This entry was posted on
Thursday, January 19th, 2006 at
9:32 am and is filed
under It’s War! It’s Legal! It’s Lovely!.

News reports:

BBC – Memo stokes ‘terror flights’ row
Scotsman – Memo points to more ‘rendition’ flights
Guardian – Torture flights: what No 10 knew and tried to cover up
Independent – Leaked memo reveals ‘torture flights cover-up’

Lotsa details and links and files and stuff:

BlairWatch – New Extraordinary Rendition Memo: Have the Lying Liars been Caught in the Lies they Tell?
CuriousHmaster – Extraordinary Obfuscation

The whole thing in a nutshell:

While Jack Straw was telling us that this issue was so very, very serious that it would be absurd to suggest that he (or Blair, or Condi) was being less-than-honest about it… he considered the issue to be so ‘serious’ that he actually formed a policy for being less-than-honest about it.

And I want to know just what the hell we can expect the ‘opposition’ to do about it!

Contact details for Sir Menzies Campbell
Contact details for David ‘wait them out’ Cameron

PS – Here you go… you’ll need this in the coming days when Straw tries to switch the focus to how difficult it is to prove a negative:
Why Jack Straw does not enjoy the privilege of plausible deniability.

UPDATE – Telegraph – Straw urged to come clean on torture flights: Prime Minister Tony Blair’s official spokesman said: “Jack Straw dealt the matter of rendition in his statement of December 12. It was a comprehensive statement. Anything we do in relation to rendition is in compliance with our international obligations. We fulfil our legal obligations. This is a classic case where people have got over excited by getting a leaked memo, rather than actually reading the content of it.” The leaked memo, written in early December, appears to be a primer to help Mr Blair deal with questions about rendition.

Ah, yes…. content and context. Let’s put this content into context, shall we?

UK committed to international law, insists Straw (Jan 16): “I want to set this out as plainly as possible. This Government is committed absolutely to our obligations under United Kingdom and international law,” Straw said at the opening of a two-day conference on transnational terrorism in London. If we want to be seen to deliver justice and offer a stronger and better world view than that of the terrorist, we have to be seen to stand by our values and our strengths. We have to show that when it comes to counter-terrorism we practice what we preach,” he said.

Yes, the rule of law… as interpreted by Jack. But this is my very favourite bit:

“… we have to be seen to stand by our values and our strengths. We have to show that when it comes to counter-terrorism we practice what we preach.”

What is seen. What is shown. There’s nothing in there about what actually gets done, now is there?