Robert Sharp

Pupil Barrister

Tag: Human Rights (Page 37 of 40)

The Torture Question, Honed to a Fine Point

20 August 2008 / / 2 Comments

A while ago, I wrote about how interesting it is to watch small pieces of information, and bite-sized opinions on a blog, coalesce into longer pieces of ‘propoer’ journalism, for wider consumption in print. I cited Andrew Sullivan as the most obvious purveyor this technique.
The issue of the Bush Administration’s morally dubious approach to the torture of detainees is something that Sullivan has been pursuing for months on The Daily Dish, collecting and documenting the various admissions, euphamisms and subtle shifts of language that the American goverment have employed when asked, or confronted. His post yesterday, juxtaposing the ordeal of John McCain in Vietnam, with the situation of current detainees caught up in the so-called war on terror, seems to me to be the culmination of months of blogging:

The torture that was deployed against McCain emerges in all the various accounts. It involved sleep deprivation, the withholding of medical treatment, stress positions, long-time standing, and beating. Sound familiar?
According to the Bush administration’s definition of torture, McCain was therefore not tortured.

How does the President answer that one? Dodging it, lying, or employing another euphamism, would simply call down a rain-storm of fact-checkers, pointing out the contradictions.
Alternatively, he could simply admit that the USA does torture. The worry here is that such an admission might actually be endorsed by a large proportion of the punditocracy, the politicians, and the public, a frightening thought. Its a can-of-worms, cat-out-of-the-bag type question. Are we ready for the answer?

Caucus Conflict I: Right and Wrong

15 August 2008 / / 2 Comments

The media’s chosen narrative on the conflict in the Caucuses, is that Georgia is the victim of unwarranted agression by Russia. Putin and his oligarchy are flexing their muscles, and the war in Iraq has meant that the USA looks hypocritical when it condemns Russia’s military incursions. Meanwhile, the Right-wing media in America are enjoying re-playing the cold war, casting Russia as a marauding menace.
But then ‘second-day’ stories appear – about alleged atrocities comitted by Georgia in South Ossetia. Saakashvili is no saint. Over at the Progress blog, Stan Rosenthal suggests that Russia was right to come to the aid of the suppressed Ossetians.
This, however, seems to be going to far:

The Georgians have now reaped the whirlwind of what they had sown … I have no sympathy whatsoever for them.

This seems to be falling into a similar rhetorical trap that ensnared a lot of the commentary regarding Israel’s bombardment of the Lebanon in 2006 – the base need to take sides. Then, we saw the uneasy spectacle of people glorifying the Hezbollah’s ‘repulsion’ of Israel. Then, we heard people arguing that Israel’s right to defend itself some how justified collective punishment of the civilian populations of Gaza and Lebanon. We make similar mental calculations when considering the current conflict in Georgia: We need to make sense of it all, and for this we feel the need to establish who is in the right, and then scramble for the moral high-ground. But in both examples, it may actually be that both sides are wrong.
A second trap is to equate the citizens with the decision-makers. It is Georgia’s political class who have sown the seeds of the conflict, but it is Georgia’s peasants who are suffering as a result.
I don’t suppose making these distinctions really helps those under attack, or who have been killed or displaced. But it does imply that a pragmatic solution may be the best option. Wars usually occur when the chance to make a moral case has been bypassed, forfeited, lost. Forging a quick compromise will undoubtedly leave many with the sense that injustice has prevailed… but I would argue that purely in humanitarian terms, any cease-fire is better than none.

Update

In an OpenDemocracy article The Miscalculation of Small Nations, Fred Halliday makes this point in more detail:

Where Georgia itself is concerned, the lesson can be summed up in a phrase: pity (and of course help) the Georgians, but condemn their leaders. For if most western governments and commentators have focused on the high politics and historical echoes of the conflict – from Russia’s excessive military response to the implications for Georgia’s entry into Nato, from the role of the United States to echoes of Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1968 – less attention than is warranted has been paid to Tbilisi’s contribution to the disaster.

He also discusses the narrow nationalism which is a cause of the conflict.

The Emir's Third Way

13 August 2008 / / 0 Comments

Here’s a dilemma: The Emir of Kuwait has to decide whether his own cousin should be executed for drug smuggling.
To grant a pardon would seriously undermine the rule of law in what is supposed to be a constitutional monarchy. But to allow the execution would obviously cause terrible distress to other members of the Royal Family (and, one presumes, the Emir himself). Such a precedent would also worry other Royal Families around the Middle East, says The Times.
But the Emir has a third way, which is to place a moratorium on executions alogther. Often, draconian laws are enacted because those with power assume “it would never happen to me”. They only change their minds when the unthinkable happens.
In other execution news, Andrew points us to ExecutedToday.com, a blog dedicated to the anniversaries of notable executions. It is fascinating and macabre, but commemorates events we would do well not to forget.

On 'Open Source Campaigning'

26 June 2008 / / 1 Comment

Yesterday at the Blog Nation Event, Dan Hardie gave an account of his experiences running his Iraqi Interpreters campaign. He mentioned my post on Open Source Campaigning, but said he thought that ‘open source’ wasn’t an appropriate label, because you need a heirarchy and a leader to run an effective campaign.
To clarify, I’m not sure that the ideas of ‘leadership’ and ‘open source’ are mutually exclusive. Open Source coding projects tend to have a core team of dedicated developers, but individual tasks to code are farmed out to volunteers. Likewise with Jay Rosen’s ‘open source journalism’ – an editor or lead journalist still writes up the piece, but dozens or hundreds of other journalists are able to perform the many discrete pieces of research required.
So it is with Open Source Campaigning. You still need someone like Dan to lead the campaign and make strategic decisions, but the leg-work can be decimated if the lobbying or writing to individual MPs is shared throughout the network.

Cross-posted at the Liberal Conspiracy website.

A Matter of Principle?

13 June 2008 / / 8 Comments

I initially welcomed the news that David Davis had resigned in protest at Parliament’s assent to allowing pre-charge detention to be extended to 42 days. Its a travesty of a vote – anything to keep the debate alive. Most left-leaning types I spoke with were cynical about his motives, and sank into ad hominems about the man and his other policies (such as support for the death penalty), which in their view rendered anything else he did obviously suspect. However, leaning my head against the train window late last night, watching the illuminated Palace of Westminster recede, reflected in the glass, I wondered if there wasn’t too much cynicism in the world, and that for once we should take a politician at face value.
Today, however, I’m more cynical, after reading in Hansard David Davis arguing for an increase in pre-charge detention times, from 14 to 28 days:

That is why my hon. Friends made it clear in Committee that we agree with the Government that the current 14-day limit is too brief and propose its extension to 28 days. I believe that that proposal will find widespread support among Members around the House, including on the Government Benches.

(via Jennie and Matt). True, Davis goes on to suggest that the 90 day limit was too long. Regardless, his stance in 2005 was surely no less an attack on habeus corpus. It makes no sense for Davis to be lamenting the demise of the Magna Carta now.
Indeed, yesterday he said:

Because the generic security argument relied on will never go away – technology, development complexity, and so on – we’ll next see 56 days, 70 days, then 90 days.

The problem is, many people argued this precise point as a reason to oppose the extention to 28 days! The argument then was “first 28 days, then 42 days, then 56 days” ad nauseum, ad absurdum. It is precisely because of Davis earlier capitulation to 28 days, that 42 days has become feasible. The same Bill would not have passed in 2005.
We are witnessing the boiling of the frog, David, and you were complicit in turning up the heat.

Update

Here’s David Davis on Question Time, being asked whether he supports Habeas Corpus or not. His answer is a terrible fudge:

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2026 Robert Sharp

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑