Torture Talk
by digby
Greenwald notes that the British inexplicably believe that allegations of torture should be officially investigated. I just don’t know what’s wrong with those people:
From the BBC:
MPs have demanded a judicial inquiry into a Guantanamo Bay prisoner’s claims that MI5 was complicit in his torture. . . . [Mohamed’s] allegations are being investigated by the government, but the Foreign Office said it did not condone torture. Shadow justice secretary Dominic Grieve said the “extremely serious” claims should also be referred to the police. . . . Daniel Sandford, BBC Home Affairs correspondent, said Mr Mohamed’s claims would be relatively simple to substantiate. “As time progresses it will probably become quite apparent whether indeed these are true telegrams and I think it’s unlikely they’d be put into the public domain if they couldn’t eventually be checked back.” The Conservatives have called for a police inquiry into his allegations of British collusion. Mr Grieve called for a judicial inquiry into the allegations. “And if the evidence is sufficient to bring a prosecution then the police ought to investigate it,” he added. Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Ed Davey said there was a “rock solid” case for an independent judicial inquiry. . . . Shami Chakrabati, director of campaign group Liberty said: “These are more than allegations – these are pieces of a puzzle that are being put together. “It makes an immediate criminal investigation absolutely inescapable.”
New revelations by Guantánamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed, claiming that British intelligence played a central role in his torture and interrogation, must be answered by the government, the former shadow home secretary David Davis said last night. . . . [Mohamed’s] allegations appear to contradict assertions by foreign secretary David Miliband and home secretary Jacqui Smith that the British government would never “authorise or condone” torture. Davis said Mohamed’s testimony demanded a response from these ministers. “His revelations show that the government’s claims about its involvement in the interrogation of Mohamed are completely untenable,” Davis said. “Either Miliband or Smith should come to the House of Commons and reveal exactly what the government knew.” Last night other public figures said there should be wider efforts to look into the allegations that the British government had colluded in Mohamed’s torture.
Notice what is missing from these accounts. There is nobody arguing that the dreary past should simply be forgotten in order to focus on the important and challenging future. There’s no snide suggestion that demands to investigate serious allegations of criminality are driven by petty vengeance or partisan score-settling. Nobody suggests that it’s perfectly permissible for government officials to commit serious crimes — including war crimes — as long as they had nice motives or were told that it was OK to do these things by their underlings, or that the financial crisis (which Britain has, too) precludes any investigations, or that whether to torture is a mere “policy dispute.” Also missing is any claim that these crimes are State Secrets that must be kept concealed in order to protect British national security.
Man, those Brits are weird. Don’t they understand how this is done? I’m especially confused by their odd way of speaking about torture. Their Foreign Office used the term “we don’t condone torture” instead of the all-purpose “we don’t torture” as Obama once again awkwardly insisted on using in his interview with the NY Times:
I think we will have to think about how do we deal with that scenario in a way that comports with international law and abides by my very clear edict that we don’t torture, and that we ultimately provide anybody that we’re detaining an opportunity through habeas corpus. to answer to charges.
It’s obvious that he’s using this lawyerly construction, just as George W. Bush did, to give the impression somehow that the US has never tortured. We’re not idiots. It doesn’t really work and he should just stop doing it at this point. It becoming his own special “it depends on what the meaning of is, is,” except it isn’t being said to cover up a blow job but rather — torture. It’s beneath him.
It’s also beneath him to give props to Michael McConnell, the man who lied outright to congress about very, very serious matters in order to keep the phone companies from having to divulge who they spied on. Not to mention that he was half nuts. If Obama can’t bear to investigate his crimes, the .least he can do is stop referring to him as a good public servant.
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