This entry was posted on
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2006 at
10:07 am and is filed
under It’s War! It’s Legal! It’s Lovely!.

BBC – 100 things we didn’t know this time last year

‘Jack Straw knowingly misled the House’ isn’t in the list, but I did find out that in the U.S. you can subpoena a dog.

Economist – America’s most-hated companies

Both of those links came via an interesting new news-preference service NewsBump.

NewsBump also led me to this gem: A wise man once said it took 42 muscles to frown and only four to pull the trigger of a decent sniper rifle.

Now, how can I present the next set of links here without suggesting violence toward everyone’s favourite world leader? Ah, here we go… this strangely familiar (and NSFW) story reminded me of our ‘Bush in the UK’ adventure, where I was heard to say: (Y)ou should not under any circumstances attempt to pierce George W. Bush’s brain with a bullet. It’s not only a close-to-impossible shot, it’s a very silly thing to do.

Washington Post – Bush Defends Spying Program As ‘Necessary’ to Protect U.S.

Capitol Hill Blue – Bush on the Constitution: ‘It’s just a goddamned piece of paper’

Heck of a Job, Bushie

Back in the UK…

A new blog called Surrey Tories has launched with a lovely comment on Dennis Paul’s New Year message. How nice to know that he’s been thinking of me.

Neil Craig is getting stepped on by the Scottish Liberal Democrats… for blogging and (*gasp*) writing letters.

Speaking of letters, Craig Murray has published some of the more thoughtful correspondence he has received in the past few days.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry… Personally, I wept over the total lack of torture coverage in Sunday’s papers (that probably resulted from most journalists phoning their stories in a few days ahead).

Still, we have this:

Sunday Herald – Her Majesty’s Secret Service?: As official denials grow ever more opaque, evidence which points to Britain’s involvement in torture grows ever more transparent.

And this…

Time – Stubborn Charges – Has the British intelligence service been torturing prisoners in Greece?

We also have this end-of-year thought from Robert Fisk…

Robert Fisk – Only justice, not bombs, can make our dangerous world a safer place: But terror is also in the prisons and torture chambers of the Middle East. It is in the very jails to which we have been merrily sending out trussed-up prisoners these past three years. For Jack Straw to claim that men are not being sent on their way to torture is surely one of the most extraordinary – perhaps absurd is closer to the mark – statements to have been made in the “war on terror.” If they are not going to be tortured – like the luckless Canadian shipped off to Damascus from New York – then what is the purpose of sending them anywhere? And how are we supposed to “win” this war by ignoring all the injustices we are inflicting on that part of the world from which the hijackers of Sept. 11 originally came? How many times have Messrs Bush and Blair talked about “democracy”? How few times have they talked about “justice,” the righting of historic wrongs, the ending of torture? Our principal victims of the “war on terror,” of course, have been in Iraq (where we have done quite a bit of torturing ourselves).

And yet more from Rupert Cornwell…

Rupert Cornwell – War on Terror: The global war: Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, the kidnapping and “rendition” of terrorist suspects, alleged secret CIA prisons – all have created the impression that where Muslim radicals are concerned, anything goes. Nobody in a high position has been sacked for outrages that have stained America’s reputation. Most astounding of all is that US leaders, self-proclaimed champions of democracy and human decency, appear to be resisting a legal ban on torture. For every terrorist captured, half a dozen potential new ones are born.