Harry's Place

What we need is a full enquiry by a neutral judge into these War Crime like allegations. Call for Goldstone. Just tell him the conclusion you want and he’ll write it.

Now, what would be absolutely brilliant is an enquiry into the use of torture, with a UN condemnation for it. With OIC that wil be no problem. Then over to the 9/11 trial where the UN conclusions will be used to get them off. Obama resigns.

Hang On. Its the Loopy Loons at HRW. Forget it.

HRW – you mean the one funded by Saudi Arabia – do i believe anything they say? The “halo effect” has even affected poor Norm i.e. anything a “Human Rights” organisation says had to be given at Sinai! Feh!

BTW, slightly OT but not fully. Its about terrorism and the UK.

Lord Carlisle issues a report on the twelve arrests for alleged terrorism earlier this year. BBC announce on the News “the report which criticises the police”.

5Live interview Lord Carlisle. He says “… in no way is this a criticism of the police!”

What is the BBC agenda?

HRW – you mean the one funded by Saudi Arabia – do i believe anything they say? The “halo effect” has even affected poor Norm i.e. anything a “Human Rights” organisation says had to be given at Sinai! Feh!
As NGO Monitor reports Sarah Lee Whitson’s appeal for Saudi support and money acknowledged and cited HRW’s anti-Israel focus extensively, claiming that “Human Rights Watch provided the international community with evidence of Israel using white phosphorus and launching systematic destructive attacks on civilian targets.” As NGO Monitor’s systematical analysis demonstrated, HRW’s allegations were based on false and unsupported claims. But in pitching HRW to the Saudis, Whitson invoked the canard of “pro-Israel pressure groups,” which, she declared, “strongly resisted the report and tried to discredit it.”
Similarly, Whitson told the Saudi leaders about HRW’s role in anti-Israel activities in the US Congress and the United Nations, boasting that this propaganda campaign was instrumental in the UN’s “fact-finding mission to investigate the allegations of serious Israeli violations during the war on Gaza,” to be headed by Justice Richard Goldstone, who was also a member of HRW’s board at the time. (He resigned after the investigation began; as NGO Monitor noted, his membership on HRW’s board was a conflict of interest.)
Whitson also visited Libya in April, praising the totalitarian regime for its “spirit of reform,” and wrote about this visit in the publication, Foreign Policy. So this is the group that now attacks GB. We (Israel) told you this would happen.

I don’t tend to pay much attention to reports written by organisations which are funded by Islamic Fundamentalists and staffed by Nazis with Adolf Hitler licenceplates. What next, ‘BNP Concerns Over Treatment of White Guys in Australia’?

As we can see from some of the comments here, one of the saddest results of HRW’s recent foot-shooting is that everything it reports will be too easily dismissed.

Quite possibly Gene, but we can also see from the comments here exactly what sort of commenters HP is attracting these days.

Quite possibly Gene, but we can also see from the comments here exactly what sort of commenters HP is attracting these days.

Well, MM, instead of whining about them, why don’t you challenge them?

As we can see from some of the comments here, one of the saddest results of HRW’s recent foot-shooting is that everything it reports will be too easily dismissed.

Can I suggest that these comments may stem from the fact that a) a very high proportion of your commenters are right wing nutters and b) you have spent much of the last decade pretending that any human rights organisations with the temerity to criticise your partisan causes are racist conspirators with Evil?

I mean, really. HP has poured years of hard work into training your commenters to attack Human Rights Watch et al on sight, and now when they start barking and snapping like angry terriers, it’s HRW’s fault?

God help us if it’d been the International Red Cross that penned this report, or we’d be rehashing David T.’s hilarious maybe the IRC conspired with Hezbollah to fake an attack on themselve comedy skit.

Gene, there is nothing to challenge. It will always be easier for defenders of totalitarian States (Saudi Arabia) and structures (Hamas) to attack flawed democracies than perfect dictatorships. Isn’t it, Mrs. Helena Cobban?

one of the saddest results of HRW’s recent foot-shooting

One of the after-effects of foot-shooting is that it’s harder to keep your balance afterwards than it was before.

Well, MM, instead of whining about them, why don’t you challenge them?

Sure, and once I’ve done that I might go and gargle some battery acid and have a punch up with my fridge. Cos that sounds about as fun and productive.

It’s your blog, your infestation problem, you deal with it.

Morris Minor? More like Mini me, me me me.

I have not had time to read this report.

This is not exactly a high quality post, writing an article to discuss a report that is available on line that you have not read. I thought Harry’s Place was better than that. Either do not bother with the post or wait until you have had had time to read it and have something of interest to say.

Sorry to be so blunt, but I do think this post is quite pathetic.

Funny how all the usual suspects come pouring forth to defend an utterly discredited organisation (HRW) with extreme alacrity.

In any case, I happen to think toture is completely wrong and doesn’t work* but I’m not doing to be very comfortable proclaiming so in the same workspace as terrorist-supporting fuckwits like HRW.

* I will make an exception for anyone who harms animals or plants – I want them tortured on national TV, the bastards.

“As we can see from some of the comments here, one of the saddest results of HRW’s recent foot-shooting is that everything it reports will be too easily dismissed.”
It is not that its reports will be easily dismissed but that one has to question the motives behind the reports. The fact that this report is published on the day the Iraq War Enquiry commences surely is something of a remarkable coincidence especially as the report relates to events which allegedly took place in 2007 so why now?
Then there is this paragraph “Research by Human Rights Watch and path-breaking investigative reporting by The Guardian newspaper makes it clear that British hands are not clean.” Makes it clear? So HRW and The Grauniad are both judge and jury. All HRW may report on are allegations – findings of fact can only be the province of a court of law following testimony and the cross examination of witnesses which even Goldstone had to concede.

Then we have “Human Rights Watch has no evidence of UK officials directly participating in torture. But UK complicity is clear. First, it is inconceivable that the UK government was unaware of the
systematic use of torture in Pakistan.” They have no evidence but it’s inconceivable that they were not complicit.
Without evidence HRW’s allegations are worthless. It’s a fishing expedition to discredit the British government.That is why I find it difficult to treat HRW with anything remotely resembling respect – leaving aside its anti-Israel bias.

To be fair lets have the UK govt response :

http://foreignofficeviewsonnews.tumblr.com/post/255829996/24-nov-allegations-of-complicity-in-torture

“24 Nov: Allegations of complicity in torture

On 24 November Human Rights Watch published a report on alleged complicity in the torture of people held in Pakistan suspected of terrorism.

The Government rejects in the strongest possible terms the suggestion that a policy of complicity in torture has been in place.

An article in The Guardian asks whether the FCO will be addressing these allegations.

The Prime Minister addressed this issue in a Statement to Parliament of 18 March 2009. He committed to publishing the guidance to intelligence officers and service personnel for detention and interviewing of detainees overseas, and to refer all cases of possible criminal wrongdoing as appropriate.

HMG has referred two cases in which there were allegations of complicity to the Attorney General, and these are currently being investigated by the Metropolitan Police Service. This includes the case of Binyam Mohamed.

Other allegations have already been considered by the courts and found to be groundless, while others are the subject of ongoing court proceedings.

In light of the above measures, the Government does not consider an inquiry to be either appropriate or necessary.”

As per the above some of the allegations have already been dealt with in court ie Salahuddin Amin :

“Salahuddin Amin, from Luton, alleges he was whipped, suspended by his wrists from the ceiling and threatened with an electric drill after surrendering to the ISI in 2004.

Amin, who was later given a life sentence for supplying terrorists who wanted to blow up the Ministry of Sound nightclub in south-east London and Bluewater shopping centre in Kent with an explosives formula, said he was kept prisoner in Pakistan for 10 months before he was taken to Britain.

He said no attempt was made to extradite him and he received no assistance from British consular officials during this time.

Describing his treatment, he said: “They were constantly hitting me and swearing at me. I was in extreme pain. I felt as if my skin was ripping apart.”

MI5 does not deny questioning him several times during his detention and at his trial the judge accepted he had been mistreated but said he believed the claims had been exaggerated.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-562728/MI5-accused-turning-blind-eye-colluding-torture-terrorist-suspects.html

As we can see from some of the comments here, one of the saddest results of HRW’s recent foot-shooting is that everything it reports will be too easily dismissed.

The people who are dismissing this would have done so anyway, because basically they don’t give a toss about our government colluding in torture. This story has been building up for a while and there is absolutely no reason to doubt the integrity of HRW’s report.

The people who are dismissing this would have done so anyway, because basically they don’t give a toss about our government colluding in torture.

That’s untrue.

The problem is that HRW, as DSD says, are funded by Islamic Fundamentalists and is staffed by Nazis with Adolf Hitler licenceplates.

Andrew – read the FO response before being so knee-jerk yourself. They are saying the HRW report basically rehashes old allegations some which have already been in court and rejected, others of which are still sub judice.

There is also a lot in the HRW report which is from unnamed ISI agents – that’s not going to stand up in court is it ? Is it fair for UK govt employees to be tried in the media with such evidence ?

Flying Rodent is a dissembling liar.

“The people who are dismissing this would have done so anyway, because basically they don’t give a toss about our government colluding in torture”

The fact is most people do. Dismissing HRW is something else becaus it has shown it has an agenda. The torture in this case was carried out by Pakistan yet the report is called Cruel Britannia. No direct evidence is adduced by HRW just innuendo that GB had any involvement in the torture a case of making the facts fit the thesis.

Where the fuck is Brittania? Next to Normanndy?

The torture in this case was carried out by Pakistan yet the report is called Cruel Britannia. No direct evidence is adduced by HRW just innuendo that GB had any involvement in the torture a case of making the facts fit the thesis.

Its like original sin. Brown people, in the eyes of HRW and their ilk, are incapable of doing wrong. Hence it must have been us who put them up to it. Hence its our fault, even when we’ve done nothing wrong.

The basic question is: Do you support cooperating with the police agencies of countries who routinely use torture like Pakistan? If you are okay with British or American officials using agencies like the ISI to do the dirty work that the CIA/MI6/FBI/MI5 are forbidden by law from doing so, please say so.

The ironic thing is that I doubt you will find anyone here, commenter or poster, who would actually support torture in any shape or form. Yet it seems that the usual suspects are more interested in defending organisations which are funded by Islamic Fundamentalists and staffed by Nazis with Adolf Hitler licenceplates than actually getting to the *truth*.

Its also absurd that HRW take as gospel lots of allegations from unnamed ISI agents ie from people in the organization that did the torture in the first place ! How likely are they be to telling the truth ? Torturers as witnesses, I’m sure they’d go down well in court.

As they are unnamed and very unlikely ever to testify on the record their evidence is pure hearsay. Yet HRW are happy to use these people to implicate UK govt employees. Would they come out with a report accusing individuals in the UK of crimes on the basis of unnamed MI5 sources ?

I’m not saying there may not be cases to answer here, indeed most of the outstanding allegations are sub judice which is correct procedure but the HRW evidence in this report is either a) nothing new or b) legally inadmissable.

The British government has stated it does not condone torture, will not do so nor does it collude in torture. This report contradicts this statement absolutely. Who is right?

It depends on your point of view. Today I saw a carnival of clowns has turned up at the Iraq enquiry and attracted a crowd of journalists with stunts and masks and so on. They have no doubts and feel emboldened to suggest the verdict even before any evidence has been heard on the basis of prejudice. No weight of evidence is neccessary.

These allegations of torture are unfair as stated. They do not suggest British agents actually conducted the torture – given we are speaking of events in Pakistan I think the torture likely, but proof is not the same as likelihood – nor does it say (as I understand) that these British agents gave advice on how to torture or when. They do claim these agents were present and that this presence condones the actions being undertaken. Second hand torturers then. It may not by this standard be even necessary for these British agents to be even in the same room or even building. This is a wide test of culpability, and an unfair one.

The only case against Britain are allegations from those who claim to have been tortured. All were picked up abroad, some travelling under assumed identities. I have read no explanation from the former detainees to which this applies to account for it. Britain is obliged to provide information on British detainees to the authorities in such cases where correct identification is an issue. All these detainees have subsequently been ‘repatriated’ to the U.K. where some are pursuing legal redress, financially aided by the state.

Meanwhile, many questions about these people remain unanswered and likely to remain so. At least one has made a ‘confession’ of having undergone weapon training whilst in Pakistan and, or, Afghanistan. How much weight can be placed upon that is I feel in the same category as the torture claims.

It really is a question of who to believe. I deplore torture but I would also like to know more about the people who have made these claims and how and where they came to be arrested in the first place. Unfortunately, dogging these claims, presented here by an organisation with its own cause to support, is a sense of a partisanship which stems not just from these events – and torture must be repellent to decent human beings – but the whole grounds of the present resistance to terrorism.

“The basic question is: Do you support cooperating with the police agencies of countries who routinely use torture like Pakistan?”

David All – that is a big question. Stopping cooperation with all states that use torture (a lot) would severely limit our overseas intelligence. And what if the govt says “oh we did in the past but don’t now” or “Who has proved in court we use torture” ? Who decides if they’re telling the truth ?

I have a solution – The EU should cut off all relations with govts that the ECHR rules uses torture. Now that would really mean something, it would also mean the allegations against that govt were proved in a court. The offending govt would be restored to relations once it had proved it didn’t use torture any more.

What do you reckon ?

The basic question is: Do you support cooperating with the police agencies of countries who routinely use torture like Pakistan? If you are okay with British or American officials using agencies like the ISI to do the dirty work that the CIA/MI6/FBI/MI5 are forbidden by law from doing so, please say so.

The problem is, how do you solve a terrorism problem imported from Pakistan without co-operating with the Pakistani security services, dubious methods and all? You’re basically saying the UK government should allow Brits to be blown up because it can’t conclusively prove that any info received from Pakistan wasn’t acquired as a result of torture.

“The ironic thing is that I doubt you will find anyone here, commenter or poster, who would actually support torture in any shape or form. ”

Allow me to be that commenter. I don’t have any personal experience to judge whether or not torture actually works – i.e. compels individuals to divulge true and accurate information that they wouldn’t otherwise have done. However logic suggests that physical duress must be effective at least often enough for the world’s intelligence agencies to find it still worth doing. If all the information gained was false and useless, why would they still bother doing it?

In the present case, I think the circumstances justify suspension of the niceties one would observe if investigating a less serious crime. The Western World is engaged in a global war against Islamic fundamentalism, even if most of the west’s inhabitants don’t recognize the fact. Personally I think we will only win that war if we’re prepared to be as ruthless, and if necessary more ruthless, than our opponents. I therefore have no qualms about stating that I fully support and approve of the use of physical torture on terror suspects. If we can get the Pakistani service to do the dirty work, so much the better, as long as we get the information.

I have read the report in detail. as a human rights lawyer I would take any complicity in torture by UK officials extremely seriously.

This is not a good or particularly credible report. As more media nonsense says all the allegations are rehashed and have been dealth with properly in the UK or are a part of continuing investigations or relate to legal actions occurring (sub judice).

The summary makes it seem that British agents are sitting in one room while Pakistani agents are torturing their victim in another room.

Read the report carefully, this complicity in some cases involves questions being sent from Britain to Pakistan to be presented during interrogation as the British are aware of the detention.

In other cases it appears that intelligence officials have questioned the individuals some time after their later allegation that they had been tortured.

In these cases the complaint of complicity is that the British failed to notice evidence of torture that the report alleges would have been visible and then failed to take action against Pakistani officials for their alleged abuse.

If you read the rather speculative and at times nonsensical or entirely abstract wishful thinking law section at the end you realise that a big part of the complaint is that;

1. In cases of dual citizenship where the accused is detained for crimes in the country (Pakistan) of which they are also a citizen.

Well the reality is that in cases of dual citizenship while under the jurisdiction of another country of citizenship there is very little that a second country can do, other than make a request for consular access which in cases of dual citizenship may be refused.

This happened in one case where Pakistan refused consular access but the complicity alleged is that other officials allegedly did question the accused.

2. Because almost uniquely among nations the UK has given direct effect to parts of the UN convention on torture by statute requiring action against government officials complicit in torture with universal jurisdiction.

In effect the report is arguing that based upon allegations from unamed ISI and other Pakistani sources that individuals holding dual citizenship were tortured by Pakistani officials in Pakistan the UK has failed to prosecute them.

Now given that the UK has such an act of universal jurisdiction it is unsurprising that ISI and other Pakistani officials some of whom clearly engaged in criminal acts of torture prosecutable under international law, knowing that UK officials might have some knowledge of this and knowing that the UK has jurisdiction (in theory) to prosecute such acts, that they would allege UK complicity in such acts.

I would be surprised if some unnamed officials in Pakistan themselves alleged to have been involved in torture, did not accuse UK officials of being complicit in these crimes.

I do think that in this situation those cases that have not already been, should be investigated.

There is no excuse for complicity in torture ever.

However this report does not do much credit to HRW as it is overblown hyperbole blaming UK investigators for some shocking crimes by Pakistani officials.

One of the more confused and tenuous cases that of ‘Rauf’ blaming UK complicity in torture instead seems to show the opposite where it alleges that British officials aware of Rauf mistreatment, felt that extradition to the UK for trial would be a disaster because no conviction would be possible (quite rightly) with such evidence of inhuman treatment.

The case of Rauf

At the request of the UK government, Pakistani authorities arrested Rauf in August 2006 on suspicion of involvement in a plot to blow up several airliners originating in the United Kingdom.

Rauf was held in Rawalpindi and charged with terrorism-related
offences.

In December 2007, the prosecution in Pakistan withdrew its case against Rauf and the Anti-Terrorism Court I at Rawalpindi ordered his same day release.

…..”On December 17, 2007, Rauf “escaped” from custody in broad daylight from an Islamabad courthouse while being watched by at least a dozen Pakistani police officials.

At the time his lawyer described his escape as “very suspicious” because it had happened at a time when the “British government was trying to extradite him.”

Both Pakistani and British Iintelligence sources told Human Rights Watch that Rauf was beaten and mistreated while in the custody of the ISI.

While Pakistani intelligence sources maintain that the British were
aware that Rauf was being “dealt with” by the ISI with an “iron hand,”

the British source did not accept that any mistreatment occurred with British complicity or knowledge, but added that the he was tortured so badly that it was a “disaster” that made any “successful
prosecution in Britain most unlikely.”…………………

This is the actual position where the UK investigators concern is to have no mistreatment knowing that the open justice of the UK courts would prevent (rightly) a conviction in such cases.

The report then alleges a remarkable and suspicious escape in broad daylight of Rauf where he escapes all the way to Waziristan and is later killed by a US drone.

The extraordinary and fantastical implication is that these UK officials (perhaps with US support) in order to avoid a UK trial now that Rauf was so evidently tortured, somehow arranged his escape all the way to aziristan where he was neatly dispatched with the precision guided support of a US drone.

This is utter rubbish if we were that good we would have packed up all the old files on that easily won war on terror years ago when we got Osama Bin Laden.

The rather more obvious possibility that a person;

charged with serious terrorism offences who has the charges dropped and his release ordered in the face of British requests (not granted) for extradition and then escapes in broad daylight in the face of Police Officers and then is not intercepted and makes it all the way to the Taleban Al Qaeda stronghold of tribal Waziristan, could not have done so without the connivance of Pakistani officials, almost certainly those in the taleban sympathising Islamist stuffed ISI.

This part of the report is I am afraid a real insult to the intelligence and the chain of reasoning that would allow you to follow the logic of these allegations could only be made by someone who was absolutely credulous, with absolutely no knowledge of Pakistan (not one imagines Ali Dayan Hassan the HRW South Asia researcher) or someone predisposed to seeing all wrongs as British.

Torture by Pakistani intelligence and police officials is ubiquitous and this is a serious threat to human rights and to our ability to successfully prosecute those terrorists accused of terrorist crimes that are themselves crimes against humanity.

We have to make sure that our officials are trained in the very difficult task of not colluding with officials who are known to be duplicitous and to use torture universally.

But given that an Islamist penetrated ISI often does not deal with us honestly and has its own agenda and knows our rules and limitations, I do not think that this is an easy task.

Certainly the reflex to accuse the British of torture in a case where the real story was more likely one of ‘even if the courts release you the UK will still demand your rearrest and extradition so we’ll rough you up a bit that way the British will never try and extradite you then we will get you ALL THE WAY TO SAFETY IN WAZIRISTAN.’

I am afraid to break it to HRW that Rauf’s apparent death (if he is dead) by drone missile is almost certainly coincidental.

If they seriously think otherwise then paranoid conspiracy theorising is more likely as an explanation for this case than anything else.

Given HRW’s record it’s appropriate that “everything it reports will be too easily dismissed.” If there is any validity to the story, it will be taken seriously when other NON-compromised HR agencies report on it.

Think of it like this: The National Enquirer’s reputation for “truth” and “fairness” is so bad that even when it gets a story right, it has to be validated by a serious news outfit before it’s believed. HRW is the National Enquirer of Human Rights NGOs.

Dave

You think you are being logical but you are not being that smart about it.

Physical duress might work in some people but it definitely does not in others.

Once instituted it becomes universal and noone ever questions its validity again as it so evidently successful.

So successful in fact that it uncovered every one of those witches executed for hundreds of years in Europe had been legally interrogated and tried and judicially executed had been tortured.

Everyone of them had confessed.

Some people will confess to anything whether tortured or not even the most heinous crimes attract willing culprits who confess for attention.

Most people, especially those least involved in terrorist offences will confess to anything under torture and will inform on anyone readily.

If we start to take as trustworthy evidence ‘the dirty work’ done by Pakistani torturers (given as I say that the ISI has its own often Islamist agenda) then we are fucked.

If you are happy to throw away our own society and our own criminal Justice system to become what our enemies say we are then I really don’t know what to say to you except you are wrong and it won’t work.

Torture is a testament to barbarism not forensic efficiency.

World Gone Mad: “Navy SEALs Face Assault Charges for Capturing Most-Wanted Terrorist” http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,576646,00.html

Anything less than a comfy chair, day release and flat screen tv and the wacko liberals will clap you in irons for breathing garlic breath over a terrorist killer.

Not buying it. Britain’s responsibility for torture in Pakistan ended at midnight on 14th August 1947. End of story.

BTW

In the case of Rauf I should add just how difficult it is to get from Islamabad to the Islamic emirate of Waziristan an autonomous entity outside of the four provinces of Pakistan proper.

It would be extremely difficult if not impossible to travel there as an ordinary citizen let alone fugitive.

As a fugitive in a mountainous area along the Afghanistan border with few access rds, an area of endless roadblocks and checkpoints that is heavily patrolled and policed by the Pakistan Army, Police and intelligence services, Rauf’s escape without the connivance of the intelligence services in most unlikely.

It might be “Cruel Britannia”, but that doesn’t seem to stop hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers (including those from Pakistan) from trying to get here.

Can’t be all that bad.

Live long and keep exposing dodgy organisations.

CookieCutter: I suspect there is more to the story of three Navy Seals being held for court-martial than there is in that story. Given that Fox News’ general creditbility is somewhere between that of the BBC and Al Jarzeea, it would be helpful if you could find that story on a more reputable network.

MMM, Bill M, Dave & Mettaculture: Thank you for your remarks especially Mettaculture’s statement about not trusting the ISI and the Islamist sympathies of too many of its officers. Remember without the ISI’s help in the 1990s, it is doubtful the Taliban would have spread beyong their home province.

MMM, what you propose does sound like a viable solution. As you point out, it would have to be proven in court that the country in question does use torture.

If that is Norm’s conclusion, this is a very serious matter indeed.

Because Norm is God.

But he is right here. Nachman is wrong. Nachman thinks that denigrating HRW because of its alleged anti-Israeli bias somehow let’s the government of the hook.

But we all know that for Decents, HP, and more so their hangers on, every human rights organisation is suspect: HRW, Amnesty International, various UN bodies, etc., etc. All these organisations are part of an ever burgeoning anti-Israeli conspiracy – there is an enemy around every corner.

That positioning is inevitable for Israeli nationalists. But its somewhat unfortunate. Perhaps its time for people like Nachman found a human rights organisation that is “politically correct”, politically vetted, so it does not cause offense.

It might be “Cruel Britannia”, but that doesn’t seem to stop hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers (including those from Pakistan) from trying to get here.

Which is beside the point. The HRW report is about complicity with torturing regimes – not about conditions in the UK. People want to come to the UK because it is relatively rich country; immigration and asylum is an entirely separate debate.

Not buying it. Britain’s responsibility for torture in Pakistan ended at midnight on 14th August 1947.

But clearly not its complicity, which is the issue here. Indeed, when the US, for example, subcontracts torture and mistreatment to another country, its precisely because the US does not want to be seen as directly responsible.

“David All
The basic question is: Do you support cooperating with the police agencies of countries who routinely use torture like Pakistan? If you are okay with British or American officials using agencies like the ISI to do the dirty work that the CIA/MI6/FBI/MI5 are forbidden by law from doing so, please say so.”

Basically. Yes. As a Governor of Texas once said about Capital Punishment in his State “If you want to rape and murder people; don’t do it in Texas”.
I think the bombing of German population centers during WWII, by the RAF and the USAAF was barbaric; but more than completely justified. Burning Germany babies with Magnesium and jellied gasoline was a perfectly defensible strategy to destroy the Nazi regime.
Not being a cultural Imperialist, I will not dictate to other nations how they deal with foreign born terrorists caught on their soil. For some reason David T, you appear to believe that you occupy the Moral high-ground and can look down on the imperfect mortals below and snipe at they accommodations with political reality.

For a start it should be illegal for our Politicians and other assorted Foreign Service Mandarins to have any contact with these torturing Nations at any level?

As we can see from some of the comments here, one of the saddest results of HRW’s recent foot-shooting is that everything it reports will be too easily dismissed.

A particularly amusing comment from Gene Zitver in which he confuses the comments at HP with the real world. Crocodile tears too; nationalism is at stake here.

The UN, Amnesty International, HRW, etc., etc, are all vilified, as nationalists retreat to their bunker with hands over their ears. What’s left? Who is left when NGOs and human rights are dismissed, along with the UN, and numerous governments? Talk about painting yourself into a corner.

It is not denigrating HRW for focussing on Israel but the fact that they have demonstrably been shown to fit the facts to a pre-conceived conclusion. As I said in one of my previous posts their wild accusations regarding the use of phospherous by the IDF were shown to have been false but that did not stop the Goldstone Inquiry using that flawed evidence and rejecting any evidence which was produced to the contrary. What has happened is the magic words “Human Rights” means that whatever they say appears to be accepted at face value when disturbingly even the founder of HRW believes that it is not performing to the remit for which it was created. I hold no brief for the British Government and it may be that it has been complicit in torture but having seen how HRW has handled the Israel/Arab conflict I am extremely wary of any report they produce and Mettaculture has done a good job of reinforcing that wariness.

The rather phlegmatic response to these allegations reveals the biases of Nachman and others; still, at least HP posted about it. The struggle for human rights is universal or it is nothing at all, even if it annoys nationalists of various stripes. Israeli nationalists share the blindspots of other nationalists – these are simply a function of nationalism itself.

But we all know that for Decents, HP, and more so their hangers on, every human rights organisation is suspect: HRW, Amnesty International, various UN bodies, etc., etc.

“What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you use it? To whom are you accountable? How do we get rid of you?”

The struggle for human rights is universal or it is nothing at all

Quite, so when NGOs focus on small scale Western infringements, or Israeli infringements, it begs the question why aren’t they issuing report after report about the regimes that use torture all the time, like, oh, I don’t know, the Arab countries, China, etc.? China executed two people yesterday for selling tainted milk, for chrissake. Where’s the outrage on that? Or does China get a free ride here because it’s ethnic/communist?

Its their culture, innit?

You can read umpteen reports on China from various human rights groups. I am sorry to disappoint chaps here, but the reason why reports on Israel are so well publicised is not because of some sort of grand antisemitic conspiracy but because the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has been put on the front burner for years now: the US,UK and other countries have spoken of its importance in the Middle East and more generally. Judging by its heavy coverage at HP too, this website seems to concur.

It’s an odd stance to take. Someone complains about Israel, and some other folk point at China. All rather silly: there are undoubted human rights violations in China, but those do not lessen anything going on in the Levant. The fact that China can get a ‘get out of jail free card’ (I don’t disagree that this can be the case) is unfortunate, but should not be used to offset violations elsewhere.

To be fair to HRW a quick glance at their web site does show lots of stuff about the worst abusers ie a report on China’s “black jails” is on the front page, quite right too. Also there is a report on abuses in Cuba.

http://www.hrw.org/en/home

The issue is as much how some parts of the media here like to concentrate on HRW reports about the West ie see the Guardian leading with this report today.

A good and detailed interview of Richard Goldstone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iya6reWxxg0

“The response has not been to deal with the substance of those allegations [in the report]. I have seen and read no detailed response in respect of the incidents on which we report… People hate being attacked. There is a knee jerk reaction to attack the messenger rather than the message.”

That’s it Amused because I am Israeli I am not entitled to hold an opinion which is contrary to your view.Yes I am biased when a so called human rights organisation is funded by a State which is actually apartheid and commits the worst kind of human rights abuses with impugnity. The reason why reports on Israel are so well publicised is with respect part of the plan to demonize and delegitimise the State of Israel. If you think that may sound paranoid it doesn’t mean to say it is not right. The fact is that Israel is the only country that the UNHRC deems appropriate to appoint a commission at the behest of the built Islamic majority to prove it has committed War Crimes – I never saw such a commission mooted when the Russinas were destroying Chechnya or when the US and the UK destroyed half of Iraq. Furthermore HRW has singled out Israel for a plethora of reports far more than any other country bar none. If you do not see the double standards at work here then you are blind!

Amused a good and detailed rebuttal of Richard Goldstone:

http://camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=1736

He was also rebutted by Dore Gold in open debate who destroyed most of his so called evidence. I do not think he is making the same quote as published by you any more.