Did Mr Straw really see no evil?
Afghanistan and Morocco are one thing. But before 2001, higher standards were expected of rich liberal democracies such as the US or Britain. We, the citizens of these fortunate nations, and even most of our politicians, seriously believed that our governments could have nothing to do with such abhorrent and ineffective methods. But that, as the experience of the past seven and a half years has shown, was not enough to prevent people being tortured by, for or on behalf of the governments of those same liberal democracies. Mr Mohamed’s case is currently the most vivid example of the moral void into which the US government fell after 9/11, and with which our government was complicit. We defy anyone to deny that an appalling injustice has occurred, in which British intelligence services played a shameful role. After 9/11, President Bush dismantled America’s moral authority by redefining torture to exclude “enhanced interrogation techniques” such as simulated drowning or waterboarding. The
