Joe Hack

Americas growing and enthusiastic use of torture has backfired on them and risked the lives of American citizens. In the UK Government Ministers insisted that British secret agents would only be allowed to pass intelligence to the CIA to help it capture Osama bin Laden if the agency promised he would not be tortured, it has emerged.

MI6 believed it was close to finding the al-Qaida leader in Afghanistan in 1998, and again the next year. The plan was for MI6 to hand the CIA vital information about Bin Laden. Ministers including Robin Cook, the then foreign secretary, gave their approval on condition that the CIA gave assurances he would be treated humanely. The plot is revealed in a 75-page report by parliament’s intelligence and security committee on rendition, the practice of flying detainees to places where they may be tortured.

The report criticises the US administration’s approval of practices which would be illegal if carried out by British agents. It shows that in 1998, the year Bin Laden was indicted in the US, Britain insisted that the policy of treating prisoners humanely should include him. But the CIA never gave the assurances.

“In 1998, SIS [MI6] believed that it might be able to obtain actionable intelligence that might enable the CIA to capture Osama bin Laden,” the committee says in its report. It adds: “Given that this might have resulted in him being rendered from Afghanistan to the US, SIS sought ministerial approval. This was given provided that the CIA gave assurances regarding humane treatment.” British intelligence made a similar request in 1999, and obtained the same response from Whitehall, but in the event MI6 did not provide the information.

But 1998 and 1999 were not the only times Britain had Bin Laden in its sights. In January 1996 the Home Office wrote to him when he was in Sudan. The letter, seen by the Guardian, advised him that Michael Howard, then home secretary, had “given his personal direction that you be excluded from the United Kingdom on the grounds that your presence…would not be conducive to the public good.”

What it comes down to is this. Torture is wrong. Period. No excuses. No ifs, ands, buts or maybes. Anyone who practices it or condones it is utter scum and deserves to be shunned by decent people everywhere. Any politician who allows it must be hounded out of office and, ideally, locked up as a criminal. Bush, Cheney and Gonzalez may see no problem with torturing prisoners but the rest of the civilized world damn sure does, thank God, and ultimately that is bound to work to the disadvantage of America. Until some semblance decency is restored to the Whitehouse and to American foreign policy we can expect more of this kind of thing to happen.

You get what you deserve. Who says so ? Joe Hack does.

-Tags:Afghanistan al quaeda Bush Iraq osama bin laden Political Rants scandal terrorism terrorist war on terrorAfghanistan, al quaeda, Bush, Iraq, osama bin laden, Political Rants, scandal, terrorism, terrorist, war on terror

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

The wonderful Bill Maher rips into Georgey boy and hilariously questions the sanity of the Prez and those deluded enough to still support him. The truly scary thing is that this is just TV satire, but most of us now believe that the guy with his finger on the big red shiny nuclear button actually *is* a few bricks short of a full load.

-Tags:al quaeda atrocity bin laden Bush cheney congress democrat George W Bush Iraq iraq war Political Rants politics president republican surge terrorism terrorist US militaryal quaeda, atrocity, bin laden, Bush, cheney, congress, democrat, George W Bush, Iraq, iraq war, Political Rants, politics, president, republican, surge, terrorism, terrorist, US military

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Whats this ? The possibility of some justice at last over the Iraq war ? Surely not !  President Bush’s newest attack on civil liberties is an executive order which states that any American citizen who threatens the peace and stability of Iraq and undermines efforts to promote reconstruction and reform there is liable to have all their property and interests seized without warning by the Treasury department. What constitutes ‘threatening peace and stability’ is left deliberately vague, cynics might suggest to enable the order to be used by the Bush administration as a weapon against his critics. The Executive Order entitled ‘Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq‘ was signed on the 17th of July and acts as an amendment to the draconian, illiberal and unpatriotic ‘National Emergencies Act’.

While there has been the a widespread outcry against yet another attempt by Bush to use the apparatus of the state to crack down on protest and free speech, a few have pointed out the undeniable irony that under this order high ranking members of the Bush administration, and indeed Bush himself, are the only ones that should be really punishable. After all, he has demonstrably and by any objective standards ‘threatened the peace and stability of Iraq” and by his mind-boggling incompetence has “undermined efforts to promote reconstruction and reform”. So can we confidently expect the Treasury to carry out a series of dawn raids on the Whitehouse and Bushs luxury Texas ranch to seize all of his property and assets ? And if not, why not? 

Surely it can’t be the case that there is one law for Bush and another for his critics ?  Not in the good ‘ol U.S. of A. ? Seriously folks, the hypocrisy on display here is gobsmacking given that the persons in America responsible for ripping Iraq apart and, through their incompetence, plunging it into civil war are Bush and his neo-con cronies. Anything that anyone else may do or say pales into total insignificance when compared with their culpability. They are the ones who invaded Iraq in the first place and they are the ones too dumb or arrogant to admit their mistakes who now continue to sow chaos and destruction in the face of all-time high public opposition.

We truly do live in an Alice in Wonderland world, don’t we ?

-Tags:activism Bush civil liberties Iraq iraq conflict Political Rants republicanactivism, Bush, civil liberties, Iraq, iraq conflict, Political Rants, republican

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!