Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Unspeakable Truths

A suspected war criminal arrived at Heathrow airport today. He is charged with breaching Article 4 of the Geneva Convention. A UK court has issued a warrant for his arrest under the Geneva Conventions Act, a UK law passed in 1957. This man was tipped off by officials from his government before he left the aircraft and chose to remain onboard rather than face arrest. The UK security services did not board the plane, made no attempt to arrest the suspect, and allowed the aircraft to leave with the wanted man still on board.

Shocking. Unless he's an Israeli general. Hey guy, don't panic, this is Britain. If you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear.

Perhaps we don't need tougher new laws to fight terrorism. Perhaps we just need to be a bit less disgustingly hypocritical.

Just to add an extra layer of bitter irony, I saw the general on Channel 4 News justifying his refusal to defend himself in a UK court of law. He used lots of interesting phrases and language but when it comes right down to it he basically said "you can't charge me for this, I was only following orders".

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