With Friends Like Blair

Today, I should be posting my preview of this weekend's forthcoming international rugby matches, but a report in today's paper has angered me, and demonstrate how much Blair is Bush's toady.

Two reports have been published this week, one from all-party MP's sitting on the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee in their Human Rights report said: "...Ministers should voice loud and public, protests on issues such as detentions without trial at Guantanamo Bay, and had a duty to investigate allegations of CIA torture flights". The camp, where 500 inmates have been held without charge and incommunicado for up to 4 years is hindering the fight against terrorism because it has diminished America's moral authority, they added. Moreover, I would add that 4 years of isolation, without knowing when it will end, constitutes psychological torture of the worst kind.

A second report from Amnesty International said the Government had lacked "vigour" in tackling the issue of Guantanamo Bay.

Tony Blair's response to these reports; practically nothing. He would only repeat that he found the US military prison in Cuba an "anomaly."

At his monthly No. 10 press conference, he went on; "I have said it should end sooner rather than later, I have not got anything more to say. I also think it is important we never forget the context in which this has happened, the war in Afghanistan and the reason for that is the slaughter of 3,000 innocent people on September 11."

So in Prime Minister Blair's eyes, one highly immoral act deserves another. I bet Bush is quivering in his boots at this aggressive criticism of his illegal activities. After that, I bet the base will be closed for good.

Blair then went on to say "As far as I am aware, there is no evidence that any of the 200 flights by CIA transports through British airspace had been used to take suspects to countries where they might be tortured." He then added; "There is a procedure in place where the Americans ask our permission if they want to render. I am not prepared to assume that they are breaching that understanding." Well that's OK then.

This is Tony Blair's response to the committee's request that he speaks out publicly about rights abuses allegedly committed by George Bush's administration in it 'war on terror.' My, was he hard hitting. Bush must have got the message now, - carry on, you're doing OK with me, just no more anomalies.

What a poodle! He really is becoming a national embarrassment.

British history is littered with human rights abuses, - we invented the concentration camp which Hitler perfected; we controlled the slave trade for centuries; every country we took into our empire, was generally done by force and abuse - but we have learnt from that. We should know better, and we have a duty to use that knowledge and experience to guide Bush back to a more moral and ethically defendable position. But our current Prime Minister, who wants to fine teenagers for swearing in private conversations, doesn't have the guts to stand up to someone whose intent appears to be to drive the world back to a feudal dark age.