Friday 22 August 2008

This is why we are hated and this is why we deserve to be hated

From The Guardian:

MI5 participated in the unlawful interrogation of a British resident now held in Guantánamo Bay, the high court found yesterday in a judgment raising serious questions about the conduct of Britain's security and intelligence agencies.
...
One MI5 officer was so concerned about incriminating himself that he initially declined to answer questions from the judges even in private, the judgment reveals. Though the judges say "no adverse conclusions" should be drawn by the MI5 officer's plea against self-incrimination, they disclose that the officer, Witness B, was questioned about alleged war crimes under the international criminal court act, including torture. (1)
Binyam Mohamed was kidnapped and tortured - his genitals allegedly mutilated with a razor blade - and then he was transferred to Guantanamo in 2004, where he still is (2).

Having being tortured into confessing, he is now to stand trial based on that confession, a document no genuine court would accept. He faces the death penalty if convicted by the show trial military commision and can not defend himself because the evicence that would show his confessions were extracted under torture is held by the British government and is not available to him. (3)

This has all been done in the name of defending our civilisation against barbarism.

Britain has been complicit in the wickedness of the so-called War on Terror which has only suceeded in creating more hatred and contempt for the West. Unlike the people in Afghanistan under the Taliban and Saddam Hussein's Iraq, we get to choose our leaders, and don't have to worry about being shot for not approving of their actions. So we can be held culpable for the deeds carried out by our leaders and their minions.

At best, we can only plead ingorance, confusion or apathy in our defence. At worst, we are licensing these acts. So how can we complain when wicked things are done to us in return?

1 - "MI5 criticised for role in case of torture, rendition and secrecy," by Richard Norton-Taylor, in The Guardian, 22nd of August, 2008. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/aug/22/uksecurity.guantanamo)
2 - ibid.
3 - ibid.

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