You're Telling on Us?

by Shaker Sunless Nick

Over here in Blighty, the Binyan Mohammed case is making depressingly minor ripples in the public consciousness. Mohammed claims that evidence used against him was obtained by the US through torture. I don't know whether it was or not. I don't know whether he's guilty of anything or not. What I do know is that purported evidence of that torture has been ruled inadmissible, and that:

A US government letter to the Foreign Office warned of "lasting damage" to intelligence sharing if

... that evidence was allowed before a court. The judges in the case interpret this as a threat to break off intelligence cooperation with the UK. Foreign Secretary David Miliband denies that it's a threat, supporting the US line that revealing the evidence would harm national security. Both governments deny that there was any torture.

Because Obama represents change we can believe in, the stance has been the same since he took office.

So what's the danger to US national security? All the US government need supply is the evidence showing whether Mohammed was tortured—which both governments claim would exonerate them anyway—there's no need to reveal what, if anything, he told his interrogators. And if the evidence wouldn't exonerate them? It wouldn't harm national security either, unless they're trying to copyright a particular method or something. Or unless by security, they mean image.

But they'd rather threaten allied nations about it. Because really, warning of "lasting damage" when the word refers to your own actions? That's a threat.

If you're doing something, you should be able to say it. If it's the right thing to do, it should be the right thing to admit to. If America doesn't torture prisoners, it has little reason to offer evidence of that. And if it does... its secrecy speaks volumes about its own doubt as to its rightness. And the same for Britain: if it doesn't condone torture, or join in, the way Miliband claims, then prove it and investigate; and if it does, its own secrecy makes it complicit or worse.