14 AUGUST

BLAIR FRUSTRATED AT LEGAL CONCERNS OVER KILLING INNOCENT AFGHANS. [ 19 October 2001 ] On 19 October 2001, during the American and British bombing of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Tony Blair became agitated over legal objections to some of the targeting on the basis that innocent civilians might be killed. MEMBERS OF SINN FEIN BANNED…

PINOCHET CAN’T BE PROSECUTED FOR WHAT HE DID AS HEAD OF STATE On this day in 1998, Britain’s High Court cleared the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, responsible for the disappearance, torture and murder of thousands, on the bizarre grounds that he was head of state when he committed the crimes. Labour MP Tony Benn noted…

BRITISH HAWK JETS USED AGAINST FREE ACEH MOVEMENT 19th May 2003 – Indonesia used Hawk jets, supplied and made by the U.K., to front its assault on the Free Aceh Movement.  The Guardian’s John Aglionby observed that “The Hawks were used primarily to scare and intimidate people on the ground by flying low over targets…

BRITISH GENERAL – ‘MY WISH WAS TO EXCITE TERROR’ [ 27 May 1798 ] On 27 May 1798, Major General John Moore, having been given orders to quell any sign of anti-British rebellion in the County of Cork in Ireland, reflected in his diary on his frustration over the reluctance of the locals to collaborate. …

REDCOATS SLAUGHTER AMERICAN TROOPS AFTER THEY SURRENDER [ 28 September 1778 ] During the American Revolutionary War, many British officers did not consider those ‘damn’d American rebels’, as they called recruits of George Washington’s Continental Army, to be entitled to the rights normally accorded to combatants in conflict. ROYAL DRAGOONS SHOOT DEAD TWO AS STARVING…