A few lessons about friendship.

This week yet another embarassing story for the goverment has emerged. It appears the Prime Ministers must’ve either walked under a ladder, broke a mirror and had an army of black cats march in front of him as his misfortunes just dont seem to be reducing, either that or he’s just incompetent. Suffice to say we all know which one he is. This time is over a young Binyan Mohammed who was tortured in Guantanamo Bay. This is an issue of civil liberties, something that happens to be closer to my heart than just about any other.

The story goes the UK government was complicit with the Americans in torturing a terror suspect in Guatanamo. As we have a so called “special relationship” with the States, we were handed sensitive information that contained details of what happens there. The case of Binyan Mohammed was taken to a British court where a judge ruled it would be in the “public interest” to have details of the case published. One UK-US red phone call later, the Foreign Office Council were made an ultimatum by then secretary of state Condoleeza Rice from the Bush adminstration that should the court’s ruling be carried out, they would effectively cut us off by refusing to share anymore intelligence with us!

Is this what America calls friendship? Call me a simpleton, but friends aren’t supposed to bully and make threats to the other, and in the political terms, expect one’s executive to break the separation of powers exercised following Baron de Montesquieu’s philosophy by interfering in court proceedings!

Our Courts, in this country ruled that it was in the public interest to have information involving serious torture that hasn’t been practiced since medievil times (such as water boarding which apparently simulates effects of drowning and use of razor blades amongst many other methods of torture) be put in the public domain, so we know what exactly our government has been upto behind closed doors with “our” money and resources. They ruled that it is important for us to understand this in order to be able to uphold democratic ideals of accountability. How can we know who we want to lead us if we can’t understand what sort of leadership they make. And yet and I quote they(the court of appeal) felt there a a threat to national security, essentially meaning bullying of the courts by this government following threats made by our best mate, the US.

Again I ask, is this what they call friendship? Is this the true meaning behind our special relationship? Lets be clear what the implication of these threats are. Ending the sharing of intelligence could indeed pose a threat to British national security. Vital information that could lead to the procurement of a terrorist attack could be held back over this! And so it would seem our “friends” across the pond are prepared to allow loss of British civilian life through utterly horrific circumstances in order to protect “politically sensitive information”. In layman terms, let them die if that what it takes to make sure we keep winning elections here, after all none of them is worth a single vote us!!!

But wait there is more. Upon his inauguration, Obama stated “...we as democracies reject having to accept the choice between our safety and ideals” and vowed to restore rule of law. And it now it has become apparent that the new US government no longer holds such an expectation for this to be carried out. Yet oddly, the Right Honourable David Miliband MP(our foreign secretary) insists that the information remains a secret anyway and that during his visit to the States a few days ago, the issue wasn’t discussed all. In the midst of all the public shoulder brushing with Hilary Clinton, the foreign secretary didnt even bother asking if the Obama administration felt it be permissable for Britian to join the crusade for the restoration of the rule of law (and when did we get to a stage where we needed such anyway?)

This clearly begins to question the level of complicitness on behalf of the British government. As it stands, there have been no specific requests from Obama for such to be the case any longer yet Brown et al are holding that the ruling to not have the “vital information” be publish so we can have this vicious business put behind us once and for all. As Reagan stated, “those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on a downward spiral”. Well friends, we are certainly on it and do note, freedom is never more than one generation away. If we are going to escape this spiral, we need to deal with our past in a just manner so we can able to move away on from it.

Let us also be clear with another point, everything that happen in Guatanamo Bay with the compliance of this Labour government is completely unacceptable and it cannot be good moral, policy nor law to carry on with it. The civil liberties that Labour has been blindly dismantling are ones that we have spent over eight hundred years trying to construct. This type of politics is disepicable and deeply dismaying. The can’t fix the economy, the broken society and crime and so they take an existing danger, exagerate it and pretend they are going to save the world from it! And the result? Young people like Binyan Mohammed, could be anyone, even you or I, are taken and have there lives destroyed forever by the very people we trust to protect us! In doing so not only does it lead to social divisions and racial tensions here, but but it gives those who threaten our way of life through terror the platform to justify themselves by making claims such as the “West wishes to destroy Islam”. Thus leading to the rise of so called home grown terrorist that we have seen.

What our government needs to realise is that what constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence is not our frowning battlements, the guns of our war machines, or the strength of our army. Nor is torturing random middle eastern muslims in the hope they turn out to be terrorist going to serve justice. These are not the reliance against the resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. It should be our reliance in the love of liberty which men and women shed blood to plant in our bossoms. Our defense is the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men and women, in all lands, every where!