Year: 2010

A Government’s “Economy with the truth”

Citizens being let down by the standards of their governments.

Every so often – but sadly with a certain inevitability and one senses greater frequency – there descends from above the nasty stench of hypocrisy, cover-up and fraud.

No, I am not referring to the conviction recently of a British Minister for using a mobile telephone while driving, even though she was Minster of Justice when the law banning this was passed.

No, the case in question is that of the RAF Chinook Mark 2 helicopter that crashed on 2 June 1994 en route from Northern Ireland to Inverness, killing the special forces crew and 25 senior members of Northern Ireland’s intelligence community in “the worst RAF helicopter accident in peacetime.”

Now accidents happen, but from what has been said very clearly in a variety of sources (SEE HERE IN PARTICULAR), there seems no doubt that the pilots were made the scapegoats in the ensuing enquiry.

This is the key question. Of course, NOBODY may have been “to blame” OR it may be impossible to determine who was to blame, but on the other hand, someone MAY have been to blame, and if that person or persons is in the Ministry of Defence or the Government then it is clear that there may have been the temptation to fix it so that someone ELSE took the blame, in this case the dead and therefore defenceless pilots.

A synopsis of the official report passed to me by a fellow old-boy (alumnus!) with a scientific background in avionics summarizes the main points in this tragedy:

a) There is certainly no evidence to suggest that the pilots were at fault.

b) There is a lot of evidence to suggest that the Government hindered the enquiry.

Some key points:

  • The pilots were worried about the MKII aircraft and asked for a MKI version for this mission. The MoD declined this request.
  • The aircraft was flying low, in a straight line towards the Mull. 18 seconds before impact the pilot requested a left hand turn to miss the Mull. The aircraft never turned.
  • The FADECs (Full Authority Digital Engine Control) were programmed to record ‘failures in flight’. Looking at the FADEC’s memory after the crash showed no failures. This was the main evidence against the pilots. However, there had been several instances where other MKII pilots had lost control of the aircraft and the FADEC showed no ‘failures’. In their assessment of the code after the crash, EDS said that the error reporting software had been coded incorrectly.
  • The problem with the FADEC that had been seen by several pilots was the fact that the rotors started to rotate to 120%. (Faster than they should).
  • Two key personnel who should have given evidence at the enquiry (an engineer FADEC expert and a pilot who had experienced problems whilst flying the aircraft) were not allowed to give evidence.
  • Prior to the accident the Government were actually in the process of suing the FADEC manufacturer because of its failings.

Two points in particular strike me personally:

A) Point SIX above; the government was AT THE TIME of the accident SUING the FADEC manufacturer because the electronics were defective in some way. Now, as a layman, it seems to me bleedin’ obvious that modern aircraft are extremely dependent on their electronics. If there were such severe faults with the fundamental instruments on this plane as there seem to have been with the FADEC (the top pilot refused to fly the craft and the govt were suing the software providers; does it get more serious than that??!!) then WHY WAS IT ALLOWED TO FLY IN THE FIRST PLACE?

B) So, KNOWING all the above, WHO authorised this aircraft to fly in poor weather conditions (it was foggy) with 25 KEY intelligence personnel on board? Apart from the personal tragedy for so many families, the loss of these key people was a devastating blow to the then government in its campaign against terrorism in Northern Ireland.

Well, despite all the above it was the two dead pilots who got the blame for what seems to have been appalling management over a long period. The Chinook’s electronics were clearly known to be dodgy yet the machine had not been grounded. You cannot imagine this happening in the civil aviation business (I HOPE!), but this is not the first time that the British government has sought to exempt itself from the strict standards it imposes on the private sector.

But the bottom line is, it is pretty clear that JUSTICE has not been done and those whose poor management and decisions almost certainly led to the accident have never been brought to account.  The British Conservative party has pledged to re-examine the case. One has to ask why the CURRENT party has refused to do this. Could they themselves have something to hide?

IS this – as it seems to be – a genuine Government cover-up? and if so, do they do this sort of thing because they think that:

A) the public are idiots or B) they can get away with it? Or of course both.

We are not talking about a faceless, fascist bureaucracy here, but about BRITAIN, where standards of decency, honesty, openness and Justice are supposed to apply – or at least once applied. As for the MOD (Ministry of Defence) not only has it NOT accepted any responsibility for this accident but they are now paid BONUSES! Yes, just like City Bankers ….. And this at a time when I am unaware of bonuses being paid to soldiers fighting and often dying in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The families of those killed deserve the truth. Without the truth being primordial in our society, we descend into the realms of a banana republic or Central Asian dictatorship.

By Chris Snuggs

Follow-up: Enemy Combatant versus Criminal

This is not the correct way to defend a great Nation in a fair and just manner.

In an earlier post, my colleague Paul Handover left us with an important question:  Does the public’s lack of clarity about the “underwear bomber’s” status as an enemy combatant or a criminal undermine the appearance of impartiality of the U.S. judicial system?

US Attorney General Eric Holder

Paul reviewed the legal development of the “enemy combatant” designation, ending with a March 2009 pronouncement from Eric Holder, the current U.S. Attorney General, that the U.S. had abandoned the Bush administration’s use of the term.  Mr. Holder continued, “As we work toward developing a new policy to govern detainees, it is essential that we operate in a manner that strengthens our national security, is consistent with our values, and is governed by law.”

A new policy that “strengthens national security?”  I think it is blatantly clear that an intense and timely interrogation of the bomber does more to protect our national security than lawyering him up and giving him the right to not speak.  As you read this, Michael Marinaccio, an attorney for Zarein Ahmedzay,  who is suspected of plotting a terror attack on NYC, is seeking to have all the information gathered by officials after his client was represented by counsel  thrown out as illegal, under the civil and criminal law of the U.S.    We can likely expect the same in the underwear bomber case.

A new policy that is “consistent with our values?”  Treating terrorists as terrorists is perfectly consistent with my values.  I am not sure what he is trying to say here.  Then again, maybe I do know what he is trying to say: that it is “wrong” to treat a terrorist as an enemy combatant, and “right” to give that person all the rights of a U.S. citizen, including the right to an attorney and the right to remain silent?  Those may be Mr. Holder’s values, but they aren’t mine and, as you’ll see below, they are not those of the former U.S. Attorney General either.

A new, as yet undetermined, policy that is “governed by law?”  This coming from the same legal mind that decided to try the five 9/11 terrorists  in New York City federal court?  A decision based on what legal precedent?  There is no legal precedence.  On what existing, well-formulated policy? There is no such policy.

Mukasey, US Attorney General 2007-2009

But on the legal subtleties surrounding this issue, I defer to Mr.  Michael Mukasey, a former federal judge who oversaw cases relating to the 1993 World Trade Center attacks.  Mr. Mukasey was the U.S. Attorney General from 2007 to 2009 before retiring and being replaced by Eric Holder.   His analysis is as follows:

Had Abdulmutallab [the alleged underwear bomber. Ed.] been turned over immediately to interrogators intent on gathering intelligence, valuable facts could have been gathered and perhaps acted upon. Indeed, a White House spokesman has confirmed that Abdulmutallab did disclose some actionable intelligence before he fell silent on advice of counsel. Nor is it any comfort to be told, as we were, by the senior intelligence adviser …that we can learn facts from Abdulmutallab as part of a plea bargaining process in connection with his prosecution…Holding Abdulmutallab for a time in military custody, regardless of where he is ultimately to be charged, would have been entirely lawful—even in the view of the current administration, which has taken the position that it needs no further legislative authority to hold dangerous detainees even for a lengthy period in the United States … What the gaffes, the almost comically strained avoidance of such direct terms as “war” and “Islamist terrorism,” and the failure to think of Abdulmutallab as a potential source of intelligence rather than simply as a criminal defendant seem to reflect is that some in the executive branch are focused more on not sounding like their predecessors than they are on finding and neutralizing people who believe it is their religious duty to kill us. That’s too bad, because the Constitution vests “the executive power”—not some of it, all of it—in the president. He, and those acting at his direction, are responsible for protecting us.

The full article from which I quoted is here.

By Sherry Jarrell


Don’t lean the wrong way!

“…Skiing is the best way in the world to waste time.” ~ Glen Plake

Against my better judgement, my wife talked me into going skiing in the French Alps just before Christmas. It was a good opportunity to take our 3 teenage sons on holiday because they wouldn’t have come otherwise! They put some of their money in as well so it felt like a good call.

My wife and I have done a lot of cross-country skiing in Finland where I used to live, so we planned to do the same in France, while our boys went off down-hill skiing.

Unfortunately, the resort we picked didn’t cater for cross-country skiing so we ended up learning down-hill skiing. After a lot of falling over, laughter and tips from our sons, we started to get the hang of it and decided to sign-up for a half-day skiing lesson the next day.

After some initial runs on the nursery slopes, we agreed to have a go on a Green run. Although we part fell down the

"Feel the fear"

steep bits and included me nearly falling off of the ski lift as we left the station, it was an amazing experience.

What struck me was that it was a mixture of fear and exhilaration. I realised that the secret was leaning in the opposite direction to your natural instinct and trusting that that would work.

The skiing instructor was a student at a local business school and we got talking about trusting and having faith in things turning out well. Also, that in order to progress, it is usually necessary to take a risk or two and feel uncomfortable.

I realise that I have a tendency to play it safe and pull back from the new or unpredictable. In order to progress, it is necessary to do things that push back our comfort zones and put ourselves into situations which are not always pleasant. “Do something every-day that scares you.”

By Jon Lavin