Yet Another Torture Cover-Up
graphic: Lance Page/Truthout.org; Adapted: takomabibelot, Poe Tatum via Flickr
When the Brits announced a year ago they’d hold an inquiry into torture, I suggested it was an attempt to get torture victims like Binyam Mohamed to settle so the British government could conduct a sham investigation. In November, Mohamed and others agreed to a settlement.
And today we discover (shock!) that the investigation is a whitewash after all. (h/t fatster)
The government’s plans for an inquiry into the UK’s role in torture and rendition after 9/11 are in disarray after human rights groups queued up to denounce it as a sham and lawyers for the victims said they were boycotting the hearings.
Their anger was prompted by the publication of the detailed terms of references and protocols under which the inquiry will be run by Sir Peter Gibson, a retired judge. It showed that key hearings will be held in secret and the cabinet secretary will have the ultimate say over what the public will and will not learn.
Individuals subjected to rendition and torture during the so-called war on terror will not be permitted to ask questions of MI5 or MI6 officers and the inquiry will not seek any evidence from foreign intelligence agencies, such as the CIA, about British involvement in the torture and abuse of detainees.
The protocol states that the aim is to “establish a reliable account of what happened”, but critics point out that it also says the inquiry “will not request evidence from the authorities of other countries or their personnel”.
The Western democracies–Spain, Germany, the UK and, of course, the US (Poland has not yet thrown their inquiry)–are getting pretty good at this torture kabuki.
But I guess with all the practice they’ve had, that’s not surprising.
Well it’s certainly not surprising, but “nut surprising” seems to capture the theme equally well!
Please delete my earlier comment.
Too late. But thanks for the correction.
A simple “Never mind” would hardly have been lamer.
Captain Renault is amused at the kerfuffle over the obvious!
My take, amplifying some other aspects of the cover-up, and shamelessly promoting myself on this thread: UK Torture Inquiry Farce on Last Legs, While Rendition to “Killing” Remains Uninvestigated.
Do you have a paypal account for donations? tkx.
No, I don’t. I’ve thought of putting something up on my personal blog, but have never gotten around to it.
Thanks… like a gift offered but not received, it’s the thought that counts. And I mean that sincerely. Means a lot.
Btw, a contribution to FDL is always in order, since so much of my work really comes through here.
Music for this Thursday: one of the greatest hits of the 16th century,
Sometimes this piece is played with either crumhorns or a brass ensemble of cornets and sackbutts as the featured instruments, but I find that the Renaissance racketts used here provide a certain … je ne sais quois … resonance, maybe, that captures the tone I’m anticipating from the day.
(You might check out some of the other Praetorius vids while you’re at it. He’s pretty funky.)
Advanced civilization or what?
Thanks obama for nothing but looking past past torture crimes.
Craig Murray adds to The Guardian’s information:
Tidy Little Whitewash; Craig Murray; 7/7/11
…and offers his testimony to the inquiry…
…but really expects to be ignored.
More from Murray’s post —
No one in the West is better than the Brits at hiding government wrongdoing behind an “official inquiry”. Government commissions are where the truth goes to die, especially when they are chaired by a retired judge. The social network behind these appointments and the results they achieve is legendary.
Speaking of cover-ups, Rupert Murdoch has decided to close his News of the World in the UK. NoW is the focus of longstanding government investigations and private-party litigation involving massive illegal hacking into thousands of victims’ phone and e-mail accounts. A closure could save him money, redirect resources to other titles, remove the now discredited NoW label from exposure, delay disclosure of data and witness testimony, and deprive claimants of resources fully to settle their claims. All in a day’s work for Rupert and his flying monkeys.
NewsCorp still exists, and NoW was its subsidiary, so I’d see this as a deepening of the pocket victims get to dig into. IMHO, Rupert’s closure was an admission of guilt, and Labour will make this a hot topic in Question Time at least. They have their own reliable outlets in the press. There is also the detail of just how widespread this scandal is. How about the rest of the Commonwealth?
Cameron’s communications director will be arrested, for things done before Cameron brought him in, and in keeping a blind eye until this blew up. This puts blood in the water for Miliband, and puts Clegg on the hot seat to either ratify the Tory situation or denounce it (and perhaps blow up the coalition), especially from his backbenchers. Labour ought to be able to make considerable hay out of this, and if Cameron thinks the public will stand for BSkyB being given to Rupert after this, he’s going to be out of office very quickly. This was so completely sordid, unnecessary, salacious for the mere profitability, that the stench will prevent any traction for any message Cameron might try.
The royal angle is also going to be a problem, since I do not see the Queen putting up with this at all [especially after the circus that still surrounds Princess Diana]. The Official Secrets Act will doubtlessly turn up, since I’m sure the hacks got some of those secret details. Sacrificing NoW will not help any of these issues, since Rupert also kept a firm hold on his empire, and authorizations for this activity would have to come from the top. It is extremely hard to believe that after a scoop or two that the sourcing method wouldn’t be relayed to Rupert and his top-level minions, the liabilities were too great.
So if the UK is so gung ho to hang Assange, will they get Rupert as well?
How long has this been going on? I mean, when the story broke, Anthony Weiner came to mind right away, and it’s a hop and a skip to John Edwards and Eliot Spitzer — but Princess Diana? MY Princess Diana?? (whoa, that’s how I feel? why yes, I see I do — in America!) Funny: Supernational, multinational, anational, beyond national — puts her in the lofty untouchable sphere with corporate persons, like Rupert Murdoch’s ownings? Funny too: She still has legs — world class legs. This I gotta watch.
Wandering through Hyde Park in London, there is the well-signed Princess Diana fountain (not running due to a drought, it seems), the Diana playground near the Peter Pan statue, the immensely-busy-with-tourists Kensington Palace even during renovations, there’s lots of references to the “people’s princess” and assorted kitsch that goes with it. She was also back into the national memory because of William’s marriage to Kate [kind of like Diana’s but we hope for a better outcome, Will’s got more sense than his father, it seems]. Back in the day, the Queen was very much made into the bad-tempered harpie by tons of bad press, the young Earl Spencer’s speech at Diana’s funeral [especially the line about titles, given that Diana was stripped of some of hers], and there was a lot of talk then in the UK about the queen abdicating, bypassing Charles, to William. I’m sure the royal household will make quite certain that there will be no more press of that kind.
On the principal topic, torture ought to make QTime if there was justice for a British subject, but will not. Tony Blair was Labour, and Miliband would have to explain why his predecessor let it go [Blair’s already getting hit for the rush to war], and Cameron doesn’t gain enough to beat Labour with it since he’s in government now. That’s another reason the issue with Murdoch is so useful for Labour, it’s all about the Tories and their judgement/ethics in a winning scenario.
See, I don’t know much about British politics, but what’s piquing my imagination is thinking about a world where national governments are just too weak to serve their useful public purpose. I think that’s where we’re going, recognizing it, and EW wrote a post on it earlier too, about the death of sovereignty. Nations literally can’t police themselves, they’re so corrupted by secrecy and corporate money — who rules? Rule of Nobody. So — and I’m way fuzzy here — what happens when justice for a world figure that everyone cares about is at stake? I mean, I think it’s secrecy/corporations vs. real people, that the corporations will protect their puppet politicians and government agencies, but that puts them kind of starkly against the people if it’s shown that Diana WAS hacked, that the press hounding was based on something more criminal and tangible… like, I don’t even know what we’re talking about. But is there a way that this could bring a different set of adversaries in play than national governments and justice departments that cannot serve public interests anymore? And is this a way for new justice systems to build themselves from the ground up — a grassroots construct to serve their unmet needs? I think that’s what I keep looking for. Because we all see that justice has failed, is failing, will fail. The job can’t be done by governments anymore.
It goes in cycles, and lately the cycles run on the order of centuries. It’s somewhat different now because the media in the USA is more monolithic in its ownership, and possibly that is what was really behind the net neutrality attempt to rein in the blogs recently.
100 years ago, was the sunset of the Gilded Age, that embodied almost all of the attributes of society (even in America) that we see today, especially in terms of corporate accountability for finance and safety. Unless we break through the MSM wall, we run the risk of fulfilling the predictions of 1984’s Ministry of Truth.
As it is, on a separate EW thread, regarding the arrest of Cameron’s communications director, it seems that individual gave (now proven false) testimony that sent a Scottish MP to jail, and the Glasgow cops want to discuss that with him.
What a circus! Turning over to the police evidence of payments to the police for the police to discover they committed crimes and investigate… NY Times:
Speaking of corporate persons — isn’t it great how they can just change their name and morph their assets and move on? Blackwater becomes Xe and it’s a whole new slate? I wonder if there’s a MERS database for criminal corporations…
From comments at Murray’s website:
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“Corporations do everything people do except breathe, die and go to jail for dumping 1.3 million pounds of PCBs in the Hudson River.” – Stephen Colbert