Uponnothing.co.uk

‘It’s absurd. It’s an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that promotes freedom around the world.’ President George Bush

‘Frankly, I was offended by it, for Amnesty international to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator if human rights, I frankly just don’t take them seriously.’ Vice President Dick Cheney

These statements of unbelievable ignorance have been made in response to Amnesty Internationals criticisms of America’s prison camp for terror ’suspects’ at Guantanamo Bay. That they have been made - and backed up in the general media response - shows just how arrogant the administration has become; but the real tragedy is that this arrogance is born out of experience. The large majority of the American public are so stupid, so utterly brainwashed by the neo-conservative bile vomited by the media, that they will take these comments at face value - and probably join in the condemnation of the report without even knowing who Amnesty International are.

As much as I despise the United States, and what it represents, I realise that a lot of Americans are not like this, and I do not wish to tar them with the same brush. Furthermore, nor do I wish to continue the myth that somehow, Britain and the British are any different. The current American imperialism through ‘humanitarian’ intervention is being mirrored and supported by Blair, and the nature of maintaining a financial empire through military intervention is as British as Sunday cricket. Similarly the ignorance of reality is also a very British problem, and many problems we highlight with the American Media are true with our own media.

Britain has long been able to blame America’s cultural imperialism for anything from rising obesity rates, to the increased obsession with celebrity and reality programs in the UK. However, blame - regardless of whether it is right or wrong - is not going to make any difference to the reality of the situation, and the reality is that we in Britain have become largely an ignorant and despicable society. We have for many years revelled in the myth that we are a nation who won the Second World War for the sake of a better world, and consoled ourselves with the illusion that we have been supporting the same principles since then. These delusions are as powerful and destructive as those delusions spouted by Bush and Cheney, so if we want to be able to criticise them, then we have to also recognise our own delusions. It will be interesting to see if Tony Blair passes any comment on the Amnesty International report, as we can only imagine that he would condemn the report, as he seems to clearly believe in the American cause - and has of course increased his own powers over the public here in the UK.

Amnesty International’s report must be taken seriously, and it must raise some sensible discussion within the political bodies in America and the UK. We cannot allow Bush and Cheney to get away with their outrageous dismissals of the report, their arrogance and ignorance must be highlighted by a real discussion of a report that only really adds to the general knowledge that to hold someone without trial, for an indefinite period is an abuse of their human rights. Tony Blair and George Bush justify these prisons as essential to the war on terror and maintain that those held pose a serious threat to our societies; yet surely if this was true then bringing them to trial would lead to conviction, satisfying their desire to imprison these people, and our desire that they should face trial. It seems to be the case that increasing numbers of people - in the US and the UK - are being held without any evidence whatsoever, and thereby they cannot face trial as they would be released by any sane court. It seems a gross failure of justice that in this situation criminal proceedings have not been brought in any case, not against the majority of those held in Guantanamo Bay, nor against George Bush and Tony Blair, those responsible for the illegal holding of those ‘suspects’.

As George Bush himself highlighted in an incredible statement not long after the above comments on the Russian trial of former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky: ‘Here, you’re innocent until proven guilty and it appeared to us, at least people in my administration, that he had been ajudged guilty prior to having a fair trial.’ Well then George, I guess the hundreds of people locked in Guantanamo Bay must have slipped your mind.