Exclusive: I Can Reveal the Legal Advice on Drone Strikes, and How the UK Establishment Works

[David Guyatt]

I note further down in Craig Murray's piece in the comments section, that Murray makes an important additional point, and that is that Parliament has forbidden the UK government from engaging in armed conflict in Syria.

The following are exchanges between Murray and a poster named "Fred".

1. I still don't see how this is relevant to the latest drone strike. As I said in the previous post if those killed were armed combatants in a designated war zone, and it appears to me they were, then it is legal under international law to kill them. Otherwise every soldier killed on every battlefield throughout history would have been killed illegally. There is an armed conflict in the region in which Britain is participating as ally of the Iraqi and Kurdish people, how can it be illegal to kill members of the opposing army?
   
2. Craig
   9 Sep, 2015 - 4:46 pm
   
   Fred,
   Not even the British government is arguing that they were combatants in a conflict zone. The British government is specifically forbidden by parliament from engaging in armed conflict in Syria.
   
3. Fred
   9 Sep, 2015 - 5:01 pm
   
   "Not even the British government is arguing that they were combatants in a conflict zone. The British government is specifically forbidden by parliament from engaging in armed conflict in Syria."
   I addressed that point in the previous article too, the vote was against engaging in armed conflict against the forces of President Assad in Syria not against ISIS. It wouldn't have any bearing on international law regarding this drone strike in any case.
   
4. Craig
   9 Sep, 2015 - 5:11 pm
   
   Fred, it is territorial. Can you imagine another country blasting Sauchiehall Street because they are at war with some group or other. The vote was against combat operations in the state of Syria all of which, in legal terms, we regard as currently under the government of President Assad. You are advocating a position even more extreme than the governments. And which could only be true if we accepted ISIL as a sovereign state, which the UK assuredly does not.
   

Murray makes a further response in the comments section of this blog:

I am recording this next partly as an act of defiance and partly in case I am found suddenly to have decided to commit suicide or have a heart attack on a mountain.
We live on Holyrood Road in Edinburgh in a very secure private apartment block with electronic exterior doors, CCTV and 24 hour concierge/security. On return from Asda, Nadira and I (Cameron was in school) found very distinct muddy footprints leading from the lift directly right to the door of our flat, and back again to the lift. There are only three flats on this floor on our stair, and the landing is kept shining clean and had just been cleaned this morning. On opening the door, the mud seemed to continue into the hall of our flat, although the footprints were less distinct.
By chance the flat was thoroughly cleaned yesterday. There was no reason for any mud to be inside the flat. Indeed the footprints are of a boot with a very heavily ridged sole. You could not have left clearer and muddier prints on the landing if you tried, although indoors they were indistinct probably as a result of passing over the coconut matting at the entrance.
It is a mystery why anybody would be wearing heavy boots in central Edinburgh and how they could have got them so muddy right in the centre of town, especially as it has been dry for several days. I strongly suspect this is a "frighteners" exercise and the prints are deliberately left. Murder in Samarkand recounts the occasion when I came back to the Docklands flat I was then inhabiting and found every single electrical appliance TV, Radio, hoover, microwave etc had been switched on.
For a few years the security services appeared to be leaving me alone. Perhaps they changed their mind.

I think he has analysed it correctly. It is a frightener aimed at subduing his comments. It has Special Branch written all over it.