Robert Fisk’s World: The West should feel shame over its collusion with torturers
I want to know why those complicit in Almalki’s ordeal are not tried in court
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Independent Minds
I invited Abdullah Almalki to breakfast in Ottawa but he only took coffee. And while I wolfed down my all-English breakfast in the Chateau Laurier Hotel (beloved of Churchill and Karsh of Ottawa fame), he sipped gingerly at his cup with much on his mind. Snooped on by the Canadian secret service and then tortured in Syria while the Canadian authorities did nothing for him – save supplying his perverted torturers with questions – he had much to think about. A carbon copy of Binyam Mohamed, the British resident who had his penis cut up while the Brits sent questions to his perverted Moroccan torturers.
In Abdullah Almalki's case, he wasn't renditioned. He simply flew into Damascus to see his Syrian family, got banged up in the city's secret police headquarters and was then beaten into submission, not much different from an even more famous case – that of Maher Arar, who was a Canadian citizen and got renditioned to Damascus by the Americans while the US authorities sent questions to his perverted Syrian torturers. Arar has received apologies from US senators – though not from the war hero George Bush (battle honours: the skies over Texas during the Vietnam conflict) -- and compensation from the Canadian government.
The details of each case are shockingly similar. Tim Hancock of Amnesty International has supplied similar information on Khaled al-Maqtari, a Yemeni man, who was apparently threatened with rape and beaten in chains by his perverted American torturers. Western nations simply assisted the perverts by providing them with pages of questions while their citizens/residents lay in agony, wishing they had never been born.
In the case of Abdullah Almalki, four interrogations by the Canadian "secret service" (its acronym – CSIS – inspires more laughter than fear) preceded his departure from Canada and the collapse of his business and subsequent residence in Malaysia. He and his wife had run an electronic components export business in Ottawa which prompted CSIS's suspicions. Was he sending funds or components to "terrorists" (the quotation marks are, of course, obligatory since CSIS was not worried about the "terrorists" who run the Syrian secret service and who were later to torture Abdullah Almalki on Canada's behalf).
For months, he was held in a secret service hellhole in Damascus and whipped with steel while the Syrians acted upon a Canadian letter to them (dated 4 October 2001) which stated that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were suggesting that Mr Almalki was linked through association with al-Qa'ida and engaged in activities that posed an "imminent threat" to the public safety and security of Canada. Readers who doubt this outrageous letter to the Syrian dictatorship can check page 400 of the Iacobucci report which was drawn up with government assistance after Almalki's release. The RCMP – the famous Mounties – also sent letters to Canadian government liaison officers in Islamabad, Rome, Delhi, Washington, London, Berlin and Paris, identifying Almalki as an "important member" of al-Qa'ida. For more information, you must read Kerry Pither's brilliant account, Dark Days: The Story of Four Canadians Tortured in the Name of Fighting Terror, which is scandalously unavailable in Britain.
The purpose of setting out these awful accounts is not to piss on Canadians. Canada is a great and real democracy, albeit weighed down with too much political correctness. I once remember an immigration officer at Toronto airport explaining to an Asian visitor that he wasn't to allow himself to be interrogated by the police without a lawyer and that he was free to speak and move wherever he wanted in Canada. The finest immigration guy in the world, I thought to myself. The lads and lasses at the Heathrow immigration desks don't come up to that standard.
No, I don't think Canada as a nation is to blame for all this. But the West is. For it is our public servants in government and our secret service thugs who have been in league with all these perverted men around the world. Indeed, even when Almalki was freed from his Syrian prison, Canadian embassy officials in Damascus would not allow him to stay in their building and ordered him out when the embassy closed at 4pm. One of them reportedly later told Almalki that Canada regularly gave passports to the families of leading Syrian officials. Can this be true?
I do know that the Syrians quite recently complained mightily to the Americans as well as the Canadians. First, the West sent its prisoners to be tortured in Damascus – and then complained that Syria abused human rights! Quite so. Bashar Al-Assad has put a stop to quite a lot of torture in Syria and now that President Obama is sending his cohorts to woo the Syrians, they presumably won't be called on to do America's (or Canada's) dirty work any more.
But I want to know why those complicit in Almalki's torture – the letter writers, the composers of questions – cannot be tried in court. They are, at the least, accomplices to human rights abuses. So are the Brits who went to question tortured men in Guantanamo. Even more so are the American perverts who indulged in their own torture in Afghanistan and Iraq – and yes, I have noted that our dear President Obama is allowing the illegal detention of prisoners at Bagram in Afghanistan to continue. But what else would you expect from a man whose secretary of state, Lady Hillary, far from going to the Palestinians whose homes were going to be destroyed by the Israelis in Jerusalem and denouncing this outrage, said merely that the home demolitions were "unhelpful".
So, in the long term, is torturing prisoners. Abdullah Almalki drove me to Ottawa airport in the snow after our breakfast, admitting that he was still too mentally broken by his months of Syrian torture to find employment. CSIS doesn't follow him any more as he says it used to before he left Canada for Asia and then the the hell of Syria. No one tailed our car. No one says any more that Almalki is guilty. On the other hand, no one will say he is innocent. But there are an awful lot of men in Western governments who should be in the dock. They won't be, of course. And oh yes – just in case you missed it – Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has just admitted that Canadian troops in Afghanistan are not going to win a military victory there. Just think. All that torture – for nothing.
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Comments
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation then deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wakeup homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs." Thomas Jefferson.
These super rich financiers, Rothschilds, Rockerfellers, secret societies such as Bilderberg, organizations such as Trilateral, CFR, World Bank, IMF, WTO; have played respective parts financing, creating and profiteering from war. Through their money control of governments commit Atrocities against humanity and actively embezzle, threaten, extort and are robbing the people of the earth of their homes, wealth and the natural resources of their countries. Furthermore they create boom and bust and are bent on further misery for the majority of the populous to consolidate property wealth and power. Their names must be exposed for they are the worst kind of criminals. This is without doubt absolute truth with damning evidence available, but not publicised.
A country hostage to its financiers
You enjoy a very special position in the media and there are some big guns out there that would support such a campaign for justice, you would be surprised at who has been angered by this disgusting state of affairs.
One of the only ways forward is empowerment of the people, we can all sit here and look at this article and consider our part done and allow it to be someone else problem, or we can bring back some of the famous British altruistic activism and actually do something about it...
And just think what a media coup and exclusive it would be for the Indy too...
getting the facts straight - and courage - when the people involved in commiting these injustices are in positions of power. No, ancientoneuk, as a citizen it's for you to start an effective grassroots movement. Nothing like the "power of the people" to make necessary changes in this world.
Is it because you actually live in an Arab Muslim country and have 'taken sides' perhaps? I'm just asking.
These neo-con scum have no principles at all.
this torture did help the in war against terror,but the opposite.
www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=88491§ionid=351020202
timing is the clue to find the hacked !
who killed Dr.kelly is the one who put Zip in our mouth,and hacked the net.!
it is Independence responsibility to find out and procte the freedom of speech ?
Is this the new way to freedom in UK ?
Why,why.why Now ?????
we should ask till this is answered!
the criminals are free ?
I am going to have to think long and hard about who I will vote for in our next election. Re-elect Stephen Harper? Elect Michael Ignatieff? I expect Ignatieff would be the same sort of lap-dog that Tony Blair was, running our democracy as though the only voters who count are American voters. Or elect Jack Layton, our "looney tunes" lefty?
If Jack Layton is the only leader who will prosecute Canadian born war criminals, if he is the only one who will keep Canada within the Geneva Conventions, I'm going to have to hold my nose and vote for him. Layton will wreck our economy, but our national honour is more important than our economy.
"Watching that face, a dreadful thought occurred. Could it be that this awful man - albeit given less chance to be heard than the Nazis at the first Nuremberg hearings - actually knew less than we thought? Could it be that his apparatchiks and satraps and grovelling generals, even his own sons, kept from this man the iniquities of his regime?" [The alert reader will have detected that Fisk is defending Saddam the way some defend Hitler. He goes on:] "Might it just be possible the price of power was ignorance, the cost of guilt a mere suggestion here and there..."
Could it be...might it be - you can almost hear Fisk straining to break the truth leash, his antenna for anti-Americanism working overtime to find some morsel of comfort amid the palpable justness of the US's pursuit, incarceration and trial of the Madman of Baghdad. Fisk is floating (only floating, you understand) an outrageous idea: perhaps the American's are wrong. Perhaps Saddam is innocent.
This barely disguised apology for Saddam - wrapped in a bogus and high-minded gesture towards fairness - is Fisk through and through. It is journalism at its complicit worst.
The fifth anniversary of the Iraq War saw Fisk tub-thumping again at his nonsensical best:
"It is our presence, our power, our arrogance, our refusal to learn from history and our terror - yes our terror - of Islam that is leading us into the abyss. And until we learn to these these Muslim people alone, our catastrophe in the Middle East will only become graver. There is no connection between Islam and "terror". But there is a connection between our occupation of Muslim lands and "terror". It's not too complicated an equation. And we don't need a public inquiry to get it right."
Only someone blessed with colossal complacency could write something like this. It is estimated that Saddam was responsible for, on average, 29,000 Iraqi deaths every year for 35 years. What sort of annual death toll would it take for Fisk not "to leave these Muslim people alone"? Also, how does one fathom that extra twist to his warped logic that seeks to justify unpardonable acts of terror against innocents as a legitimate response to the West's deposing of Saddam?
Alongside the scandal of the Left's apology for the tyranny and brutality of Stalin, we now have sections of the Left - Fisk prominent among them - exonerating Islamist insurgents for the premeditated murder of Iraqis.
More shameful derelictions of responsible judgement would be hard to find. Fisk truly is a disgrace to his profession.
Any one us may face Dr.kelly outcome.to protect the criminals in the high chair !
This remind me with Anne Juli who wrote the book "JUSTICE under Siege" ! see it to understand the worry that Fisk is referring at.
The root of Corruption in the (ME) is the west.
The one who live to learn is the one who can not live longer specialty if had conscious like Dr.Kelly,Fisk,and probably me and you ! who dare to speak out seeing Innocent dieing anywhear in the world.
Anna Juli saying they try all their best to threaded her to keep mouth shut,even to send her coffin so she kept police escort her for 3 years..!
Fuel interest make USA and Israel meet together,Iraq,Afangatsain,Palestine,
When Mr Craig Murry our ambassador in an eastern European country, reported torturing taking place, he was removed from his post on the orders of the American ambassador, so we now know who runs the UK.
We wonder why, some Muslims don't like the West?
Thank God we have this paper and Robert Fisk.
http://royaldutchshellplc.com/2008/01/0
Will you still be defending their right to enslave you and yours when you do freedommonger?
Material wealth means absolutely nothing as we are to be forced to learn, the money changers are being thrown out of the temple, the temple of the earth and believe it or not the "rich" will have to get real jobs for once in their God forsaken lives, and not a moment too soon,..... for them.
What is it you think has been discovered at Shell?
Why do you think whatever it is is being suppressed?
What has this got to do with "enslaving" me (or anyone else)?
Have you in fact started from your conclusion and, like a Magpie, hunted only long enough to find a shiny thing to "prove it"?
Yep, looks like it. Backwards thinking!
Is it the case that with todays internet it is possible to find supporting "proof" (sic) for ANY IDEA AT ALL?
Yep.
Oh dear, all that is left is skeptical thinking of your own. Why not try it.
If the US was invading Iraq to stael/control oil, why has it not done so and instead produced a sovereign emancipated state?
Why would the US want/need to control Iraqi oil when it has never bought any Iraq oil in any voilume getting, as it does, 80% of its oil consumption supplied from North and South America and the remainder from Saudi, Africa and a vareity of other places, all queiing up to sell their product at inflated cartel prices to the worlds biggest consumer?
Do you perhaps have "ideas" of producers denying the US the oil it wishes to buy? Well if people stopped supply the US then where would the 20% of global oil production now without a buyer go? Will it stay in the fround? What does that mean for the people of places like Venzuela 90% of whose economy is oil sales and what would it mean for would be dictators like Chavez?
Have you ever REALLY thought about anything ort have you just sought information long enough to reach your emotional goal?
Try reading the Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Talib. It may change your life. It may save other lives as a result. try it and try applying skeptical thinking to your ideas. I have. Its a challenge I can tell you. But I think its indecent not to even try.
Simlilarly Fisk writing fails utterly to meet the standards of skeptical thinking. Like Bagpuss however, you useful idiots love him.
The Psychopathic Israelis Strategy for Conquest of the Middle East.
Jewish/Israeli massacres of Palestinians and Jewish Terrorism in general.
Listing and Map of Land Ownership in Palestine in 1947.
Towns and Villages Ethnically Cleansed/Destroyed by the Jews.
More on the Towns and Villages Ethnically Cleansed/Destroyed by the Jews.
Time-line of the Jewish aggression in the 1948 war.
The Amazing Cost of Israel to the United States.
The Day Israel Deliberately Killed 34 American Sailors.
Israel has been torturing Palestinians for as long as anyone can remember. Torture was introduced by the West in the aftermath of 9/11, when those fifth columnist Israel Firster US Jews conrolled the Bush administration. For example, Alan Dearthofwits is a long proponent of torturing the Goyim. Both the UK under the Israeli agent Blair and Canada which for some reason is in thrall to Israel too is complicit in torture. Maybe a Canadian would like to explain why Canada alone voted against the UN resolution condemning Israel for not allowing adequate humanitarian aid into Gaza.
For once, guiseppe, why don't you criticise Islamic countries and organisations for torture and human rights abuses? We are waiting.
Now we do it because Harper agrees with all of this rubbish.
www.counterpunch.org/madsen05102004.html
THEY TEACH "BASS" THE SAME LIKE USA.
The one who live by the sword will die with it!
I call it equal return...!
merely mentioned Churchill because this journalist has a profound sense of history, which is obviously sadly lacking in some of the commentators here.