House of Lords.