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Cam Ogie ✍The controversy surrounding the decision by Britain’s West Midlands Police to bar Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters from attending the Aston Villa fixture has exposed serious institutional failures—most notably in intelligence handling, evidentiary standards, and leadership oversight.

A preliminary review by Britain’s HMIC (His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary) confirmed that the force’s intelligence gathering suffered from “confirmation bias” and included multiple factual inaccuracies. Among the most serious errors was reference to a non-existent football fixture, which was later acknowledged not to have come from verified policing intelligence or open-source reporting, but from an AI-generated output produced using Microsoft Copilot.

Britain’s West Midlands chief constable later acknowledged that the error originated from Copilot rather than verified intelligence or conventional open-source research (Google). This matters because Copilot does not verify facts; it generates plausible-sounding text based on probability. When such output is accepted as intelligence without independent verification, the result is not a minor mistake but a collapse of evidentiary discipline.

In evidence initially given to British MPs, the chief constable suggested the erroneous information had been identified via a conventional Google search. He later corrected this account, explaining in a formal letter to the British Home Affairs Committee that the information was in fact produced through the use of Microsoft Copilot, an AI tool designed to generate text based on probabilistic pattern matching rather than factual verification.

This distinction is not trivial. Copilot does not “check” facts in the way human analysts or vetted intelligence sources do; it predicts plausible outputs based on training data. When such outputs are not independently verified, they can fabricate convincing but entirely false information—as occurred here. The inclusion of AI-generated fiction in a report used to inform a public safety decision represents a profound failure of professional standards and internal safeguards.

That failure fully justifies scrutiny of leadership and process.

The term “confirmation bias,” as used by Britain’s policing watchdog (HIMC), does not mean hostility toward a particular group. It refers to a well-documented cognitive error in which decision-makers:form:

  • an initial assumption or hypothesis, and then
  • give disproportionate weight to information that appears to support it, while
  • discounting, overlooking, or failing to rigorously test contradictory evidence.

In this case, confirmation bias meant that once Britain’s West Midlands Police force had identified Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters as a potential risk, insufficient scepticism was applied to material that appeared to reinforce that view, including unverified AI-generated content. The bias lay not in the existence of concern, but in the failure to adequately test the quality and provenance of evidence used to justify it.

Importantly, confirmation bias describes a process failure, not proof that the underlying risk assessment was invented or malicious.

While these procedural failures are serious, the political response has been unusually escalatory. The British Home Secretary publicly withdrew confidence in the chief constable before the conclusion of the parliamentary inquiry, and the episode was rapidly framed as a matter of “national importance.”

At the same time, prominent pro-Israel communal organisations moved rapidly to demand the chief constable’s dismissal (the Board of Deputies of British Jews called for him to be dismissed without delay). These interventions occurred within a well-documented context where organised pro-Israel advocacy groups maintain longstanding, open, and well-documented relationships across the British political establishment. Acknowledging this does not imply conspiracy; it reflects normal lobbying dynamics in Britain’s Westminster. However, it does help explain why scrutiny in this case has been unusually intense, narrowly focused, personalised, and politically charged — particularly when compared with responses to other serious policing failures. i.e.,

Hillsborough Disaster – A mass-fatality disaster involving evidence manipulation did not provoke instant ministerial declarations of lost confidence in police leadership. No immediate dismissal of the chief constable at the time, No Home Secretary publicly withdrew confidence during the initial revelations, and accountability took over 20 years, driven by victims’ families—not ministerial intervention.

Stephen Lawrence & Metropolitan Police - A finding of institutional racism across the UK’s largest police force did not trigger the same rapid, personalised political escalation. No immediate sacking of the Met Commissioner, reform recommendations were gradual and structural, and Ministers did not frame the issue as a sudden crisis of confidence in leadership.

The result has been a public narrative in which the collapse of a flawed police report is treated not merely as an institutional error, but as proof that the original risk assessment itself was illegitimate.

The collapse of the West Midlands Police report has increasingly been used to suggest that concerns about Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters were wholly unfounded or motivated by prejudice. That conclusion does not follow from the evidence.

Independent and verifiable sources—including UEFA disciplinary proceedings—show that Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters have, on multiple occasions, been sanctioned for racist or discriminatory behaviour. These are formal findings by football’s governing body, not speculative claims. They demonstrate that concerns about supporter behaviour were not conjured from thin air, even though the police failed to evidence those concerns properly in this instance. These findings do not excuse poor intelligence handling, but they do undermine the claim that police concern were illegitimate and arose from nothing. The current political framing risks replacing/substituting one form of confirmation bias with another - reverse confirmation bias which assumes that because the report was flawed, all underlying concern must have been baseless. Thus serving political reassurance rather than public safety. Public-order policing requires evidence-based assessment, not narrative absolution. The appropriate response to this episode is to demand higher evidentiary standards—not to erase documented patterns of supporter misconduct because acknowledging them is politically sensitive.

This case raises urgent questions for all of Britain’s police forces:

  • Are AI tools such as Microsoft Copilot being used elsewhere in intelligence preparation, briefings, or risk assessments?
  • What safeguards exist to prevent AI-generated fabrications from entering official records?
  • Is there any audit trail or disclosure requirement when AI tools are used?

Most seriously, the episode raises questions about past criminal cases. If AI-generated material has been used—directly or indirectly—in intelligence logs, surveillance justifications, charging decisions, or risk assessments, then the integrity of previous convictions may be open to challenge. Generative AI is not designed to meet evidential standards, and its unregulated use risks contaminating the justice process itself.

Conclusion

This case establishes two separates but connected failures:

  1. A policing failure, in which unverified AI-generated content from Microsoft Copilot was accepted into an intelligence product, compounded by confirmation bias and weak oversight.
  2. A political failure, in which that policing error has been leveraged—under sustained establishment pressure—to advance a one-sided narrative that shields certain actors from scrutiny while treating procedural failure as proof of moral innocence.

The lessons are clear:

💡 Accountability must be consistent.

💡AI tools must never substitute for verified intelligence.

💡 AI-generated content must never be treated as fact without rigorous verification.

💡 Policing accountability must be applied consistently—not intensified or softened from the disproportionate influence of well-connected interest groups— but insulated accordingly, regardless of the political sensitivities involved,

💡 Public institutions must not allow political pressure to transform due process into theatre.

💡 Decisions must be grounded in evidence.

💡 Tested against bias in all directions.

Until transparent national rules govern the use of generative AI in policing, the risk is not merely reputational. It is judicial

⏩ Cam Ogie is a Gaelic games enthusiast.

Confirmation Bias And AI - Specifically Microsoft’s Co-Pilot - The Real Concern For The British Politicised Response To The Maccabi Tel Aviv Report

Guardian ★ Written by Alex South.


A rise of murders is traumatising inmates and staff, and making life harder for staff. But even in prison, violence isn’t inevitable.

There are hotspots for violence in prison. The exercise yard, the showers. There are peak times, too. Mealtimes and association periods are particularly volatile.

But first thing in the morning is not when you expect to hear an alarm bell. I certainly didn’t, at 6am in my office on the residential wing of a high-security prison in late 2018. All prisoners were locked up at that time. But overcrowding has long been a problem in UK prisons, and keeping three men in cells designed for one can be a recipe for disaster.

When I reached the scene, I found one of my colleagues standing outside a cell with his keys in the lock, poised to open the door. The control panel next to the door showed a blinking orange light. The cell bell can be activated by prisoners inside to call for officer assistance. Normally this would be a request for toilet roll or paracetamol. But that day was different.

Inside the cell, one man sat trembling on the top bunk. 

Continue @ Guardian.

Death On The Inside 🪶 As A Prison Officer, I Saw How The System Perpetuates Violence

Matt Bowen ✍I always immediately recall this very question being asked in the 1971 Dalton Trumbo movie Johnny Got His Gun, based on the 1939 novel of the same name and Author, to which an excerpt of the answer given is; "It’s got something to do with young men killing each other".

I would say that Johnny Got His Gun is primarily an anti-war movie, I can’t honestly say I enjoyed the film, but this is not a movie review, I’m more concerned with the themes it explores and the analysis of those themes. It critiques the use of democracy as a justification for war and explores how ideals such as democracy are manipulated by those in power. It suggests that if democracy is used to justify unimaginable suffering without consent or clarity, it becomes a hypocritical slogan, not a genuine principle. 

Not too dissimilar from that explored in Johnny Got His Gun, over fifty years after the movie was released, a recent well-written article here on TPQ(1) by Cam Ogie outlined concern for particular actions of late, and suggested that if these actions are democracy, then words have lost meaning. Indeed Cam suggests the same; “Democracy as slogan, not principle”.

I asked in the comments section under Cam’s article the same question from the movie; what is democracy?

I mentioned that democracy means different things to different people, but the intent of my question was more to do with; what is the definition of democracy? If we have a definition, then we can say whether the word has indeed lost it’s meaning, and then explore the differences between what it now means, and what it is supposed to mean. Easier said than done.

According to Wikipedia, a precise definition of democracy does not exist.(2)

Although democracy is generally understood to be defined by voting, no consensus exists on a precise definition of democracy. Karl Popper says that the "classical" view of democracy is, "in brief, the theory that democracy is the rule of the people and that the people have a right to rule". One study identified 2,234 adjectives used to describe democracy in the English language.

2,234 adjectives in the English language to describe democracy, that's a fair amount. Does this mean that everytime anyone uses the word "democracy" they have all 2,234 adjectives in mind? I would suggest not. In fact, whenever someone uses the word, without significant context it's very difficult to ascertain exactly what they mean. I have often sought clarification in personal discussions whenever someone uses the word, and more often than not, I fail to receive it. It seems that some are much more clear on what it isn't, rather than what it is.

Philosophers and Scholars have long discussed this topic.

Perhaps if we start with Popper's classical view and also the general understanding that democracy is defined by voting. I would suggest that the former has a certain amount of ambiguity but, from my understanding, it does not appear to me that in practice it's "the people" that rule, and as to whether the people can exercise "the right to rule" has it's own set of problems. But what about the latter; voting. It could be said that these two are intertwined. If it's the people that vote, then does that mean it's the people that rule? Again, I would say that it does not appear that way in practice to me.

We can contrast "direct democracy" where people can vote directly on policy, with "representative democracy" where people vote on representatives that will then decide policy. Some countries have a semi-direct system, but by-in-large in The West, the dominant system is representative. Elections are supposed to be free and fair, where each vote is equal, and the impression is given that the result is the majority rules.

A form of representative democracy is liberal democracy. Constitutional protections are supposed to be in place, such as an independent judiciary and legal institutions, due process and rule of law. These checks and balances are supposed to protect civil liberties, rights of the minority, safeguard against oppressive governmental over-reach and prevent the "tyranny of the majority".

Austrian Political Economist Joseph Schumpeter’s controversial suggestion(3) was that:

the formation of a government is the endpoint of the democratic process, which means that for the purposes of his democratic theory, he has no comment on what kinds of decisions that the government can take to be a democracy.

Let’s take a closer look at voting for the formation of government.

Suffrage or the right to vote, has changed throughout history all around the world. In modern times more people now have the right to vote, although disfranchisement or not having the right to vote still occurs. Within Schumpeter’s theory for the definition of democracy, his was more “the method by which people elect representatives in competitive elections to carry out their will.”

There are currently different systems that can be used to determine elections, the Single Transferable Vote (STV), First Past the Post (FPTP), Additional Member System (AMS), to name but a few.
The YouTube Channel Veritasium has a very interesting and informative video titled Why Democracy Is Mathematically Impossible.(4)In this video, various voting systems are analysed and explained along with visual aids to show mathematically why this looks very much to be the case, with FPTP in particular receiving criticism. However, that is only a mathematical analysis of voting systems. Of course when other various factors are also taken into account such as; subversion, voter manipulation, voter suppression, gerrymandering, voter intimidation, electoral fraud, voter fraud, election interference, election denial etc, we can add these to the equation, and if the result of the maths looked bad before, it’s now looking even worse.

Election manipulation, and election denial is nothing new. These terms along with election interference were thrown around fairly recently, notably in the U.S.

A 2018 article for The New York Times(5) by Scott Shane mentions a study by Carnegie Mellon scholar Dov H. Levin, where Levin found that from the years 1946-2000 there were 81 counts by the United States and 36 counts by the Soviet Union or Russia of both “overt and covert election influence operations”.

The article quotes Steven L. Hall who retired in 2015 after 30 years at the C.I.A. where he was the chief of Russian operations as saying;

if you ask an intelligence officer, did the Russians break the rules or do something bizarre, the answer is no, not at all,” The United States “absolutely” has carried out such election influence operations historically, he said, “and I hope we keep doing it”.

The dean of American Intelligence Scholars Loch K. Johnson is also quoted as saying “We’ve been doing this kind of thing since the C.I.A. was created in 1947”.
 
The article does state that both Hall and Johnson argue that the interference by the U.S. is not morally equivalent to that of Russia. Somehow that assertion does not surprise me.

I found it an interesting piece that contained other quotes and details, but also in this very same article by Shane, we see a similar question being asked; "what does democracy mean?"

The article does not offer an answer.

It’s not agreed that voting alone for the formation of government is the overall defining element of democracy. So let’s look at some other commonly described attributes.

Consider the following excerpt from Wikipedia(6);

Features of democracy often include freedom of assembly, association, personal property, freedom of religion and speech, citizenship, consent of the governed, voting rights, freedom from unwarranted governmental deprivation of the right to life and liberty, and minority rights.

Those attributes are not exhaustive. Remember that 2,234 adjectives have been found to describe democracy, to try and address all 2,234, it would be a very long article indeed. But have a look through that excerpt from Wikipedia, and whichever "democratic" country you happen to reside in, ask yourself, how many of those attributes do you actually have, or how many do you perceive to be under threat?

In the U.S. right now, is the killing of Renee Nicole Good by I.C.E agent Jonathan Ross not to be considered as unwarranted governmental deprivation of the right to life? Are there other examples of such acts? Does the consent of the governed exist? Do you still have freedom of speech, or freedom of association or assembly?

The answer to some of those questions I am sure would vary between different folk and different countries, but I think we are seeing an increasing amount of people that would claim, perhaps rightly so, that those rights are not being protected, they are being eroded or, they simply don’t exist. Which brings us back to the original question, if democracy is not solely about voting, and if so-called democratic countries are not upholding the other attributes, then what is democracy?

Maybe Cam Ogie was right, words have lost meaning. I would certainly say there are plenty of words that have lost meaning over time, but with democracy we can’t even define it.

I think that democracy in practice is an illusion, where the common people believe they have a say, when in reality it’s not the case, and much like the analysis of Johnny Got His Gun, it is also a hypocritical slogan, it's a trigger word. It can invoke something in people. In fact, to accuse someone of being anti-democratic is used as a slur. It is used hypocritically to justify atrocity. It can invoke a reflex reaction that it is something to defend, something to fight for, something to kill for, something to die for. Yet for those in which these feelings or actions are invoked, they struggle to articulate exactly what it is they are killing and dying for. Some so-called democratic countries will actually dictate what other countries can do, and if they don't comply, they're more than happy to bomb "democracy" into them, more so when those countries do not possess the ability to defend themselves and there is less fear of reprisal, they then interfere in their so-called democratic elections, if indeed these elections even take place. Justification for this with a single solitary word that is devoid of meaning just so happens to be sufficient enough for those that are still taken in by the illusion. "Democracy!"

In many ways, democracy can be considered a paradox. Some of these paradoxes are explored by the Belgian political theorist Chantal Mouffe in her collection of essays aptly titled The Democratic Paradox.(8)

Also, consider how Donald Trump is often labelled by some as a dictator. A recent image of him after the illegal invasion of Venezuela and the subsequent kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, shows Trump with a Hitler type moustache of dripping crude oil. Yet some will assert that the very fact Donald Trump is President of the U.S. is down to democratic processes. If a democratic process can result in a dictatorship, is that not paradoxical? We can even see in the U.K. and Europe that those elected and supposed to represent the people, are putting policies into place that are limiting ideals which seems far from representing the very people that voted for them, yet again, paradoxically, these are the results of so-called democratic processes.

Some may point out that democracy contrasts with a dictatorship in that there are checks and balances that limit the power of the elected. I would argue that these checks and balances are far from sufficient. One such check on power in a democracy in attempt to avoid dictatorship is "Term Limits". But is this just another part of the illusion? Do we simply replace one dictator with another after their term limit is reached? Or is the political figurehead the illusion and policy is being dictated elsewhere by others?

Critics argue that modern democracies may fail to be sufficiently democratic and instead function in practice as oligarchies, insofar as governments are more responsive to the preferences of economic elites than to those of ordinary citizens. Numerous empirical studies across various western democracies including the United States, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, Norway and Germany have consistently found that elected representatives tend to respond more to the preferences of very affluent citizens for policy outcomes than those of the average voter.(7)

Some descriptors of democracy make it seem fair in theory, but in practice we can see a different picture. I would suggest, to avoid using the word if you do not also provide sufficient context to make it precisely clear what it is you mean, especially if you’re likely to fold under questioning when asked for clarification. If the word invokes some sort of sense or feeling, perhaps your mind can steer away from being triggered by the word democracy and instead focus on the specific liberal attributes instead; rights, equity, equality, justice, liberty, freedom, and so on. Values like these make sense, but to invoke the word democracy if it doesn’t contain such values, does not make sense at all.

What does democracy mean to you?

The Veritasium video I previously mentioned concludes with the statement;

Democracy is not perfect, but it’s the best thing we’ve got. The game might be crooked, but it’s the only game in town.

If the only game in town is crooked, then it desperately needs repaired, and if it can’t be repaired, then is it time for a new game?


(1) The Pensive Quill - Cam Ogie - If This Is “Democracy,” Then Words No Longer Mean Anything - 

(2) Democracy.

(3) Joseph Schumpeter.

(4) Why Democracy is mathematically Impossible.

(5) Scott Shane for the New York Times.

(6) Democracy.

(7) Democracy - Criticism.

(8) Chantal Mouffe – The Democratic Paradox 

⏩Matt Bowen is a researcher and commentator.

What Is Democracy?

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Eight Hundred And Fifty Three

 

A Morning Thought @ 3030

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh ☭ writing in Substack on 1-January-2026.

Photo: G.O.L. Bag of coca leaves Catatumbo, Colombia 2006

Petro earned a worldwide fame for challenging the powerful with his speeches on Palestine, climate change and also changes to the drug prohibitionist paradigm. He became famous for his speeches against Trump. He challenged the US government to imprison him and put on him one of the infamous orange uniforms of Guantanamo and other lugubrious places in the US penal gulag. He challenged the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, to put the orange pyjama on him, to try it, if he dared.[1] He compares himself to the slain president of Chile, Salvador Allende, murdered in a coup d’etat orchestrated by the CIA and he has publicly stated that they want to kill him.[2] He raises his hand with that pencil that he uses to draw attention and point to the path we have to go along as if it were Harry Potter’s wand. Some psychologist can explain that pencil to us and his talk of being on the same level as Allende.

But this has little to do with reality. Petro is not willing to die in his post. That discourse is reserved for public meetings, not for diplomacy and less still for state policy. As with many, though not all the militants of the former guerrilla group M-19, Petro is above all pragmatic, particularly when it has to do with his own welfare. There are those who like to say that the M-19 people were studious, they read, they were cultured, in a nutshell they were cadres unlike the majority of the other groups. It is true, that they were cultured and studied, but all that remains of that is their sense of smell, they can sense personal advantage and the gravy train at a distance. So, Petro will not sacrifice himself and even less so will the M-19 functionaries in his government. A lot of anti-imperialist talk, but when it comes to it, they come down on the side of those they believe will win. And in the case of Venezuela, rightly or wrongly Petro believes Trump will win.

In response to the right-wing journalist Patricia Janiot who took him to task for describing Kast, the president elect of Chile as a Nazi and never having called Maduro a dictator, Petro replied stating that Kast was the child of a Nazi who arrived after the second world war and that Maduro was a dictator but not a drug trafficker.[3] It was another step to put some distance between him and Maduro, as the first step was the decision not to attend Maduro’s swearing in ceremony as president. Now he highlights that he does not agree with the reasons given by Trump, but he does believe that Maduro should resign his presidency. He stated Venezuela needed a democratic revolution and a transitional government and furthermore offered to receive Maduro, a clear signal that even if the Venezuelans voted for Maduro, Petro believes he should step down from the government.[4] Another step from he who will not die at his post, to tell Trump that if he wants to take out Maduro well don’t lump me together with him, at least not in the same coffin.

In recent declarations he took another step in relation to Venezuela, regarding possible and actual attacks against the country by the US. According to Petro, nobody is to blame other than the ELN. In twisted declarations he said that the land attack carried out by Trump in Venezuela was in reality an attack on the ELN and a centre for processing their cocaine and that the ELN was to blame for allowing an invasion of Venezuela.[5] There is something worth clarifying. Up till 2016 when the FARC signed their peace agreement, they were according to the press, the Colombian government and various NGOs the main drug traffickers in the world, the largest cartel the world had ever seen. After signing the agreement, overnight, the ELN miraculously became the main cartel. The FARC lent themselves to that myth, as did their unarmed political militants, many of whom are functionaries in Petro’s government without ever acknowledging their militancy in the former guerrilla group and they continue their fight with the ELN guerrilla group. At least this time they are not shooting at the ELN and trying to liquidate another guerrilla group. This time they have left the task to the Colombian state and Trump, just like the NGOs who used to preach about peace, fought against fumigation and did not accept the narcoticised discourse about the Colombian armed conflict. This time they are part of the government.

Petro said the ELN was to blame for Trump killing Colombian citizens in the Pacific and the Caribbean. But he changed a key element. He accepted that they weren’t fishermen. He said that they weren’t transporting cocaine but rather cannabis. How he knows this, we do not know and given his deliriums on the issue, maybe he doesn’t know either.

According to the president, many of the boats attacked with missiles in anti-drugs operations - including seizures carried out by Colombia or with international support – were not carrying cocaine, but rather cannabis, a substance that “is legal in many parts of the US”.

Petro contended that by keeping cannabis illegal in Colombia, Congress had made a mistake and warned that that decision “has cost the lives of many humble boatmen”.

On that basis, Petro directly called into question President Donald Trump in stating that “he is totally wrong”, as he said that the cocaine going to Europe is leaving in submarines and containers, whilst “cannabis is being illegitimately attacked”.[6]

Once more Petro has shown his complete ignorance on the issue of drugs. It would seem he is advised by first year sociology students destined to fail the course, or he smokes a lot of what he criticises. No serious analyst on the issue would state what Petro said.

Yes, it is true that the recreational use of cannabis is legal in various US states, but at a federal level it is illegal. Furthermore, any substance covered by the Single Convention of 1961 cannot cross international borders without the backing of the INCB (International Narcotics Control Board). The international trade in medicinal heroin and cocaine has always been allowed and in recent years medicinal cannabis in some countries. Whilst some states in the US and countries like Uruguay allow the controlled sale of cannabis for recreational use, its international trade is not permitted. Only trade in medicinal use substances is allowed and in the USA there are no medicinal uses for cannabis at a federal level.

It is just not true that if the Colombian Congress had legalised recreational cannabis that would have resulted in a significant change in the attitude of the US. Firstly, at a federal level, the sale of recreational cannabis is not permitted and this causes problems for the sellers themselves in Colorado when they try to put their legal profits into the banking system. They have to resort to strategies more akin to drug trafficking and operate cash only businesses.[7] The legislation which would allow the cannabis sellers to access the federal banking system has not been passed.

Moreover, even in the case of the legal sale of controlled substances, its international sale is severely regulated and everything that takes place outside of that is drug trafficking. That is what the Colombian law, covered by international treaties says, as Colombia ratified the Single Convention a long time ago. It is also a gross stupidity to think that if Colombia had legalised cannabis that Trump would not have attacked the boats.

Additionally, if those boats were carrying cannabis, where were they going? Nobody says those boats were capable of travelling thousands of kilometres to the US. Are they fishermen or cannabis traffickers? Petro’s discourse makes no sense. He stated that:

With the increase in coca leaf crops in Latin America in response to a growing demand in Europe, the price of cocaine has collapsed. Cannabis and illegal gold are now more profitable than cocaine. It is time for substitution.[8]

When he started his presidency, he said the same of fentanyl. The reports from the UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) say the exact opposite. Cannabis has always been the most consumed drug in the world, but the UNODC says that market that has most increased is the cocaine market. With both drugs the price has decreased slightly in the last decade but the purity of the cocaine and the potency of cannabis have increased. In the case of cannabis it has almost doubled and the purity of cocaine has increased by 34%.[9] Once again, Petro makes it up. His delirious statements on drugs would make anyone doubt themselves and ask whether he made those statements under the influence of the same drugs.

But there is another aspect, that the USA is practically self-sufficient in Cannabis for the illegal market. More nonsense from Petro, but one that is very dangerous because he is telling Trump that the boats were carrying illegal drugs. In the hippy parties of M-19 cannabis might be well thought of, but in the US legal system it is just as illegal as cocaine.

When Petro says that if they had legalised cannabis, something which should be done, Trump would not have attacked the boats, he lies to us, he deceives us. Trafficking in recreational cannabis is not permitted in the USA. The countries that tolerate or have legalised recreational use do not allow for its international sale.

The ELN is not to blame for the attacks in Venezuela. Petro’s discourse on drugs continues to be incoherent and in the context of the murder of Colombians on the high seas it is dangerous.

So much talk about his anti-imperialism, dying at his post, that they want to kill or imprison him and he ends up doing a favour to Trump by giving him excuses to attack Venezuela. And it turns out that the supposed laboratory in Maracaibo doesn’t exist and there isn’t even a report of an attack in the area.[10] All just to bow down to Trump hoping that he lifts the sanctions imposed on Petro. He has neither pride nor dignity and he is willing to sacrifice Maduro and Venezuela to save his own skin.

References

[1] El Nacional (23/11/2025) Petro envía contundente mensaje a Marco Rubio: “Si me va a meter preso, a ver si puede: si me quiere poner el piyama naranja, inténtelo”.

[2] Publimetro (23/09/2025) “Por esto me quieren matar”: Petro dice que es por hablar del narcotráfico y de Gaza. 

[3] El Tiempo (17/12/2025) Presidente Gustavo Petro llama ‘dictador’ a Nicolás Maduro, pero dice que ‘no hay evidencia de que sea narcotraficante’ como afirma Estados Unidos.

[4] CNN (11/12/2025) Colombia recibiría a Maduro si sale de Venezuela para una transición en el poder, dice el Gobierno de Petro. 

[5] W Radio (30/12/2025) Petro confirm que EE.UU. bombardeó fábrica y acusó al ELN de permitir una “invasion”. José David Rodríguez.

[6] Ibíd.,

[7] US Congress (2023) Marijuana Banking: Legal Issues and the SAFE(R) Banking Acts. 

[8] W Radio op. cit.

[9] EUDA (2025) European Drug Report 2025: Trends and Developments. h

[10] El País (31/12/2025) Petro señala que el ELN fue blanco de un ataque de Trump en Venezuela: “Tememos que mezclan la pasta de coca para hacerla cocaína. Camila Osorio. 

⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.

Venezuela 🪶 Petro On His Knees To Trump

Craig Murray ★ The mainstream media covered Venezuela non-stop yesterday. 

They many times mentioned Delcy Rodríguez, Vice President, because Trump stated she is now in charge. They never mentioned that 2026 marks the 50th anniversary of the torture to death of her father, socialist activist Jorge Rodríguez, by the CIA-backed security services of the US-aligned Pérez regime in Venezuela.

That would of course spoil the evil communists versus nice democrats narrative that is being forced down everybody’s throats.

Nor did they mention that the elected governments of Hugo Chávez reduced extreme poverty by over 70%, reduced poverty by 50%, halved unemployment, quadrupled the number receiving a state pension and achieved 100% literacy. Chávez took Venezuela from the most unequal society for wealth distribution in Latin America to the most equal.

Nor have they mentioned that María Corina Machado is from one of Venezuela’s wealthiest families, which dominated the electricity and steel industries before nationalisation, and that her backers are the very families that were behind those CIA-controlled murderous regimes.

Economic sanctions imposed by the West – and another thing they have not mentioned is that the UK has confiscated over £2 billion of the Venezuelan government’s assets – have made it difficult for the Maduro government to do much more than shore up the gains of the Chávez years.

Continue @ Craig Murray.

Venezuela And Truth

Christopher Owens 🏴I'm reaching out again and clutching flowers thrown in the breeze/They're all quite meaningless and yet they mean so much to me/We slipped up again by not recalling all the pain/And I wanna know why, I wanna know why. - The Mob
Petesy Burns
Petesy Burns is no more.

Receiving that message on New Year’s Day did put a dent in the day’s proceedings.

For those of us interested in punk rock and its visible manifestations in Belfast, Petesy Burns was the equivalent of a totem pole: someone who represented a rich heritage but could still inspire those who interacted with him.

From Good Vibrations through to the Harp Bar, the Manhattan, the Anarchy Centre and through three variations on Giros/Warzone Centre, Petesy helped to create and nurture not just punk rock in Belfast but also an alternative lifestyle and way of thinking during a time of intense conflict and ideological rigidness. Eternal respect is due.

♩ ♪♫ 🎹 🎷🎸🎻 🎺

From Sheridan Street in the New Lodge, his path in life was altered whenever he discovered punk rock. Speaking to Stuart Bailie in 2017 he said that the Sex Pistols ‘God Save the Queen’ offered a way out for him because:

…coming from the Republican tradition that sort of pricked my ears because music wasn’t really big on the agenda round our way. It was more sorta clodding things at the army. And I remember just being in the bedroom one day, and I used to listen to my ma and da’s radio in their bedroom, I used to listen to the charts every week and then this week’s Number Two was ‘God Save the Queen’ by the Sex Pistols. But then it was banned and I’d never heard it on the radio either. And it being Jubilee year, at first I thought it must be some sort of song, celebrating the Jubilee. And then I thought, the Sex Pistols? I’m not too sure about that. And then when I thought about it, I had heard of Johnny Rotten but never really heard who they were. And then when I got it, there was an affinity initially with where I was coming from. You know, that whole anti-establishment, anti-monarchy, anti-British thing. As it was then – ‘God Save the Queen, the fascist regime’. The argument was won at that point.

Soon making his way to Good Vibrations in Great Victoria Street, then onto the Harp Bar in Hill Street, it wasn’t long before he became involved in music. Beginning with the Stillborns before morphing into Stalag 17, their ferocious take on punk can be summarised with ‘Smash the Front’.



Beginning life as a Stillborns tune, it became Stalag 17’s most famous number.

It’s worth noting that, although small in numbers, the NF did have a hold in Protestant areas where the Shankill skins (including the likes of Johnny Adair, Sam ‘Skelly’ McCrory and Donald Hodgen) would have the NF logo on their jackets. While it is true that Adair helped forge those links (particularly with his band, Offensive Weapon) I’ve been repeatedly told by those who were either their or part of the general subculture that emerged after 1977 in Belfast that it was the anti-IRA/pro-British angle that attracted so many loyalists.

Regardless, adopting an anti-fascist stance whenever genuine fascists were trying to organise in the North was a brave and bold move. Unsurprisingly, this led to manys a confrontation whenever the two groups were on the circuit.

There were many other bands: FUAL, Sledgehammer, Shame Academy, The Outcasts, A-Political, A.R.S.E, The Hoakers. All of them embedded with the same love of music, the same excitement of picking up an instrument and the same glee of performing live.

Check out this tribute from Hillary Midgley from Sledgehammer.

♩ ♪♫ 🎹 🎷🎸🎻 🎺

The opening of the Anarchy Centre in November 1981 was another seminal moment in the history of Belfast. It was somewhere the punks who had been just a little too young for the Harp and the Pound could convalesce on a Saturday afternoon, watch a film (like the banned Monty Python's Life of Brian) and see gigs by local legends as well as the likes of Crass and Poison Girls while getting up to all sorts.

Stalag 17 played as support to the latter two which had an even bigger impact on Petesy who was barely 20 years old because

…at that point I was still firmly entrenched in the sorta, not what I would call the fashion end of punk but the apolitical, the hedonistic sorta chaos type thing, and that was the first time … and I would have always dismissed Crass…just took the line from the media, basically saying they were middle-class hippies. And just took that line without really having met them or thought about it, and then when they came I met them and saw how engaged they were just with people, outside of being on the stage, sitting about, not being stars, just being really interesting and interested, you know. And then seeing the band and the spectacle of it – because they had all their films and banners and them themselves, just completely engaging, it was just like a completely different kind of experience and you sorta thought, that's what punk’s about.

This led to the idea of collectivisation, especially after meeting people like Roy Wallace from Toxic Waste who were running the Rathcoole Self Help Group. Thus the catalyst for what became the Warzone Collective came into play and what happened next would change the lives of manys a person in Belfast.
♩ ♪♫ 🎹 🎷🎸🎻 🎺

Talking to Ian Glasper in 2009, Petesy noted that while:

…Belfast was less of a grim place in the Eighties than it had been in the Seventies...there was still virtually nothing in terms of a non-sectarian shared space in the city centre. Youth culture - and especially punk youth culture - was still a dirty word, and there was fuck-all means of people exploring their creativity in a way that wasn’t controlled. Everything we wrote at the time was a reflection of how we viewed Belfast and Northern Ireland, the punk scene, and people’s perception of our situation.
Belfast always had a fairly healthy punk scene, the only problem being that we could never secure a venue or practice space. The Warzone collective had been running the café in the anarchist bookshop, Just Books, but when it became apparent that we needed much more space, we got a room in the newly opened Centre for the Unemployed and annoyed them - mostly through noise pollution - until they helped us acquire our own premises. We got down to building a practice room, café and art workshop; it was truly unbelievable the mix of people and ideas Giro’s brought together, the sense of enthusiasm and possibilities was palpable…”

While such places were common amongst squatters in Britain and Europe, Belfast had never had such a place before. One that consciously didn’t designate itself as one or the other. One that offered vegan/vegetarian food. One where artists could have exhibitions. One where you could make your own T-shirts and posters. One where you could see life changing gigs from incendiary acts.

Giros inspired the dreamers of Belfast and, as one of the main architects of this alternative way of thinking, Petesy put it in stark but simple terms: DIY not UDA/IRA!


Summing up the importance of punk, Petesy put it in utilitarian terms:

It took me out of a lifestyle that I would have, for not knowing any better that I would have just followed and done what everyone around me was doing. And followed that track. That everyone was following you know. It sorta took me away from that and showed me other possibilities.

Petesy Burns, lest we forget.


⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.

Petesy Burns

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Eight Hundred And Fifty Two

 

A Morning Thought @ 3029

Jim Duffy ✍ An interesting report from Channel 4 News. 

It isn't anything new to those of us aware of what is happening, but something that, as the Taoiseach admits, the Irish are "blissfully unaware of" as they live in their neutrality fantasy that "sure we're grand!" He made the point that the Irish really live in their deluded bubble.
 
Part of that bubble is of course due to geography. Ireland perpetually is unaware of things outside its inward-looking society. After World War II, international leaders were flabbergasted at how much Ireland lived in its own bubble. International leaders would meet Irish leaders and find them off in their own reality. The world was worried about the prospect of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, and the risk of mass starvation, yet when they'd meet the Irish Minister for External Affairs he would want to talk about nothing but partition, the Irish border, the treaty, and being good Catholics showing loyalty to the Pope.
 
That was demonstrated when the Atlantic Treaty was signed creating NATO. Ireland wanted to join NATO, a point Minister for External Affairs Sean MacBride made clear in the Dáil and Seanad in February 1949. But all MacBride and the First Inter-Party Government wanted to talk about in order to join NATO was . . . partition!!! Seriously! The government, a bit like some in Ireland today, thought other countries were desperate to get Ireland to join NATO - and so all they had to do is get other members joining NATO to gang up on Britain and force it to withdraw from Northern Ireland and so end partition as a quid pro quo to get Ireland into NATO.
 
In fact, then as now, other countries weren't fixated on getting Ireland into NATO, and they couldn't give a damn about some 'silly squabble' over partition in Ireland. They had far bigger issues on their plate, like the status of Berlin, millions of refugees, the risk of war, the fact that many countries were bankrupt, to worry about the "dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone emerging once again", to use Churchill's famous phrase from 1922 once again.
 
It didn't help that Ireland's reputation had been catastrophically damaged by de Valera's crass condolences on Hitler's death.
 
The very idea that NATO members were going to gang up against Britain on behalf of Ireland was deluded in the extreme, but typical of how out-of-touch the Irish were. The war to the Irish was just 'the Emergency', where the main problems were no petrol and rationing food. To the other countries planning to join NATO, the war involved Nazi armies, Blitzkrieg, the bombing of cities, concentration camps and gas chambers, with millions dead. The Irish were entirely on a different wavelength to everyone else and living in a different reality.

Ireland's plot to use NATO membership to force British withdraw from the North failed abysmally.
Ireland's tendency to live in its own bubble has long been an issue. It remains an issue alive today in Ireland's neutrality delusions. Real neutrality is expensive, involves a large armed forces, and usually involves conscription (Sixty-six percent of remaining neutrals in Europe have conscription. Only one-third of NATO members do). It involves having a significant size of navy and air force. Irish neutrality however involves little defence spending, a two-ship navy, an air force with no means to intercept anything, and a tiny military incapable of fulfilling the elementary duties of a military due to chronic lack of defence spending. Whenever a problem arose, we play the 'beal bocht', even though richer than many NATO members, and look to get NATO to protect us for free with taxpayers in other countries paying our bills.
 
The reality is that continental Europe knows full well that it is being targeted by Putin's Russia, that efforts are being made to destabilise their states, that fundamental infrastructure is being targeted, that a full cyber war is being waged against them. The closer a country is to Russia, the more brutally they are being targeted and the more worried their citizens are.
 
Some countries in Southern Europe are less nervous than those in Central and Eastern Europe. However none is as much in its bubble of denial as Ireland. Part of that was due to World War II. Lots of neutrals naively thought the Second Hague Convention's declaration that "The territory of neutral Powers is inviolable" - even though that was broken by Germany in 1914 in invading Luxembourg and Belgium. World War II shattered them of that illusion - as neutrals Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Finland were invaded. It showed that the 'guarantee' in Hague II Title V Article I is worthless. If a country wants to attack a neutral it will. Hague is nothing more than an unenforceable gentlemen's agreement. That was why Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway abandoned neutrality after World War II and joined NATO. Finland and Sweden have since joined.
 
Ireland may well have been one of those neutrals Hitler planned to invade, though historians are uncertain if Operation Green, invading Ireland, was a real plan or a dummy one. If it had been invaded, that would have woken the Irish pretty quickly to the uselessness of Hague II's protection. The fact that it wasn't allows devotees of neutrality to cling to the delusion that it is protected by Hague II - despite Hague II not having protected any single country in its one hundred and fifteen years in force.
The extent to which the Irish remain "blissfully unaware" of how dangerous the situation is can be seen in the fact that Ireland has no full-time stand alone Defence Minister, has barely functioning defence, a laughably low defence budget, and the fact that neither RTÉ nor Virgin Media even bothers to have a Defence Correspondent.
 
The delusion was summed up by a typically crass intervention by Michael D Higgins where he lashed out at Estonia for taking defence seriously by increasing its defence spending as if it were acting aggressively. Typically he ignored that Russia has explicitly threatened it, that Russia spends 7.5% of GDP on defence, had been massing soldiers at its borders and had tried to provocatively steal part of its waters in breach of international waters. Then again, Higgins like many on the left is oblivious to the behaviour of Russia while always being in a rush to cast the first stone against democracies.
He is being replaced by an even more clueless nutter on the issue - a hard left woman who equates limited German rearmament in 2025, that it has to do to repair decades of underfunding, with the extreme and illegal aggressive rearmament of Hitler in the 1930s.
 
The Irish have no idea that not alone is Europe in a highly dangerous state, but it is in particular danger. 97% of the most vital data cables that Europe depend on are in Irish waters and the Irish waters are where they are most vulnerable. All Putin would have to do to throw Europe into chaos, including shutting its banks, emptying its ATMs, stopping its cards from working, etc would be to attack those cables in Irish waters.
 
Ireland is rated as one of the top three targets for Putin in any war: the Suwalki Gap; Gotland; cables in Ireland's waters.
 
Add to that Ireland is exceptionally vulnerable because it is dependent of underwater connectors to literally keep the lights on. Cut those interconnectors, and Ireland would lose 50% of its electricity generation capacity. If that happened, the government's own analysis makes it clear it would take six months minimum to fix the interconnectors. In the meantime there would be national electricity rationing. Major industrial users would be cut off indefinitely to give priority to homes, hospitals, schools, etc.
 
No other country is as vulnerable as Ireland is heavily reliant on electricity generation using gas but in an act of monumental stupidity has no gas storage facility. Add to that the Corrib gas supply is almost gone and for ideological reasons no other gas fields were opened.
 
A core aim of Russia is to destabilise the EU - which is why targeting vital data cables is central to his tactics. Destabilise states by things like throwing the electricity supply into chaos and again you make world headlines. Ireland, an isolated island with no gas storage and a demand that almost matches supply, and dependency on a limited number of interconnectors and just a two-ship navy to protect them, is a perfect target. Everyone else in Europe knows it.
 
Maybe it will take the lights going out to wake up their Irish from their blissful ignorance and realise just how dangerous the situation is internationally right now, and how its chronically underfunded defence is plain reckless and stupid.
 
It may be Ireland's Rotterdam moment. One prominent Dutch politician from Rotterdam was a pacifist who was convinced in World War II that the Netherlands was safe thanks to the Second Hague Convention. He was adamant. Then on 10th May 1940 the Nazis attacked the Netherlands, Hague or no Hague. On the 14th May, Rotterdam was bombed severely by the Nazis. Only then did he finally realise what Luxembourg and Belgium learned in 1914 - that Hague as protection is worthless. He wrote "I believed we were protected. I was wrong." His city, and his family, were destroyed in the invasion. He later went on to campaign for the Netherlands to join the new NATO being created, saying his country must never make the same mistake again.

⏩ Jim Duffy is a writer-historian.

Rotterdam Moment

Peadar O’Donnell Socialist Republican Forum ☭ In this video, speakers from Social Rights Ireland and members of the Peadar O'Donnell Socialist Republican Forum discuss how states use criminalisation as a means of enforcing the ruling class's policies.



State Use Of Criminalisation Policies

Caoimhin O’Muraile  ☭ On 3rd January 2026 Unites States President, Donald Trump, Commander in Chief of the US armed forces, ordered the illegal bombing of the South American country Venezuela. 

US forces then proceeded to, at the point of a gun, kidnap the oil rich county’s president, Nicolas Maduro, taking him back to the US for a show trial. This illegal act by Trump did not force the same protests and outrages from Western leaders as Russian President, Vladimir Putins, invasion of his neighbour Ukraine. In fact what Trump has done has semi-legitimised the Russian invasion of Ukraine because Putin can now reasonably claim; just as you dictate what goes on in your backyard, so do we in ours! 

Ever since the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 the USA has considered Central and Southern America within their sphere of influence but this is the first time they have kidnapped a country’s leader. By the same token since the fall of the Soviet Union Russia can equally claim Ukraine to be within its orbit and therefore the same rule of influence must apply. Whether this assumption is right or wrong is not the topic here but Trump's actions in Venezuela have given Putin the rationale he needs to justify his invasion and demands of Ukraine. If anything Putin may have had more justification than Trump for his actions against his neighbour which is a matter of conjecture. 

Donald Trump, a man not known for his honesty, claimed, with absolutely no evidence, the Venezuelan leader was involved in the drugs trade and therefore his arrest was legitimate. Trump also claimed the former trade union leader and head of the Venezuelan Socialist Party is/was not the legitimate leader of the country and therefore he had to be removed. Madura’s political ideology is an antithesis to Trump and for this reason, among others, he has been illegally and forcibly removed from office and taken to a US kangaroo court. We only have Trump's less than reliable word for this allegation what in all likelihood could be a false claim. The real reason for this violation of Venezuela is because the country is rich in oil. Western sycophant leaders like Britain’s Keir Starmer are lining up to find words which can justify Trump's actions so they do not have to take action, sanctions for example, if they dare, against the US tyrant.

Donald Trump has made no secret of the fact he wants to annex his neighbour Canada to the north and most of the Americas to the south of the US. In this - what could be described as a bastardisation of the Monroe Doctrine - has Trump laid the first brick in his plans to occupy the whole of the Americas? If this turns out to be the case - and the early signs are not good - what will the reactions of larger South American countries like Argentina and Brazil be? Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, has already told Trump Canada will not become the “51st state of the USA” earlier in 2025 when Trump was sabre rattling about such an eventuality. Now Trump is threatening Greenland, part of the Kingdom of Denmark, with military invasion, claiming it is important to US ‘national security’ for Greenland to be governed by the USA. Once again this is make-believe stuff of comics. What the US Brigand really means is the ‘country is wealthy in minerals we want’. US security is presently guaranteed as they already have military bases in Greenland. Denmark and therefore Greenland are members of NATO and such an invasion by the USA, the leading NATO member without whom the alliance is virtually toothless, would no doubt split and possibly end the Atlantic Alliance. Article five of NATO’s constitution states, “if one member is attacked all other members come to help.” The six-million-dollar question is: will article five apply if the US invade Greenland? Just as Venezuelan sovereignty has, for the time being, gone so too would that of Greenland, and by virtue of that the sovereignty of Denmark would be eroded. On 6th January in a statement:

the leaders of France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Denmark, and Greenland said Greenland belongs to its people. It is for Denmark and Greenland and only them to decide on politics concerning Greenland. (Irish Daily Mirror 7th January). 

Trump has already indicated he does not care what Europe think: it shall be him who decides the future of Greenland! This is very similar to Adolf Hitler's attitude towards Britain and France after he had taken the Sudetenland - an area of Czechoslovakia - with the blessing of Britain, France, and Italy: and proceeded without care to take the whole country. Is Trump another Hitler?

Many Western leaders have claimed, wrongly in my opinion, that Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine is only the start of his take over in Eastern Europe. I do not believe this to have been the case. But the actions of Trump and his threats to other sovereign nation states certainly may give Putin ideas in such a direction! With the Russian invasion of Ukraine and ongoing war British Prime Minister Starmer and his like-minded European leaders like French President, Emmanuel Macron, have gathered what they call the “coalition of the willing” to provide if necessary “boots on the ground” to guarantee Ukraine’s security once the conflict with Russia comes to an end. They have spent billions and billions in aid to Ukraine and have supplied much military hardware. 

The question now is to Starmer and his supposed “coalition”: will you provide the same arms and money to Venezuela to fight the US as you have to Ukraine to fight Russia? It is exactly the same principle of violation which Trump has done to that of Putin or do such rules only apply to Russia? Starmer has refused to call Trumps actions illegal in ‘international law’ probably because he knows to do so would stir the wrath of the US tyrant! Even the far-right leader of Reform UK, Nigel Farage, a friend of Trump, has said the US actions are “probably in breach of international law”. Starmer is a sycophant to Trump who must be laughing his balls off at the British leader. In fact all the Western European heads at their dithering over what to say or do about his actions and future threats. Just as the world stood still when Hitler invaded the Rhineland in 1936, then Austria in 1938, Czechoslovakia in 1939 and finally Poland again in 1939. Are they going to do the same again with Trump?

Donald Trump is, according to him, going to run Venezuela allowing “US oil companies” to administer the oil industry in the country. This again will be an act of theft no different in principle to housebreaking just on a far larger scale. Once again, such an act will be in breach of international law which in reality does not exist. If Trump does this and takes over the administration of Venezuela as a corporate business in effect he will have made his first move towards open fascism. Corporatism is an integral part of fascist governance (something the electorate in Britain should consider before voting for Reform UK as Farage wants to run the country as a business) and is a dangerous slide back into the darkest years of global history. Another major question is perhaps: will the US dictator invade any other country which disagrees with his far-right ideology, including Britain? The US already have around 10,000 fully active troops based in Britian so all they would have to do is take over British Army barracks while more US forces arrive!

In an act of piracy on 7th January 2026, the US boarded and seized the Russian flagged tanker, Marinera, in the Atlantic about 400 miles off the coast of Ireland. This act by the United States Corsair is once again an illegal action as piracy is a crime and has been for centuries. The US aircraft had to fly over Twenty-Six County airspace to carry out this deed. The question to be asked is did they have the permission of the administration in Leinster House for this incursion? When Twenty-Six County Minister for Foreign affairs, Helen McEntee, was asked this question she fudged and avoided answering. We can probably take that as a no, they did not have permission. In which case the sovereignty and neutrality of another small country had been violated by the United States. 

Another prudent question is: how will Putin react to this Russian flagged tanker being seized by the USA? Remember Vladimir Putin has the largest nuclear arsenal of any single country on earth! In a statement Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) stated “the UK helped the US in seizing the tanker”. If this assistance was voluntary then the so-called UK are complicit in breaking the fabled international law. What we should be asking is; did the “UK help” the US or, roughly translated, were they ordered to do so by the leading NATO country? Did Trump get on to Starmer and tell him this is what is going to happen and you will help us? Maybe being bullied by the US is part of Britain's “special relationship” with the United States!

With Donald Trump now doing whatever the fuck he likes where will it end? The European sycophants are doing their level best to justify the US dictator’s actions in typical grovelling fashion. Will Trump invade Greenland signalling a crisis within NATO? Or to avoid such a crisis and dilemma will the other alliance countries find a way of dumping Greenland and, in effect, Denmark possibly claiming NATOs article five only applies to actions by countries not in the alliance? 

The outcome of these US actions will end in tears for somebody with Venezuela and President Madura being the first victims. Columbia are now voicing concerns about their future, fearing a possible US invasion! The rest of the world might sit back and tell themselves in a couple of years Trump will have gone, voted out! Well, do not bank on that because this tyrant is not above, as did Hitler in Nazi Germany, cancelling elections in the USA under the guise of protecting their national security. Do not be surprised and will the world still sit idly by? Probably. They have never moved against the USA in the past why should this be any different?
 
Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

Donald Trump 🪶Thief, Kidnapper, Corsair!

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