US to UK: Remember, you guys are the poodles

Not sure why, but i found this story somewhat shocking. In order to squash being outed on all the nasty torture techniques they've used in Guantanamo, the US has actually blackmailed the UK by threatening to break off security-intel cooperation. The context is the legal case of Binyan Mohammed, a british resident who got the full rendition tour: kidnapped in Pakistan, moved to Morocco, back east to Afghanistan and then to Guantanamo. At issue is whether there is sufficient cause to allow him to return, unshackled, to the UK.

Snippet of a snippet from the judges' ruling:

"Moreover, in the light of the long history of the common law and democracy which we share with the United States, it was, in our view, very difficult to conceive that a democratically elected and accountable government could possibly have any rational objection to placing into the public domain such a summary of what its own officials reported as to how a detainee was treated by them and which made no disclosure of sensitive intelligence matters.

"Indeed we did not consider that a democracy governed by the rule of law would expect a court in another democracy to suppress a summary of the evidence contained in reports by its own officials ... relevant to allegations of torture and cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment, politically embarrassing though it might be."

Given all that's been released already about torture at Guantanamo, i'm at a loss in imagining what new revelations the US military has to fear, i.e. how much worse could it possibly get? The only thing i haven't heard about that totally makes my skin crawl is drawing and quartering, but i'm fairly confident we would've known about it if the marines and CIA had gone that far out of bounds. Either the British government is concocting this in order to hide their own culpability, or the US under the new administration made a conscious decision to remind the brits who is master of the enemy combatant universe.

On another note, found this set of articles about the murder of India's anti-terror chief. Interesting reading if you're looking for a slight change from Dan Brown.

Lights out in morning rush

So i don´t feel like a total slacker even though there isn´t much time right now to write - and what i´d really like to be writing about this morning is this article about Palestinians torturing each other - thought i´d at least turn people on to Le Clan du Néon. Cute young miscreants, sure to inspire.

Mugabe madness update

As a few people pointed out to me after the March election, getting Mugabe to go quietly was a pipe dream... ergo and admittedly: i was far too optimist, far too soon. The madness has continued, with CARE recently having their operations suspended amidst accusations that distributing food and other services to 500.000 needy Zimbabweans was "an alleged political activity." In some respects, this is the other side of the failure recently dealt in Rome with respect to the food crisis: it's important to rethink the whole biofuels plan, but lack of equitable food distribution is also crucial and the situations in Zimbabwe and Somalia probably exemplify this right now better than most other places (tho it's obviously a far-reaching aspect of the global starvation crisis). Under different circumstances, one would assume that starving people out is not an effective strategy for winning a run-off vote, but Mugabe is among that vile breed of dictators who believe that dead or incapacitated voters are the best assurance of electoral victory... and if they refuse to die, then just stuff the ballot boxes again.

i'd like to say this is just a desperate old man struggling with the notion of retirement, but that would be far too forgiving. The international community is ranting at him to ease up on the entire range of outrageous restrictions he continues to impose - arresting foreign diplomats recently got a lot of worldwide media attention, and for good reason, but it's hard not to think that the persecution of diplomat personnel pales in comparison to what most of the country's poor are experiencing. Tsavangiri was arrested again, though the Guardian reports that Mbeki was able to apply enough pressure to secure his release. The election is set for 27 June, so this kind of anti-MDC/opposition activity is likely going to worsen. The sickest aspect of the crackdown on food aid is that CARE apparently understands Mugabe is using the food as "baits for votes." The BBC is reporting that Human Rights Watch has completely written off free elections as impossible in the current climate of massive intimidation. HRW also claims Mugabe's Zanu-PF has set up torture camps. Absolute madness, literally.