UPDATED War on Terror/Torture Breaking News: David Miliband Is a Liar

Update (3 March): The Guardian reports....

David Miliband, the foreign secretary, is to be questioned by senior MPs over what he and his officials knew about the ill-treatment and secret interrogation of Binyam Mohamed, the former UK resident recently released from Guantánamo Bay. The move was announced yesterday by the Commons foreign affairs committee, which said it also intends to investigate other key issues where recent evidence has thrown up uncomfortable questions for ministers to answer. They are allegations of British complicity in torture in Pakistan, in the US practice of rendering terror suspects to countries where they risked being tortured, and in the transfer of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The foreign secretary will not be able to refuse to testify before the Commons foreign affairs committee, which was set up to monitor the activities of his department.

I thought of using the English euphemism "economical with the truth", but that doesn't capture the brazen statement of the Foreign Secretary yesterday regarding alleged British complicity with the torture of detainees.



Having refused to appear before a Parliamentary committee investigating the charges, Miliband and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith chose instead to write to The Observer of London. Here's a key extract from the letter:

In the case of Binyam Mohamed, you imply that the government has refused to disclose material related to his case because it would embarrass the government. Again, this is not true. As Mr Mohamed's legal representatives have themselves said, it is through this government's efforts that this material was provided to them for use in Mr Mohamed's defence. We have no objection to this material being disclosed publicly. But we believe that the decision to do so is for the US, because the material is from the US.

Which would merely be a case of passing the buck rather than lying shamelessly, were it not for this revelation by a former State Department official in The Observer two weeks earlier. He commented on the American letter which asked for the Mohamed evidence to be kept secret:

Far from being a threat, it was solicited [by the Foreign Office]. The Foreign Office asked for it in writing. They said: "Give us something in writing so that we can put it on the record." If you give us a letter explaining you are opposed to this, then we can provide that to the court.

Foreign Secretary, if you're going to lie while avoiding an inquiry into torture, could you at least give us enough respect not to do in the same newspaper which busted you in the first place?

Comments

[Phil P]

Was thinking of this whilst watching a Larry Lessig @Google talk about "Change Congress".

He was discussing damage to trust in individuals and institutions through the mechanisms of lobbying.

However, it reminded me very much of something Glenn Greenwald talked about in an interview about the Obama administration and the Binyam Mohammed case. How trust is eroded by each of these actions.

He concluded with the following:
"I think the problem is, is that, exactly as Jane [Mayer] said, there’s going to be continuing pressure. There’s going to be real, you know, investigative reporters like Jane out there probably uncovering more and more facts about what was done, and it’s going to be increasingly difficult for the Obama administration to continue to participate in the concealment of these facts without, at some point, appearing to or in fact becoming complicit with them. And I think they’re fighting a losing battle."

This is why I don't agree with Canuckistan's earlier assertion that the decision to withhold the information was, in his words, 'a non-story'. Yes, there is precedent for this sort of behaviour. However, this does not mean that, given the pervasive sentiments of distrust in politicians from the damage done around the 'War on Terror', that instances like this are unimportant. Individual stories around individual cases provide opportunities for people to find to reach a personal tipping point for a change in perspective and perhaps, just perhaps, might move a whole culture from one prevailing attitude to another. To put that another way, whilst it may not be a big revelation for Canuckistan or bring about "The Revolution", it may well turn out to be someone's "Rosa Parks moment" and for that alone it is a story worthy of some attention.

It's a spectacular own goal in respect to PR/PD to encourage yet further speculation about complicity and corruption in politics. Alongside Jack Straw using executive powers to veto Freedom of Information requests, this is a harsh reminder of how little progress we have made in the cause of democracy here in the UK, let alone in international affairs, in the last few years.

What I wonder, in this particular case, is that if the embarrassment of concealing the information is somehow less politically painful than revealing it, then what could it possibly be? Much like the withholding of information in previous cases, this practice is likely to damage the trust that the public of both the US and the UK have in the individuals that constitute their governing institutions and, by extension, the institutions themselves (just look at the extreme reaction that comes in the form of the "9/11 truth" movement for one example).

In counterpoint to the elation and hope surrounding the election of Pres. Obama, it demonstrates, rather than the cheerily optimistic metaphor of cream rising to the top, that shit still floats.

Lessig
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHma3ZQRVoA

Greenwald
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/2/20/despite_gitmo_closure_torture_ban_obama