No Mr Key, green lighting drone strikes that murder civilians is what’s “not really cricket”

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All John is saying is give drone strikes a chance.

So Mr Key claims a peaceful candle lit vigil outside his home to protest his Government’s handing over of intel to the Americans for drone strikes that have killed 4000 people so far – 200 of them children is “not really cricket’?

Really? Not cricket? That’s your comment is it? As someone who was at the protest, let me tell you what isn’t cricket Prime Minister. Giving the US intel to help decide who they will assassinate minus any court proceedings is “not really cricket” Mr Key. The innocent mothers and children and men who perish because of this remote controlled death is “not really cricket” Mr Key. That you seem to be more than happy to throw a NZ citizen into the drone strike list for political cover when you were ramming through your mass surveillance legislation last year is “not really cricket” Mr Key.

We now know as of last week from Wikileaks that Afghanistan is being targeted by 5 eyes and everything recorded (which helps explain how the NZDF spied upon journalist Jon Stephenson), so our GCSB is most certainly involved and responsible.

Fellow NZers, we may not pull the trigger but we sure as hell point the gun. Our taxpayer dollars are going into an invisible war that murders people minus any actual court trial or judicial integrity. That makes us all responsible and a candle lit vigil against such immoral, unethical and possibly international law breaching military violence is the least we can collectively do.

Let’s cut a deal Mr Key, I won’t stand outside your house holding candle lit vigils if you stop telling the Drone strikes who to kill.

Key’s “Not really cricket” comment is the height of laid back fascism. We’re not talking cricket you spineless American golf caddy, we are talking about an unethical manner of waging war against a country we haven’t even declared war upon.

38 COMMENTS

  1. F****n well said, Martyn!

    Damn. In forty years we’ve gone from a nation that morally opposed atomic bomb testing in the South Pacific; withdrawing from an immoral war in Southeast Asia; and opposing the apartheid regime in South Africa – to now aiding and abetting extra-judicial killing via drone strikes.

    This is State sanctioned murder, and history will judge us harshly for being complicit in this crime.

  2. I’m very pleased that I attended the “Candlelight Vigil Against New Zealand’s Support for US Drone Attacks” held outside John Key’s home in Parnell earlier yesterday evening.

    It was quite a moving affair – a peaceful, quiet and solemn vigil as the sun went down. No shouting, no chanting of slogans, just a nice bunch of Kiwis of all ages wanting to make a point.

    Renowned NZ Journo Jon Stephenson and Prof Jane Kelsey spoke eloquently and compassionately about the terrible affects of drone attacks on the lives of innocent families, and also about the mental problems experienced by military personnel who control the drones and then see the collateral damage caused…

    The highlight for me was seeing how many young people were there tonight – friendly, vibrant, caring kids who really do “get it” and want to show that they are not “comfortable” with our govt’s support for unsanctioned killings. I spoke for some time to a homeless guy (27) who told me that he had lived on the street for most of his life, how he and his friends helped and looked after each other…he referred to his younger homeless friends as his “street sons and daughters”. He was so interesting, a pleasure to talk to, and I fully intend to meet him again.

    Towards the end, whilst a Glen Eden priest said a prayer, and just prior to a minute’s silence and our dispersal into the night, a car load of local residents stopped their RV alongside us. The “female” driver and other occupants yelled out “What are you doing in our street? We don’t want you here…PISS OFF!”

    It just goes to show – having lots of money doesn’t give you any class.

    So pleased to read this morning that JK didn’t appreciate our visit – you couldn’t ask for a bigger incentive to do it more often! John Boy doesn’t like people quietly and respectfully protesting outside his home, but he’s perfectly happy with drones obliterating family homes in Afghanistan, Pakisan etc. Tell someone who gives a fuck, Mr Key !

    • “Towards the end, whilst a Glen Eden priest said a prayer, and just prior to a minute’s silence and our dispersal into the night, a car load of local residents stopped their RV alongside us. The “female” driver and other occupants yelled out “What are you doing in our street? We don’t want you here…PISS OFF!”

      Welcome to New Zealand – Aotearoa 2014, I ask, is it much different from 1981??? Has anything much been learnt? Some will never learn, I am afraid, and we have a divided country, where some refer to many of us as “rabble” and would rather have the cops remove protesters or persons holding peaceful vigils at will and by force.

  3. Jolly bad show chaps. It just ain’t cricket, what! I mean doing my job lying to people and conniving is just work. You know, Wellington and all that. Office hours, old chap, just work. Most unfair, most uncomely that rabble.

    It is all so British with the General on his white steed having deigned to go forward to a hill some distance behind the troops. How awful having to look through his telescope to see the front liners die while doing his bidding. Thank goodness for him to be too far back to hear the screams of death but so, so disconcerting to have to be here too far away from his accommodation where banquets and civility await.

  4. If Key thinks that holding a candlelight vigil outside his mansion isn’t “cricket”, he should try having his wedding ceremony destroyed by a drone strike, killing his family and friends. We have achieved a whole new moral low with our support of the US killing programme.

  5. I’m a little bit on John Key’s side on this one. Not that I endorse drone strikes nor like the Prime Minister’s policies in the least. But because politicians of all persuasions need to be able to allowed to have a line beyond which they are allowed to retreat from their positions for their own safety and sanity. I’d feel just as uncomfortable if a bunch of angry National supporters staged a protest outside Russel Norman or David Cunliffe’s home. The same goes for the image above.
    We have to protect the privacy and security of all our politicians to ensure democracy survives and people feel safe to stand for Parliament. You start having images of blood splattered politicians you don’t like, and the next thing you know the opposition is doing the same.

    • Bu there were no “angry” protesters, Fambo. I definitely accept that if it were a National protest they’d be (faux)angry – but this was far from the case.
      And a PM who is so laid back about the privacy of NZers – who has given a blank check with no real oversight to NZ spy agencies – I’d say he brought this upon himself. He’s so far removed from real NZers, it’s not as if he’ll ever understand what it is like for the poor, and for minorities who’re constantly harassed by police. He is quite OK with the killing of innocent people – and the killing of people who have been targeted with notoriously dodgy intelligence(for example, most people who ended up at Gitmo were innocent, ans got their because they were political or business rivals of the people who dobbed them in – who received handsome rewards for their deadly lies), people who no court has heard evidence against. He’s OK with that, and he laughs in the face of anyone who dare oppose his views, and calls them conspiracy theorists and worse. He asked for an extremely angry protest outside his home. He got a quiet candlelight vigil.
      Because we’re better than him and his fellow neo-fascists.
      If this were about the economy, I’d agree with you.

  6. While I do not quite approve of the photo with apparent blood (or red ink) splattered all over John Key an his “mansion”, I am also furious, how Mr Key can be oh so precious about his and his family’s privacy and peace in his neighbourhood, but seems to otherwise not give a shit about the often innocent that get killed by drone strikes.

    This shows again, how self righteous, insensitive, politically crude and ignorant our Prime Minister is. He has no scruples about so much, whether it is the poor in the provinces and some urban suburbs, whether it is about the at risk environment (being damaged due to pollution), whether it is about human rights, and worst of all, whether our traditional “ally” – the US – and their government execute people at will, by using methods that give little regards to any bystanders, any children or women nearby, who may also be killed and injured.

    Perhaps visit Auschwitz, dear Mr Key, to remember what happened to your people, and what relatives of your mother suffered? It may cause you to do some careful reconsideration. The Nazis had little concern for what happened to the ones they did not like, and once war was on, they killed ruthlessly, and German soldiers were forced to give up their conscience, for the “greater good”. They faced being shot if they did not condone or even participate in what the SS did with their available “technology”.

    While it is perhaps too dramatic to compare what the Germans, the Japanese, Italians, and what also Russians and others did under dictatorial, ruthless governments with what the US now does, there are certainly some similarities, I fear.

    And it is not different at all, what those here in dear old New Zealand do (without much thought), that justify drone attacks, and that also buy cheap clothing, electronic or other goods, produced by low paid slave labour outside of New Zealand, when compared to what the “middle class” in Germany did under Hitler, enjoying the “benefits” of their lives, while turning away from the evil that happened at the same time.

    It is damned time to wake up, dear people, rediscover your conscience, as one day, should this ever happen, if this country becomes so dependent, or even gets “taken over”, by other forces, who may exploit and harm you, others will turn away also, and let the suffering continue.

    Maybe give all that some thought, dear people, I am VERY ANGRY at the hypocrisy of John Key, the government we have, a largely indifferent, trivialising and distracting media, and sadly too many shutting their eyes, or even supporting all this madness.

  7. For heaven’s sake, this was just a candlelight vigil! Key feels “threatened” or “disturbed” by people at his gate standing there and holding candles!?

    That man must have a really bad conscience, I conclude!

  8. I accept your point Fambo, but there was no angry protest, or protesters last night, quite the opposite – it was a quiet candlelight vigil. It actually felt like Christmas; I half expected some carol singing to break out !

    I noticed that the attending Police Inspector, who was very friendly, made a point of walking over to one of the young lady organisers afterwards and shook her hand and said thanks for everyone’s good behaviour.

    If John Key does not listen to us on such important issues, and instead disdainfully calls peaceful protesters “Rent-a-mob”, I for one will have no hesitation in protesting again in Parnell.

    We need more such direct action, and our politicians need to harden up ! IMHO 🙂

  9. Awesome. So, in the future, when Christian fundamentalists are gathered outside a left-wing PM’s home waving candles and giving rambling speeches about said PM’s role in shedding the blood of the innocent via abortion or euthanasia, you’ll all be pleased to see the nation’s politicians held to account through such civic activism? Personally, I’d find it kind of creepy…

    • If it’s a quiet candlelight vigil, I’d say fine. But given they’re fundies, they’d not be able to do that. Most of them are unstable, and wouldn’t be able to resist bringing along their dishonest posters showing mangled late term fetuses. And screaming about murder and such.
      No, with regards to protest, fundamentalists will always be fundamentalists. So you’re presenting a false equivalence. Which is very common when people argue against ‘the left’. Though I’ve no understanding, apart from the tribal mentality of National fundamentalists, why this has to be an issue for only ‘the left’. Except, of course, for the fact that we don’t reflexively hate people who look different to us. And the fact that right wingers have always been awed and tempted by authoritarianism.
      But I understand. In order to not have an honest debate, you need to equate us with extremists. It’s lazy, but it’s quick.

    • But really, Milt, is it the same thing? Without getting into the rights or wrongs of the abortion debate, where is the similarity between a state-sanctioned medical procedure and the illegal deaths of civilians going about their daily lives??? I think your conflation falls down on this point.

      • The analogy is sound. An abortion activists’ vigil would be about a state-sanctioned medical procedure, and this vigil was about a state-sanctioned intelligence procedure. Anti-abortionists are convinced that a government that allows that particular medical procedure is complicit in the murder of innocent people, and the people at this vigil were convinced that a government that allows that particular intelligence procedure is complicit in the murder of innocent people.

        In both cases, people think the fact they feel strongly about something entitles them to hang about outside someone’s house waving candles and making speeches declaring the residents complicit in murder. And it does entitle them, in the sense that it’s a free country with laws protecting freedom of assembly, but personally I find it creepy.

        • In other words, the real world is something you cannot be bothered with – so, you’ll just live in your childish little fantasy land where you can pretend your hate-laden false equivalences are perfectly reasonable.
          Hey let’s have some more passive-aggression instead of addressing your inability to be honest, shall we?

  10. Actually, I’d rather they did that than stand outside an abortion clinic and verbally harass and insult women coming and going. Is that any less creepy?

    “Mountain out of a molehill” comes to mind, for some reason…

      • Hooray! You’re clearly not able to engage in honest debate.
        What a surprise that in order to avoid honest debate and to justify a childish, spite-filled post, you reduce yourself to using cheap, cliched false equivalence.

        • Well, it’s not easy for a commenter of my limited philosophical capacity to raise himself to the high standard of debate you set. However, I am always trying to improve my skills at argumentation, and hope perhaps one day to achieve the vertiginous heights of a commenter like yourself, who can marshal such compelling arguments as ‘childish,’ ‘spite-filled,’ ‘cheap’ and ‘cliched.’

          • Oh you poor little boy.
            Look it’s a Young Nat pretending to be a victim so as to avoid the actual point – what a surprise.
            Yes, kiddo – you use false equivalence and lazy cliches. That’s your shtick.
            Grow up. Those words you quoted? They’re in sentences. Too hard for you, I’m sure. All you see is yourself as victim. Then red, apparently.

  11. Are we a country of law or a dictatorship ?

    New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990

    Everyone who is charged with an offence has, in relation to the determination of the charge, the following minimum rights:

    (a) the right to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial court:

    (b) the right to be tried without undue delay:

    (c) the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law:

    (d) the right not to be compelled to be a witness or to confess guilt:

    (e) the right to be present at the trial and to present a defence:

    (f) the
    right to examine the witnesses for the prosecution and to obtain the
    attendance and examination of witnesses for the defence under the same
    conditions as the prosecution:

    (g) the
    right, if convicted of an offence in respect of which the penalty has
    been varied between the commission of the offence and sentencing, to the
    benefit of the lesser penalty:

    (h) the
    right, if convicted of the offence, to appeal according to law to a
    higher court against the conviction or against the sentence or against
    both:

    (i) the right, in the case of a child, to be dealt with in a manner that takes account of the child’s age.

    Did we give the current Government the right to enact their authority without consideration of the law ?
    If so ,when did we do this ?

    http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1990/0109/latest/DLM225527.html

  12. It just takes one look into the Mr Key’s eyes to see the man is not normal, very weird person – totally detached from Humanity. But obviously very useful to some certain kind of people. OMG it is looking like we are going to get another term of him – we will see the nasty come out then I feel.

      • Them dead, fishy money trader eyes. I’ll never forget that story about how they had to photoshop a twinkle into them for the ’08 campaign photo. You can’t mask that kind of void, folks.

        • Putin-like… both pre- and post- surgery.
          But then again, we really don’t need to comment on his appearance. His polices and his behavior ought to be our target.

    • It’s a pity that he can’t be charged with Conspiracy to commit murder by giving out intelligence on NZ citizens overseas. And getting them killed.

      Yep o’l dead eye’s must be having a ball

  13. The surveillance of bin John and al Rusdi probably began as a result of the monitoring of the ChCh mosque in 2003. A consequence of NZ intelligence agencies having increased resources and power with no corresponding increases in threats to deal with.

    All you need to be classed as a “foot soldier” in a drone attack is to be neither prominent enough to warrant your own missile (a target) nor a kid dressed in your best bib and tucker on your way to a wedding (a civilian). Everyone else gets called a foot soldier.

    We don’t deport people to torture or execution. So we should stop giving intel on NZers to countries that use drones.

    Good to see people taking a stand against drone attacks. We had a big meeting in Christchurch on it last week too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCOneyZmiOk

  14. ‘Splitting the Material’ is a term I have given to a phenomenon where the subjective development has tipped the balance upholding stable reality. This occurs when objective stability is overwhelmed by the material development breaking all conscious structure of solid existent.

    As a result, the victim or victims are left in a state of grandiose delusion thinking they are so popular when their popularity is overshadowed by their own blindness by social consequences such as Poverty, Housing Crisis, Unemployment, Youth Suicide, GCSB identified targets of US Drones endorsed by the PM himself, inflation, and record rate of Pacific youth Unemployment that is just about to be revealed by the Salvation Army survey.

    It is hardly the stuff that breathes the waves of popularity. Instead blinded by the shadow of own ego indulgent in subjective development, the PM and the National Party are in fact on a slide! This of course would only be realised when the media surfaces from under the PM’s skirt to have a full view of the whole picture.

    • The next visit of “dignitaries”, high ranked politicians from China will see protests not allowed or at least limited. The Minister of Justice will no doubt see to that.

  15. Jonky doesn’t care what you think . A candle lit vigil ? It was like watching an unruly mob of old fluffy Aunties threatening to disrupt proceedings by throwing doilies and warm , used tea bags .
    It reminded me of the Anti GCSB rallies . A shuffling , mumbling shambles
    Each time something is tried [ to unhinge the little cunt ] and each time that fails ? You lose . He wins .
    A peaceful protest is like being partly pregnant or slightly dead .
    It reminds me of something a stand-up comedian said once about the British cops , as opposed to the gun totting American cops .

    “ Criminal fleeing from crime scene …”

    American cop . “ Bang ! Bang ! Bang ! Body bag please . “

    British cop . “ I say you ! ? STOP ! Or I warn you … I’ll shout STOP ! again .

    Jonky doesn’t care what you think and pretty soon he will openly not care that you know that he doesn’t care what you think .

    That day will be a spicy day of frissons for all of us .

    Great image by the way .

  16. It’s pretty amazing to hear him talk that way. He really does see himself as a part of the British Empire still, doesn’t he? Hence the bizarre diversionary weirdness when he encouraged the nation to think about flags, instead of the independence and growing up of our wonderful country to become a republic.
    If you’re interested in thinking about it further, seek out a fantastic, brief, substantive, and to the point book ‘New Zealand Republic’ by Alan Whelan.

  17. Countryboy- spot on . Jonkey does NOT care .

    Can anyone actually stand up and say WHICH important principles this man, (supposedly Leader of our Nation )upholds???????????????
    Hello- ANYBODY there?

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