No to Blair as EU President

The last thing the EU needs is a disreputable indidividual like Blair as its first president.

Blair has blood on his hands from wars in which he involved Britain on wholly false grounds. It would also seem that he was complicit in torture and he cares nothing for human rights or civil liberties. He also appears to be delusional, amassing fortunes by prostituting himself to international banks, while preaching his newly-found Catholic moralism.

The man makes honest people sick.

British Army tortures in Iraq

The following fact seems clearly established now: the British occupation army in Basra arrested people and tortured them; and in some cases (e.g. the hotel receptionist, Baha Mousa) tortured them to death.

There are three types of people who are culpable.

First, among the lower ranks of the British army there are sadistic torturers who enjoy the protection of their peers and probably their superiors. Every legal measure must be deployed to find, prosecute and imprison these people for life.

Second, the officers in charge of those units whose soldiers engaged in torture should at the very least be expelled from the army. If it can be established that they colluded in the torture (i.e. by knowing it was happening and doing nothing to prevent it), they too should face imprisonment.

Third, the same test - applied to British army offices - should be applied to the Prime Minister at the time (Tony Blair) and his defence minister (Geoff Hoon). If any government minister knew that torture was taking place and failed to take steps to stop it, they also should face imprisonment.

It’s just possible that a private soldier may be thrown to the wall, but the army top brass and government ministers will almost certainly walk away unscathed. Such is the rotten state of the country we live in.

Miliband to keep British torture guidelines secret

Everyone knows the truth: MI6 officers sat around or strolled the corridors while British citizens were being tortured for them. Perhaps curiosity never got the better of these agents and they never peeped in as the finger nails came out; I tend to doubt that.

Miliband lied when he claimed the government never participated in or condoned torture. The truth is that New Labour are as intensely relaxed about electric shocks applied to the genitals as they are about corruption and income inequality.

Next to the crimes which British government ministers, MI6 and its specific agents have committed (all three share culpability) the so-called guidelines under which these people were supposedly operating are almost irrelevant.

Britain torture and Iraq

The Iraq War was never a liberation of any kind, but was a US invasion, which led to diverse but extensive local resistance bolstered by foreign fighters. A tool of the US occupation (with Britain in tow) was the execution and torture of opponents.

True, Britain may have initiated torture independently. The torturing to death of Baha Mousain 2003, seemingly for pure sadistic pleasure, is one such case. Yet, the fact that British hands are contaminated with this filth, flows for the most part from Blair’s decision to collaborate in Bush’s crime: the invasion of Iraq.

New Labour and Torture

Britain’s involvement in torture is too well documented now for Miliband to claim that it is contrary to New Labour policy.

It is not simply a matter of Britain standing quietly on the sidelines while the US did it, reprehensible as that would be. MI5 interrogators have sat in rooms feeding questions to torturers plying their trade in the room next door. CIA planes carrying people for torture travelled through Britain and used British overseas territories. And so on.

Put simply, Bush applauded torture (e.g. waterboarding, extraordinary rendition to secret prisons); Obama says it should stop. Your government, a puppet of the US in foreign policy matters, has been a lying and cowardly accomplice in torture.

It is the British government which does not want the details of Binyam’s torture at the hands of the Americans to be made public for the suspected reason that the details would show British involvement.

Torture is a terrible crime and is always wrong; and your government’s hands are stained with that crime.

Another point is this. The Bush Administration openly used torture (waterboarding. Gitmo, rendition to secret prisons, etc); and Britain was a subservient junior partner in that project.

In the US, however, the administration has changed. Obama says he wants torture to stop. Yet in London, New Labour limps on, subservient as ever to the US, but now to a US under new management. Today Miliband et al are pleading with the US to conceal its collaboration with torture under the previous administration.

This New Labour government is an embarrassment and disgrace to the people of this country.

Miliband hides the torture of Binjam Mohamed

It is hard to see how the Miliband’s suppression of the details of Binyam Mohamed’s torture by the Americans is even in the government’s own interests.

Not only does his tortured logic for covering up the information make Miliband look ridiculous, but precisely because everybody knows Binyam was in fact tortured, the speculation over the details will continue. Had the government ‘come clean’ the story would have died much sooner.

If ever released alive and sane, this Binyam Mohamed can presumably give first hand testimony of the details his torture at the hands of the Americans.

If this Binyam Mohamed has held British resident status, then even though he is an Ethiopian citizen, it is clear that this country owes him a duty of care; even David Miliband seems to recognise this.

Apart from humanitarian grounds, he should be returned to Britain for two reasons: first, so that the details of his torture at the hands of the Americans can be properly documented; and second we need to enquire into his activities and his kidnap.

All the information should then be placed into the public domain.