Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: A depressing saga of secrets, lies and medieval horrors
The US and UK pay others to do what Saddam used to do to his jailed adversaries
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Independent Minds
This is Britain’s position on torture: we ratified the UN Convention against it in 1988 and we then passed an Act of Parliament giving authority to the investigation and prosecution of torturers no matter where they cowered. But impressive as all this sounds, how precisely has it helped Binyam Mohamed?
Today, God willing, he will arrive back from Guantanamo Bay, the sunny Caribbean resort funded hitherto by the generous USA for the Mad Men of Islam who, we have been told for years, are the biggest danger to world peace. Mohamed’s doctors have found serious bruising, organ damage, acute injuries and emotional and psychological collapse.
His lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith said: “What Binyam has been through should have been left behind in the Middle Ages.” His client is also suffering from malnutrition and stomach problems – which must be the result of a long hunger-strike, a silent protest which might have killed and released him. And our government is suffering from the discomfort of having to justify the immorality of the actions and that keep the global torture industry robust. Mohamed will not be received at the airport by a contrite Foreign Secretary, who has long obfuscated and denied any responsibility for all the bad stuff – unseen and unheard – that goes on around the world, ostensibly to combat Islamicist terrorism.
Recently Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones said the UK Government had been forced by the US to suppress information on this case, a claim breezily rejected by the Foreign Secretary, an accomplished operator.
Yet the case against the government grows. I find that deeply depressing. For the two talented Milibands are, in other ways, good men whose father Ralph, a Polish-Jewish exile, was a left-wing academic with a consuming sense of justice. An opponent of the US Vietnam war, he condemned the “catalogue of horrors” perpetrated by the US “in the name of an enormous lie”.
Those lies and horrors are now part of the essential toolkit for an ambitious minister. Power corrodes, flushing away honour and wisdom and, it seems, personal memory too. Obama promised to shut down Guantanamo Bay and he delivered. For that he deserves immense respect. However, this is not the end of the US- and UK-endorsed use of extreme pain to break people in custody. Ever since the fateful attacks on 11 September 2001 and in truth, long before that in covert operations, these two states have outsourced torture to some of the most lawless regions in the world or to regimes which commonly use physical and psychological coercion in exchange for influence or cash. There is no sign yet that Obama means to outlaw renditions, secret abductions by the CIA, or the unrecorded movement of prisoners. The fear is that these clandestine activities will continue. Shutting down the – always provocative – Guantanamo Bay Detention Centre is possibly a way to placate protesters and carry on regardless. I hope Obama has more moral sense than that.
The US and UK pay others to do what Saddam used to do to his adversaries in custody. This facility is procured by, and makes perfect sense to, those who believe the end justifies anything. Just this week President Obama met Michael Ignatieff, the leader of the Canadian opposition who wrote The Lesser Evil, a book which defended torture when used to protect the interests of the US. Then we wonder why the world accuses the West of perfidy.
This week Human Rights Watch publishes a report alleging that the British state is implicated in the torture of captured Muslims in Pakistan. UK intelligence and Foreign Office officials have questioned the prisoners whilst they were being processed says Pakistan’s feared Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI). Ali Dayan Hasan, who directed this study, claims there was “systemic” cooperation. Some had nails pulled out and others went through much worse. In 2004, three British Muslim men, Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Rhuhel Ahmed were released without charge from Guantanamo. They had done the multi-destination tour that is popular with those waging war on terror by reproducing terror. Captured in Afghanistan they were tortured and allegedly interrogated by our SAS. And there is now a growing suspicion that our government has devised policies for this murky business. The countries that oblige us by taking and sorting out the troublesome ones include Pakistan and Afghanistan of course, and also other very good friends – Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Israel – others too I am sure. And these special relationships go back a very long way.
In his disturbing and clearly evidenced book, The War on Truth, Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed traces the unholy games played with Islamicist terrorists by the US, and through acquiescence by the UK, flirting with them when it suited and then turning against them. Al-Qa’ida has been used as an instrument of western statecraft and for now is the enemy. Well, not quite. Pakistan’s ISI is quite chummy with the Bin Laden groupies and, well, we have to keep Pakistan on side as they know so many of our secrets. So it goes on.
Binyam Mohamed’s arrival will hopefully open this can of snakes and our government will be interrogated, though without screws and electrodes. If Miliband apologises we should sing the lines from Rihanna’s hit: “Don’t tell me you’re sorry ’cause you’re not; when I know you’re sorry you got caught”.
But what of those countries that tender for torture? Who calls them to account? The expert interrogators abroad practice on their own citizens. Egypt does this par excellence. Factories somewhere make the instruments too. Again there is little information of where these job opportunities are. And so torture spreads, endorsed by messianic democrats and activated by barbarians whose services are essential to keep us civilised. It works for both sides. The US and the UK can claim ignorance of what goes on in those dark cells pierced by screams; and obliging nations can do their business efficiently in countries without any transparency. There is a long history of such mutuality in evil. Apartheid had willing black operators; the transatlantic slave trade depended on black suppliers. These colluders always get away with it.
The UN Convention against Torture states: “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification for torture.”
That absolute injunction still stands whatever happens to us in the West, including further terror attacks. And if we don’t hold its principle precious all is lost and there can be nothing left for any of us to live and die for.
y.alibhai-brown@independent.co.uk
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To the United States of America, please note to be part of the United Nations you must renounce all forms of torture and not some that you choose. Change this now before it is too late.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Tuesday (January 13 2009) intelligence officials have confirmed that 18 have returned to terrorism while 43 are suspected of returning to the fight. The numbers represent an increase from 7% to 11% of released detainees suspected or known to have retuned to terrorism, Morrell said.
Extraordinary rendition is neither new nor extraordinary.
Rendition is codified and ratified in the international treaties
of democratic nations worldwide.
Rendition is based on the legal principal of Universal Jurisdiction.
Universal Jurisdiction and rendition were once common law,
as their use derives from our history of capturing
perpetrators of piracy on the high seas--crimes committed outside the jurisdiction of any country,
and rendering them for prosecution.
Universal jurisdiction applies to six categories of crime
that are considered universally heinous,
two of which are genocide and extrajudicial killings (terrorism).
The body of law that allows perpetrators of genocide
to be rendered for a criminal trial at the criminal court in the Hague,
is the same body of law that allows perpetrators of terrorism
to be rendered for a military trial at the military tribunals of Gitmo.
And why should Americans exempt terrorists from laws that apply to American citizens?
US citizens are subject to the domestic version of rendition.
Laws that allow arrest by bounty hunters and bail agents,
who then render those citizens for trial, are used daily.
We even watch them on TV.
Sleep deprivation is also used daily on US citizens,
as police detectives keep up the questioning hour after hour,
to wear down the criminal defendants until their contradictions overwhelm them and they confess.
The world reknown, tireless advocate of civil liberties,
Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz,
in an essay titled 'The Case for Torture Warrants',
explains why torture has, is, and will be with us forever.
He gives great insight on what we can and should do to 'regulate' it,
and explains why his proposal for the torture warrant is the best way forward.
I thank you
Firozali A.Mulla
And war is not crime.
It is not a crime to fight in a war.
The US prisons are POW camps.
Their purpose is to hold enemy combatants until the war ends, as has been done for centuries, and is common and accepted practice for civilized nations at war.
It's a humane way to fight a war--holding the enemy instead of killing him on the battlefield.
The alternative to POW status is not trial in a criminal court.
The alternative to POW status is death on the battlefield.
During WW2, did Britain put captured German soldiers on trial for the 'crime' of 'inflicting war' on the British?
Churchill would have busted a gut laughing at the very idea of it.
The USA has moved terrorism out of the criminal arena, and into the military arena, and has codified that move in The Military Commissions Act of 2006.
This is the far superior, 'proactive' approach to terrorism.
It legally separates terrorists from citizens, and allows for laws against terror 'soldiers' that cannot be used on citizens.
It's brilliant.
This puts terror groups on the defensive--far better than the European approach
of criminal trials which forever leave Europeans on the defensive,
always reacting and 'mopping up' after the blood of our citizens is shed, in perpetuity.
Only the US has had the courage to declare terrorists as what they are--members of private armies, often acting under proxy to a State to implement the ideological goals of that State.
The US has decided that laws dealing with terrorism
shall reflect what terrorism actually is--a military act b a member of a private army.
They have placed the remedy for those acts under military law.
The Yanks have created a 'legal toolkit' to proactively deal with terrorists.
We haven't.
Our laws take away everyones freedoms instead, so that 'everyone is equal'.
Criminal trials for terrorists are worthless, because the evidence to convict a terrorist is obtained by espionage, and is thus CLASSIFIED INTELLIGENCE which CANNOT BE REVEALED in a CRIMINAL COURT. Classified intelligence can NEVER be used in the public arena,
not least in a criminal proceeding where the terrorist defendants
have open and unlimited access to it,
the legal right to challenge and investigate the agents and agencies who procured it,
and to question the agents themselves,
and the legal right to question the statements of foreign nationals
that we recruit to spy for us on condition of concealed identity.
And on top of that--does anyone believe that a British Bobby could go to Asia
and bring back a jihadist informant to testify in the Crown Court?
WAR can never be classified as CRIME. It just doesn't work.
And even if classified evidence could be revealed in court, doing so would jeopardise the operations and reveal the identities of the agents themselves to the terror cells, thus completely negating any value to the citizens whom have paid for the hugely expensive espionage, as well as endangering the lives of the agents and their families.
Intelligence on terrorists and their networks--both personal and financial--almost always leads to and ends up in other countries, but which country is unknown until investigated, yet there can be no investigation under European law, as European nations have no authority and no jurisdiction to enter foreign countries to gather evidence.
Thus, terrorists walk free
and their orgs and financial transfer systems remain intact
to inflict terror on us another day.
So don't tell me about how bad the American, proactive system is,
when we are the ones at the mercy of terrorists,
with our hands tied by impossible requirements for criminal trials.
We will soon pay a very high price
for the folly of fiddling
while the Empire burns.
Europeans are like the weak teacher in the classroom. Gawd they love you and are so earnest as they literally destroy the lives of their victims. Weak tteachewrs = damaged kids. Look at our own teachers. The same arguments as above (dont hit the child) have resulted in children stabbing each other in playgrounds. The cowardice of not taking the responsibility to discipline means that children teach each other in the vacuum of "love" you have created.
Theres a profound infantileness in the arguments about torture. Maybe we should just behead these inmates and put the video on Al'Jism TV? Sorry, we ONLY talk of the US dont we? And us of course, self loathing is the best of all
Tell me sammie_hall, is there a legal basis for rendering Yasmin to southern Helmand?
When governments say one thing and do another in secret, it becomes necessary to lie to the public. That in turn requires the justification that secrecy is "in their own best interests". This spreads to the justice system, where those same secrets must be protected from judicial inspection "in their own best interests". We begin to have secret courts, secret charges, secret trials. By what means are these measures and those using them held to account? At first, investigative reporting, whistleblowers, leaks, an independent media, public enquiries, parliamentary committees. But here too the big secret must be protected at all costs. The police are given extraordinary powers and encouraged by ministers to use them well beyond their face value. Parliamentary committees are nobbled, public enquiries are made secret, protest is criminalised. "Troublemakers" are identified, videotaped, monitored, bugged - all legally, of course, under new but essential powers. Press and media are nobbled by owners with government business interests, by threats, by D notices. Leakers and whistleblowers are hounded into parliament itself, raided, jailed, held up for public humiliation, forced to commit suicide. All to protect the big secret.
What's depressing about this litany is that it isn't crystal ball stuff - all of it has already happened. This is where we are now. And among the secrets that we really mustn't find out about, complicity in torture is near the top.
A government which is dishonest at the core, manipulative, patronizing, paranoid and mendacious, which betrays the very constitutional conventions on which the oldest parliament in the world is based, and which is genuinely perplexed to find that people are outraged. In an individual, that would be a good example of a psychopath: "A person with an antisocial personality disorder, manifested in aggressive, perverted, criminal, or amoral behavior without empathy or remorse." Expect no remorse from this government. It has none to offer.
Yep. now he knows the real deal.
In some way there is always a point beyond which we must trust our politicians as much more eloquently put above by sammie_hall. I think its you that is paranoid lofty, dont you?
There is no perfect, no black and white. There are however elected govts and unelected non-state minority groups of jihadis for whom torture is the norm. You seem to be saying that such utter barabarity as the jihadis practice on ewven their own can only be defeated if we ensure we are perfect. You are wrong. The barabarity of religeous extremism is only ever defeated by fighting it and prevailing. And thats what the torture theme helps you avoid facing.
If torture is required to extract information then so be it and lets stop whinging, how many times have we watched these " innocents" maim and kill our people , wheres your slippery condemnation then . All your high flown rhetoric will never beat these people and you need to recognise they will always be here with us whatever happens.
You are laughable whinging on about civilization when you live in a cesspit of violence and intercine warfare mainly organised by all these wonderful" innocent " immigrants
Your analysis is correct with the caveat that the evidence obtained from the State Dept is CLASSIFIED. Our Govt accepts, as a condition of receiving that evidence, that it remain outside the public domain.
Any violation of that agreement spells the END of any classified info sharing.
The sharing of classified info, between democratic countries, is standard procedure, and has been for centuries. The concealment of that same info is ALWAYS mandated, because it's NOT CRIMINAL LAW, it's FOREIGN ESPIONAGE.
loftworks correct analysis of how concealed info can corrupt a criminal and civil judicial system illustrates why it is necessary and wise to move 'acts of terror and acts in support of terror by foreign nationals' out of the catagories of criminal and civil law, into military law.
These defendants are properly catagorised as 'soldiers acting in support of a foreign political ideology', not criminals. And if it turns out that they are not, then the military judge and court is just as capable of making that ruling as a criminal judge.
Military trials are still subject to the scrutiny and protection of the State, and defendants are still represented by solicitors, and strict, democratic requirements are still upheld, but the presentation of classified info is allowed.
We should be asking why this man, a political refugee from Ethiopia seeking asylum in this country was travelling in Pakistan under an assumed identity and a false passport.
@sammie_hall, no, one 'rendition' involves a trial according to internationally agreed norms, the other involves indefinite detention and torture without charge or trial for the convenience of one state. War is not crime per se (a) may be illegal and (b) may involve crimes against humanity. The notion that extraordinary rendition is in the same category as arresting Nazi war criminals is insulting to the victims of Nazi genocide. And as for your suggestion that the SIS's interrogation techniques are in any sense ordinary, may you never experience the difference. The case against "torture warrants" is not academic - it is based on first hand combat experience in WWII which demonstrated again and again that torture simply didn't produce useful information. You also completely miss my point, which has nothing whatever do do with whether the information in question was classified. It focussed entirely on a deception under oath. The court was not told that the threat from the State Department had been requested by Miliband, and almost certainly dictated by him in whole or in part. If the correspondence requesting this little favour had been squeaky clean he would have produced it. Instead he started backpeddaling frantically the moment he saw he was in trouble. So how much deceit is OK? If there's nothing wrong with a little torture before charge, as you suggest, should Miliband not have the courage of his convictions?
@freedommonger, "Europeans are like the weak teacher in the classroom": the sheer arrogance always amazes me. And no, I did not say "perfection" anywhere - I spoke about the Rule of Law and whether government ministers can now commit perjury. What does that make gung-ho good old boys in favour of 'torture first, ask questions later'? Ah yes - the cowboy builders of modern civilization. Do you know who was the prime mover behind the Geneva Conventions you want to tear up? The US. Back in the days when "terrorists" were called "Barbary Pirates" and the US was taking its first steps as a maritime trading nation. As to military trials, these date back to the days when soldiers were identified with a state by uniform. Non-uniformed fighters were called spies and usually not accorded Geneval Convention protection. Feeble old Europeans know this because a lot of them got shot by the Gestapo while the US was waiting to jump in and win the war for us. If you want to build a peaceful world, you need a code of building standards or the whole thing falls at the first push. If you resort to terrorism to solve terrorism, you're just an alcoholic drinking to solve problems caused by drinking.
quite different to beheading, electric shock torture (a favourtite of AQ and insurgents) etc etc.
I agree that we must maintain better standards. I disagree that we should make ourselves loose a battle with such evil people just because we must be perfect.
As with everything the black and white you demand is a simple denial of reality which is always a balance.
He should not be brought here but dropped out over his birth country
Why should the British tax payer foot the bill for his beifits and legal aid. You people running the Independent make Britain a World Laughing stock
I excuse most of the ranting, self loathing posters on the basis that they are probably in the grip of undergrad. idealism (I have embarrassing memories of a personal sixties flirtation with CND).
This guy was travelling under false papers, is Ethiopian and is abusing our asylum laws. Why is he our responsibility?
The Islamists BEHEAD innocent westerners on film and yet we still give them the opportunity to peddle their filth in our mainstream media (The Big Question yesterday featured one such madman).
Religion was invented to control people before we had Democratic Laws, torture is only used by the West to protect us against those who would kill us in the name of Extreme Religion or other evil causes.
Spoken like a true Nazi.
Cme on Mrs Yasmin Alibhai-Brown continue your support for Palestinians and don't waste your energy on Binyam Mohamed, I have read your articles before and watched you many times on Dateline London, but you are wrong on this one, this man is in the same league as Abu Qatada, and is fooling all the Human Rights Watch, Ms Chakrabarti ( hope I spelt her name correctly) etc., all who make a good living out of defending these renegade Muslims. I am not anti Islamic, I agree with Hamas and Hezbollah, and their goals to get the Zionist out of their occupied Land.
What you fail to understand, is that the Muslim terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan, are the same crap as Hamas and Hezbollah. You are yet another moron who uses the name Zionist and obviously has no conceivable idea what it really means, except that you think it is alright to kill them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/w
More power to your elbow, Yasmin!
Did you all know that in most 3rd world countries the common method of obtaining evidence from say an ordinary thief is to beat him/her up until he/she confesses. During my travels, I once asked a senior police officer in one of these countries why do they do this, his answer was: "this is the only way we can get him to tell us where he/she had hidden the loot". I then asked: "what if it is an innocent person?". His reply surprised me: "We never arrest innocent people." In fact, most of the methods of torture that we have heard happening to Binyan Mohammed is actually carried out as routine on common petty criminals, gangsters and political prisoners. I once heard of a man servant who jumped from a tall building killing himself because his master had accused him stealing. He felt that he rather die than be subjected to police torture. It transpired a few weeks later, through the neighbours, that his master's wife was having an affair with the accused.
Those in this thread who are condoning torture on others should be very careful. It is a slippery road from our government turning a blind eye, and trying to benefit from it, in another country to doing the same in our country. It you think this is too far fetched just examine all the laws that have been passed in the last eight years that have chipped away at our civil liberties all in the name of "keeping us safe". And think again, that if you are one of the unfortunates who whilst trekking in say the Himalayas got caught up in a brush with the local authorities, that what has happened to Binyan Mohammed could very well be your fate. Remember, they never arrest anyone who is innocent! And your government is unlikely to be able to influence them given that they have been conniving with them in the past.
As for the babble of too neo-cons, or raher neo-fascists over here,
I'd like to remind, that although the western powers perpetrated a lot of evil gainst other nations in their former colonies, where the public opinion could not be informed and hence interviene, they kept "civilised" on all other occasions. Especially after the W.W.II, which was a war against evil (although there was an ally, who used to practice it on a large scale, the good, great uncle Joe), the Europeans seemed to abandon for ever the medieval practices.
Yet the more and more close relations with the new Middle East power, the tiny "colony of western democracy values" planted there, in the matter of fact a neo-fascist country right from the begin of its foundation, which used the torture against the native population it terrorised, corroded the standarts in Western Europe.
First they have managed to corrode the Americans. Now our moral standarts are being quickly corroded by this ugly state. It is the last moment to stop this phenomenon and indicate the criminals with their true names.
For you to compliment the East African Muslim exile, Alibhai-Brown, immediately identifies you as an idiot. Your subsequent comments then expose your stupidity further and for you then to moralize on standards of behaviour is truly pathetic. Educate yourself in Western values, before you attempt to pass judgement on us.
You cannot get a straight answer from anyone? The most common reason you hear is that we're fighting terrorism.
First let's remember where all the information about them being terrorists has come from, ex President Bush and his administration of known liars.
The Taliban did not have a direct role in 911, if any role at all.
They were accused of allowing terrorist who train on their territory.
The Taliban were busy fighting the warlords when we showed up.
Even though the terrorist that flew into the world trade towers, trained to fly those planes in the United States.
And the fact that most of those terrace were from Saudi Arabia. Osama bin Laden is from their. Ex President Bush did a bunch of business with his family.
And I have said several times that before 911, the Americans were trying to do a deal over the TAPI pipeline with the Taliban, and we're getting ready to officially recognize them. You can see pictures of them at dinner parties with congressman.
The next reason you will hear why we're in Afghanistan with our military's killing their women and children is because they are religious extremists.
And they treat their women nasty.
Well let's go down the list of extremist religious countries.
Talk about treating their women bad and one extreme religious country
Is Saudi Arabia.
Or maybe we should go to India where they were stoning women this last Valentine's Day, talk about extreme religions that treat women like crap. Heres a country that's full of them.
My point is there are dozens of countries that have extreme religious beliefs, and don't treat their women very well.
So is this the next excuse we don't like your religion so we're going to bomb you? Then who's next? The Mormons.
You can't stop terrorism if you are the reason for the terrorism.
The United States and Britain are the reason for most of the terrorism acts against these two countries. Just look at what we have done, from Iran to Afghanistan United States Britain and Israel have done their best to tear the Middle East apart.
The terrorists are the United States, Israel, Britain, France, Germany, and don't forget the Dutch in Africa.
Thank you Ms. Alibhai-Brown. Please give us as much as you can bear to on this subject. Silence from the press is all they need to make their criminality our permanent reality.
If you have this surname,its a license to talk sh*te
For them it should be hanging or the firing squad.
It is language and twisted sentiments like this that is causing the rise in anti-Semitism in Europe.