David Knopfler Blog

Somewhat political observations

Sunday, February 26, 2006

To euphemize isn't wise.

Tony Blair has announced in today's Observer that he's not illiberal. Whether Tony Blair cares to admit it or not, the fact is, sadly, his appetite for authoritarian positions is a matter of record and repeatedly so. Spinning the accusation to something it isn't and partially defending those aspects he prefers to, is effortless work for a trained lawyer like Blair. Personally I've had enough of it... time's up. Who, going to watch "Goodnight and Good-luck" could seriously imagine Blair understanding, or acting to protect the issues those journalists held dear? That junior senator from Wisconsin on the other hand?.. To euphemize the illegal detention and torture of detainees at Guantanamo as "an anomaly" year after year will not wash and shouldn't. As Martin Luther King put it, "a right delayed is a right denied." Does Blair also think the Bellmarsh detainees an anomaly? By their deeds... and Blair's principle deed, or rather misdeed, however forced he believed his hand to be, was undoubtedly his intemperate alignment to the US Neo-Con' agenda in Iraq, the upshot of which is a profoundly racist, profoundly ignorant PM swept into power in Iran ... always a bigger threat to vested western interests in the middle east than Iraq. Eisenhower had a position on illegal detention - quoted in the aforementioned movie - - he said "We are proud because from the beginning of this nation man can walk upright. No matter who he is or who she is. He can walk upright and meet his friend or his enemy and he does not fear that because that enemy may be in a position of great power that he can be suddenly thrown in jail to rot here without charges and with no recourse to justice. We have the Habeas Corpus Act and we respect it."