Extraordinary Rendition
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Asked for the Government’s response to reports that the CIA had been passing through UK airports when transporting prisoners from US jurisdiction to be tortured in other countries, the PMOS said that the US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, would be speaking about this later today and he did not want to pre-empt what she said. However he would repeat what he had said last week which was that there was no evidence that we were aware of that British airports had been used for this purpose.
Asked for the legal position on this sort of activity the PMOS said that he was not an expert on these issues but the normal laws applied. He stressed however that there was no evidence to support the suggestion.
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Downing Street Says.
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umm… the PMOS means there is not yet anything in the public domain that would result in the CPS taking action against any individual.
Once that information enters the public domain the PMOS will say "well fancy that -I never knew"
Comment by Roger Huffadine — 5 Dec 2005 on 6:48 pm | LinkWell Condi has spoken and, entirely predictably, she did not deny that these utterly disgusting ‘renditions’ take place.
But it’s interesting that both the PMOS and Ms Rice have chosen to indicate that the actions are ‘legal’. However, do these ghastly apparatchiks not have any sense of moral outrage?
Others, of rather stronger moral fibre and sheer common sense, have seen this evasion for what it is, condemned it outright and offered evidence. There’s none so visually impaired as those who deliberately turn away from the obvious.
Do we really want to base our actions and our human rights on a system of justice on what is merely ‘legal’, or are we better than that? Some of us clearly are not.
Comment by Chuck Unsworth — 5 Dec 2005 on 7:36 pm | Link"…there was no evidence that we were aware…",
Comment by Mr Pooter — 6 Dec 2005 on 10:06 am | Linkdoes not mean that we were not aware and given such tortuous phrasing one might well jump to the conclusion that we were aware but didn’t have a pen handy to take notes.
Moral outrage? Mmmmm, tricky one that, Pinter territory, best left to experts like Bob -the walking proclamation-Geldof. Sometimes, Chuck, I think these dirty rotters do all these things just to upset you. I mean, Gleneagles, right? Lady Sir Bob and Lady Sir Elton and Mr Bono and Mr Edge and Lady Sir Paul McCartney, they had it all sorted. Justa coupla days of their priceless time and Hey, food for all, free medicines, wind-up radios, the works and then , fuck me, look what happens; Mile High Torture Club, that’s what happens; and tens of thousands freezing their arses off in Pakistan earthquake, thousands awash under gunfire in the dirty waters of Lake Pontchartrain, skin and hair flying around Kensington and here we are now in a place where moral outrage is a busted flush, been a busted flush, in fact, since nobody put Harry Truman on trial after Hiroshima."Whassat goin’ on over there?" "its nothing, just Harold Pinter exercising his moral outrage" " For all the good that’ll do he may as well stick it uo his arse.".
To fight everybody is to fight nobody. Ho Chi Minh said that. Remember him? He was the one with the beard.
Comment by Big Jim — 8 Dec 2005 on 2:56 am | LinkJim,
Your points are well enough made and – let’s face – it history is littered with the wreckage of ‘good intentions’ and man’s greed.
However, not wishing to cause offence – and if it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer not to fuck you….
Comment by Chuck Unsworth — 8 Dec 2005 on 8:41 am | Link