The shame of Shaker Aamer's wrongful incarceration for 12 years.

Follow @JohnPlatinumG On Saturday I joined other protesters in London in concern for the shameful, illegal and immoral imprisonment of Shaker Aamer in Guantanamo Bay. Shaker has been tortured and considering the gravity of the offence of human-torture in this age of enlightenment from western states which peddle a myth that we live in a free society, it was rather surprising there were not more people present to mark the twelve years of this total injustice. There again, few spoke out about the Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War.

Protesters pass the mosque where Shaker used to worship

Shaker's imprisonment is a total injustice because he is innocent of any crime, has been cleared for release twice by two separate US investigations, the first six years ago, the second four years ago, the latter during Obama's term of office. Obama himself has confirmed that it is an injustice to keep him in Guantanamo concentration camp. Barrack Obama is president of the United States, yet it seems he is answerable to some higher authority, because although he has approved Shaker's release, he has not acted on that approval. Likewise in the UK Prime Minister David Cameron and Foreign Secretary William Hague have called for Shaker's return. As one of the speakers, Guardian journalist Victoria Brittain, pointed out there is a likely conflict between the security services and government, because the UK security services are allegedly complicit in his torture when Shaker was first arrested. Anyway the UK is just a pawn in the US middle game, subservient and dispensable.

Also on the platform was independent journalist Andy Worthington who wrote The Guantanamo Files (Pluto Press 2007) and has been a doughty campaigner on human rights' abuses for many years. He made an impassioned delivery regarding the injustice and how frustrated we all feel that the best Cameron and Hague can do is write to Shaker in Guantanamo. Shaker remains in prison because the UK secret services are party to the torture of an innocent man, as is former Home Secretary Jack Straw, who must have approved this torture. So to protect the guilty an innocent man is made to suffer. He suggested, tongue-in-cheek that we should occupy William Hague's office. That is how frustrating it is becoming. What do we need to do to make our leaders do the right thing?

Hamja Ahsan speaking about his brother's imprisonment in a US Supermax prison

The brother of Talha Ahsan told of another injustice emanating from the desk of current Home Secretary, Theresa May, the extradition of Talha to the US together with Babar Ahmad. These wrongly-served men cannot see their families, have collectively spent 16 years in prison without trial, and are currently being held 23 hours every day in solitary confinement. I have covered their plights in previous blog-posts and with every passing day it is another day of injustice and torture for them and their families. One day justice might be seen to be done. The so-called 'war on terror' has been a turning point in the UK legal system because the anti-terrorism acts the 'war on terror' has spawned have led to breaches in the first principle of habeas corpus. These terrorist acts have not been committed by men with weapons but by the US and UK governments themselves. Shame on them!

Where has all the blogging gone

Follow @JohnPlatinumG It occurs to me that I have not written a blog piece for some time. There is plenty to write about but so little time. My last piece for News Junkie Post was written the day I went down to London to protest against the the extradition of Talha Ahsan, who has just spent another Eid in prison without face to face contact with his family.

Today another article was published concerned with the politicising of art. Tomorrow a new BBC 2 series, a comedy by all accounts, will be screened.

I'm working on something else of a larger nature in my spare time.

One hundred years of prisoner-of-war 'reform'

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Ruhleben Camp was situated on the outskirts of Berlin at the outbreak of the First World War. It was a converted racecourse which housed foreigners in its buildings. Prisoners had some difficulties getting certain products especially food, but it was a civilised and thriving community, which though monitored by sentries gave prisoners a degree of interned freedom and self-respect. There were all kinds of activities like chess-clubs, a theatrical society, a debating society, an orchestra, tennis-club and other sports clubs. They even had their own elections and prison magazine called "In Ruhleben Camp"..

Compare that with Guantanamo Bay, a similar type of internment camp for untried prisoners, a century later and the regression in prisoner rights is diabolical. They have no rights (or very few) and no hope. It is a disgrace to the reputation of the United States. At the beginning of its existence when men and boys were first rendered there the torture was even worse than it is today. But conditions are so severe that those held there even today are on hunger-strike against them. Some are still being detained, and force-fed, a torture in itself, although they have been cleared for release for six years, like Shaker Aamer, the last remaining UK citizen. To them it must seem like they are never going to be released. Nearly 800 men and boys have been held there at one time or another, 8 have died there, and all kinds of accusations have been levelled at the authorities including sexual abuse. To my knowledge there has only been one conviction.

That is why I wrote this comparison.

Vladimir Putin, George Galloway, John Pilger cannot all be wrong

Follow @JohnPlatinumG Some serious thinkers are questioning what the US sees as its inalienable right to dictate world foreign policy. The president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, raises some fundamental questions by speculating among other pronouncements that the United Nations could go the same way as the League of Nations, and diplomatically challenges Obama to be less belligerent in his words and actions. John Pilger in Tuesday's Guardian believes the Pentagon dictates what happens in the White House due to the weakness of Obama. Talking to Abby Martin George Galloway warns of the dangers of further military involvement in the Middle East and the long-term dangers of supporting al Qaeda in Syria.

Meanwhile my latest article for News Junkie Post offers a chance for everyone to do his or her bit in preventing war. We showed in the UK that people have power. People have power all over the world. Follow the UK example.And please share the article.

Did the United States deliberately sponsor a chemical attack on Syria?

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I missed a Daily Mail article which forecast exactly how the false flag in Syria appears to have been spun and acted upon. Apparently the Louise Boyle's article published at the end of January has since been taken down. Thanks to the internet, and those who keep an eye on such things, a stub has been preserved. Here again, for others who may have missed it, as I did, is the Mail link.

Her report is based on a Paul Joseph Watson article published the day before in INFOWARS. Other reports of the last week tend to confirm that the US plan was acted upon. And this is how it panned out if the reports are correct. They certainly seem to have more authentic information than the silly dossier presented to parliament by the intelligence services. So I’ll say it again: there is no intelligence in intelligence.

These false flags created by the modern United States of America are appalling. It is historically crucial that both Parliament and Congress were in recess when this false flag event took place because they were hoping to take military action without proper debate. There is even a report that Reuters and Al Jazeera published photographs of the dead and injured in the chemical attack the day before the actual attack is alleged to have taken place. If the leaked emails are true, and Britam Defence has not denied them being true, then Britam and the United States government should be taken to task. The BBC again has given no coverage of this alternative news. It is left to bloggers.

Don't get on a plane with somebody famous!

Follow @JohnPlatinumG The number of famous people who die in plane crashes is alarming. After making a comment on Craig Murray's blog, based simply on the huge number of famous people who have died in crashes, I was challenged to provide figures. My comment related to the death of Michael Hastings the American investigative journalist whose car exploded and who was working on some sensitive revelations at the time. I wrote:

"As to deaths in crashes public figures are much more likely to die than ordinary individuals. It does need some thorough research but Hastings’ death was convenient, to say the least, for those he was investigating. Likewise Bob Cryer’s death was convenient for the US military at Menwith Hill. How dare Bob Cryer, an English MP, criticise the US for having a base on English soil without parliamentary approval?"

Although I was convinced I was right, and thought there must be some research to support my opinion, I was unable to find any significant study into the subject, which of course does not mean that no study exists. So I set about researching it myself, admittedly in a non-academic way. Because of the well-advertised safety record of aircraft companies I thought it was a good place to start. What I found was not that there was, say twice as much a chance of a famous person dying in a plane crash but an alarming 27 times the probability, and most likely even higher than that. The figures cover the decade 2001-2010. Column 1 gives the year and column two the number of famous deaths, while column 3, after the colon, gives the total number of deaths for the year. Accumulated totals are given below the line.

2001 = 13 : 4140
2002 = 05 : 1413
2003 = 02 : 1230
2004 = 05 :   771

2005 = 03 : 1459

2006 = 06 : 1294

2007 = 06 :   971

2008 = 03 :   884

2009 = 08 : 1103

2010 = 03 : 1115

Total = 54 : 14,380

According to the National Safety Council the lifetime odds of death from a plane or space incident in 2008 was a 1 in 7178 chance. Using this as a mean figure it can be seen that the expected total deaths from plane crashes for the decade based on the deaths of famous personalities should be somewhere in the region of 387, 612 (that is 54 x 7178) but actual total deaths amount to 14,380, making it virtually 27 times more dangerous if you are famous. Admittedly this unfunded and inadequate study is not rocket science and more serious research should be embarked upon to corroborate the assumption, or disprove it. Also I do not know how the National Safety Council arrived at its figure of 1 in 7178 but presumed that it was based on the total number of passengers divided by those killed in air-disasters.

The figures may be even more alarming because the famous deaths' column only includes incidents where somebody famous has died in an air-disaster, whereas some incidents involved multiple deaths, for example, in 2010 the crash which killed the president of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, also killed the first lady, Maria Kaczynski, and at least five other high-profile Polish politicians. Being famous appears to seriously heighten the chances of a premature death. Don't get on a plane with somebody famous.

Nanna Babba and the common girl

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(A bedtime story for baby George)

Once upon a time there lived a beautiful young girl, Dafne, who had a wicked step-grandmother, Nanna Babba.

Nanna Babba lived in a world of fantasy. To pass the weary hours she wrote, or her magic pen wrote, grisly and non-grisly fairy stories about common girls falling in love with princes, and living in turreted palaces beyond the wildest hopes and dreams of most schoolgirls. The palaces all had wide carpeted staircases with ornate banisters which led to ballrooms in which crystal chandeliers sparkled brightly from the ceiling. These were ideal settings for a young common girl to make her entrance into the world. Because Nanny Babba believed in fantasy she could wield her magic pen it seemed and the dreams would all come true. This worried Dafne.

Among the 700 grisly fairy stories there were tales of young common girls who found themselves in woods pursued by wolves. Other girls were made to sweep the dusty floors, wash clothes, hang them out to dry, look after other people's children, and menial tasks which befall many families of less wealthy origins while their sisters went to the ball. Dafne did not mind these menial tasks because they kept her away from Nanna Babba. However she found one of her step-grandmother's stories rather frightening because the plot was of a young princess bedecked in jewels, dressed up to the nines and seated in a royal coach which was suddenly driven right into a rabbit warren in a foreign land - the land of frogs and toads. Deep, deep it went into the tunnel, and never came out again. This caused recurring nightmares.

Dafne was made to read all these rags to riches fairy stories, which sometimes had a happy ending, and sometimes sad, but she made little effort to conceal that she did not like Nanna Babba, nor her stories. You see when Dafne was only eight years old, following the divorce of her parents, Nanna Babba had come into her life as a result of the old dear's daughter marrying Dafne's father. In the early years when the flame of perpetual love glowed so strongly in her father's eyes it looked like it would last forever Dafne saw less and less of him and his new wife and more and more of Nanna Babba. The nightmares continued.

Dafne had an elder sister, Sissy, and brother, Brer, who seemed to settle better into the new life than Dafne had done. She had difficulty understanding why her mother and father had gone their separate ways. She moped and cried and wept and sobbed until it got on people's nerves. Nanna Babba had a solution for every problem. It was agreed Dafne was to be sent to a girls' boarding school where the mistresses could comfort her in her sadness. The school was called "The Bowels of Hell" by those who boarded there at Dante's. Dafne did not perform well in Hell. It made her even more miserable.  She moped and cried and wept and sobbed until it got on the mistresses' nerves. They did not comfort her.

She got through "The Bowels of Hell" with some of the worst grades Dante's had ever seen. From time to time she would return to the rented home where Nanna Babba would add to her misery by making her read the latest fantasies from her magic pen, fantasies which appeared to be writing themselves even when Nanna Babba was sitting with Sissy and feeding her face on Royal Jelly. Royal Jelly is the preserve of Queen Bees, and young girls who sample it, according to Nanna Babba, are destined to marry a prince, with the one condition that they remain virtuous. Dafne had seen how other stories by Nanna Babba had come true. So she believed this one too.

Dafne's family rented property in the grounds of a palace and one day the rich prince came by inspecting his great expectations. He was heir to the palace in which grounds Dafne, Sissy and Brer rented, together with many other palaces which the growing children had only seen in books. The Prince was wearing a Polo-necked sweater and jodhpurs tucked into his boots as he rode on his favourite chestnut horse, Polo. His favourite sport happened to be polo which gave rise to the horse's name.

Princes are not always all they are cracked up to be and some need licking into shape, while others need kissing by a beautiful young lady on their amphibious lips to make something more appealing about them. So Sissy, emboldened by royal jelly, popped a polo mint into the royal gob, plucked up all her courage and kissed the prince full on his lips. She stepped back and looked for a change in his countenance, while Dafne did the washing up, and Brer looked on in total bewilderment as to what was going on. Sissy perceived no change in the prince's looks. Nanna Babba had been careful to mention that those who fed on royal jelly would not necessarily marry a handsome prince, just one of royal stock. Sissy had got her fantasies a little mixed up. But her prince was rich and ladies learnt at finishing school that once they had ensnared their quarry they must be content if the meat might be a little old and the skin as tough as riding boots.

With the royal jelly easing Sissy's future prospects Dafne had been sent to a finishing school in the Alps where she moped and cried and wept and sobbed until it got on the mistresses' nerves. They did not comfort her. She could, however dance, although a little tall to become a professional, she danced herself into the full bloom of womanhood and emerged, if not a butterfly, a very pretty thing in her own right.

Meanwhile Sissy had taken a flat not too far from one of the prince's palaces in the main city, and Dafne kept house for her sister. She washed up, did the laundry, swept the carpets, cleaned the toilets, emptied the waste bins, threw away the empty cartons of royal jelly and generally kept the place spick and span. The prince was a frequent visitor but hardly seemed to notice Dafne, who left almost as soon as he arrived. He did occasionally comment on how tidy the flat was to Sissy. What happened in that flat is not for the ears or eyes of children. Dafne had noticed a thing or two. Those who have done laundry and emptied waste bins will need no further explanation.

Months went by and all expectations from the Nanna Babba household were for Sissy's royal engagement announcement: any time now. But it never came. It could only mean one thing. The condition of feeding on royal jelly was that the lady remained virtuous and Nanna Babba suspected there had been a premature submission to pre-marital gallantry. Nobody knows for certain. Dafne however was about to throw away some more empty cartons of royal jelly when she noticed that one of the cartons was not empty. Honey she had tasted, but royal jelly was the preserve of queen bees. Dafne, on a whim, decided to try this exotic food and thought it was nothing special.

Princes, kings, princesses, queens, dukes and duchesses and in fact almost all people, find themselves dissatisfied with what is already theirs, and once the novelty has worn off, they look for new sources of stimulation. So it was with the prince who explained this rather clumsily to Sissy. She immediately felt an impulse to smack him across his amphibious mouth, but refrained. It soon dawned on her that she had fallen too easily, and only when she weighed up the pros and cons of life with an unattractive prince, did she realise that perhaps she had got away lightly. Dafne however was saddened for Sissy's loss and she moped and cried and wept and sobbed in her sister's arms, until the unattractive but extremely rich prince, moved by the young maid's passion, suddenly started to take notice of her for the first time. This, he swore to himself, would be his latest conquest.

His courtship of Dafne was not quite what he had expected. Princes are used to having whatever they want, whenever they want it. Arriving on Polo in a polo-necked sweater and jodhpurs had worked a treat for Sissy. So he tried this approach on Dafne and even brought a polo stick along with him to endorse the image. He moved towards her with his mouth wide open. She popped a polo mint into the toad-hole and stepped deftly out of harm's way. Her education might not have been up to much but she was not stupid. She had seen what had happened to Sissy. Was it not she who had cleaned Sissy's flat? The more the shy and unsullied Dafne resisted his approaches the more the prince desired her. He was getting no younger and there was pressure on him to marry before his ardour died. He tried pin-stripes though he was not a typical English gentleman, a kilt though he was not a typical Scottish laird, and lederhosen. Nothing seemed to work and the magic he had come to expect was absent.

For her engagement he bought her the biggest cluster of diamonds and sapphires imaginable and it is reputed that 20,000 black Namibians had died in the mining of these lumps of carbon rock. She thought it was almost immoral to wear it, because Dafne did have some morals, and there was a lot of superstition that the ring could never bring her good luck. The royal jelly had done its work and Dafne had kept her virtue. Her reward was a state wedding to which all the country was invited. Let this be a lesson to all boys and girls that virtue, if that's what children want, can bring its rewards, because Dafne did get to marry her prince. Although it is fair to note she did not invite her wicked step-grandmother to the wedding.

Traditionally fairy-stories and love stories like those written by Nanna Babba have a happy ending and are neatly rounded off with a phrase like "and they lived happily ever after". But there are stories in the genre where the big bad wolf pretends to be a nice old granny and gobbles up a little girl in red. And the one that Nanna Babba wrote about the princess who went in a royal carriage into the rabbit warren of a foreign country. In real life to be a princess might not be everybody's dream. Dafne's marriage was a sad affair. Her prince did not love her but they had children: heirs to the throne. Soon she was so unhappy and for the prince the novelty had worn off, so she moped and cried and wept and sobbed sometimes for hours on end. But nobody listened. She threw herself into charity work trying to help less fortunate children in lands far away.

After a while Dafne met another man with whom she was truly in love, a rich man who loved her too. At last she was happy. However there was a lot of dissatisfaction in the royal household at this match, and even though the prince himself had taken a new lover, there were plots to have Dafne and her rich lover, who was of foreign extraction and a different religion, put to death. A few hundred years earlier and it would just have needed a royal decree to execute this act. But in the time of Princess Dafne all eyes were upon the royal household which had impoverished its subjects to increase its own wealth. Princess Dafne was aware of the plot. She had read the story by Nanna Babba. She wrote a letter to show there was a plot and how it would happen to a young princess bedecked in jewels, dressed up to the nines and seated in a royal coach which was suddenly driven right into a rabbit warren in a foreign land - the land of frogs and toads. Deep, deep it went into the tunnel, and never came out again. Fairy stories can come true.

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Disclaimer: any likeness to any person in this story is coincidental as in all fiction, good or bad.