See Evil, Hear Evil, Cover Up Evil

Among the many outrageous claims made by Miliband and the Muppets is the one that challenging the security services ‘aids the enemy.’ Nothing like a bit of ‘national security’ to cover up all kinds of malpractice and skulduggery. As the Times said in its leader,

“It is not the acceptance of misdeeds that tarnishes a country’s reputation and gives succour to its enemies. It is that they happened in the first place, and the cover-up that seeks to pretend that they did not.

Mr Miliband and the Government’s lawyers initially cited national security reasons for their attempts to block the release of those seven paragraphs, on the ground that the sharing of US intelligence could lead to such secret information being henceforth withheld. This was a spurious contention at the outset, and at any rate it is now obsolete. The intelligence has been published, and that argument is over. Further censorship on the ground of national security is not only counterproductive, but shameful for a supposedly centre-left government that pays lip service to the notion of transparency.

When Mr Mohamed was first mistreated, the British Establishment chose, studiously, to look the other way. This week, it has stared its misdeeds in the face, and behaved little better.” The Times 16/2/2010

That is not all. Let us be very clear where the real blame for these appalling deeds lies. 

Clive Stafford –Smith wrote in the Guardian,

“The key moment in the whole torture scandal came on 10 January 2002, when an anonymous agent in the field "reported back to London his 'observations on the circumstances of the handling of [a] detainee by the US military before the beginning of [his own] interview'." The officer – perhaps it was witness B, the agent who has become infamous for his interrogation of Binyam Mohamed – obviously had qualms about his responsibility in the face of prisoner abuse.

Overnight, London replied: "You have commented on their treatment. It appears from your description that they may not be being treated in accordance with the appropriate standards. Given that they [the prisoners] are not within our custody or control, the law does not require you to intervene to prevent this." In other words, see no evil, hear no evil.

The villain of the piece was not the functionary, but the person who sat at the desk setting the rules.

….And that policymaker does appear to be a villain. It is not permissible to act the ostrich in the face of medieval mistreatment of prisoners. The Convention Against Torture is explicit that it is a crime to commit "an act … which constitutes complicity … in torture". The courts have long since concluded that British officers were, indeed, deeply enmeshed in the abuse.

The investigation into torture has never been about finding a lowly ­scapegoat to take the blame. We must identify those who set the rules. Once this has been done, we must understand why they strayed so far from our ­principles, and establish regulations to avoid this in future.”

We must also do all we can to get the dirty sordid details into the open before the General Election so that Miliband and the Muppets can be judged initially at the court of public opprobrium and then hopefully in the Old Bailey.