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More live subtitling confusement. BBC News 24 has all the rollercoaster fun of high-speed simultaneous transcription for fully half an hour every hour, so the screw-up stakes are raised a bit. They didn’t let me down last night: among the ordinary, everyday errors (the woman who married a conman with a fake identity saying “I was stew stupid”; the police demanding to intern “terraced suspects”) came the startling news, over footage of protestors at the Chinese state visit to Buckingham Palace, that “Protestors were gang-raped on the wall”. I watched on, baffled, but the rest of the report simply went on to describe the ensuing uneventful diplomatic dinner. Then suddenly, with no preamble, a correction: “Protestors gathered on the Mall”.

More please, BBC.

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Chirac responds to ongoing rioting

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I recommend the wonderful and instructive Unsolicited Commercial Love Story.


(via the archive of Radosh.net)

Ve hef vays

Torture. It’s such an ugly word. That’s why, irrespective of the truth, it’s always best to dissociate yourself from it. People get so upset.

“We do not torture,” George Bush told reporters over the weekend. So that’s that cleared up.

The US Senate has passed legislation banning torture, but the walking heart attack () is trying to wangle an exemption for the CIA. Why would he do this if it doesn’t torture? Is it in case the CIA somehow becomes implicated in season 5 of 24? Is Kiefer Sutherland actually a CIA agent? No wonder he does the patter so well!

“Our country is at war and our government has the obligation to protect the American people,” George continued. "Any activity we conduct is within the law.” What, by definition?

(Our own Dear Leader, of course, has his own ways around the law. As he memorably said, “lawful and legitimate are not necessarily the same thing”. He happened to be talking about invading Iraq at the time, but any terrorist or bodysnatching animal rights activist would race to agree.)

The administration is strongly denying—and who could fail to believe a denial issued by this crowd?—that it set up interrogation camps in eastern Europe, just as it denied the CIA’s “ghost flights” transporting suspects around the world. My favourite example of the latter is the Syrian-born Canadian arrested as he arrived in New York, blindfolded, flown to Jordan and Syria, tortured and interrogated for about 10 months, and then dumped back in Canada without any warning, apology or hint of why he’d even been considered a suspect. Yet the fuck again: what would Americans think or do if Americans were being treated this way? Or, ultimately, does any of this only really matter if they’re white Americans? I'm never sure how this works.

At the heart of the CIA’s policy (though obviously not the White House’s, heavens no) appears to be a tacit acceptance that interrogation gained under torture is worth the mutilation and the smell of freshly fried flesh that accompanied it. This might not be true. What would you admit to, to get them to stop? Who would you implicate?

Using uncivilised states that still practise torture (often, at least in the Middle East, under the supervision of creepy British and American ex-army types) to do your torture-laundering for you should be as culpable as wielding the equipment yourself. But we’re living in a world of good guys/bad guys, and if it’s the good guys doing it, it can’t be wrong.

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PS: After Dispatches ran its extraordinary hidden-camera exposé of the illegal arms trade in Britain, with electroshock batons being sold to, for example, Saudi in full and certain knowledge of how they would be used (very effective when inserted into women drenched with water, if you fancy having a go at being a state-licensed torturer), the laws regarding the sale of weapons were tightened up in response.

However, stung by the fact that the documentary team had had the temerity to investigate this at all, the DTI tried to prosecute the makers for attempting to procure the weapons in question. After months of legal work and a truckload of money had been expended they dropped their case, but they had made their point. Michael Heseltine then rashly went on to describe the programme as shoddy journalism. The director sued for damages over this comment, and won. Victories against the machinery of government (especially the paramilitary wing of the Foreign Office, themselves fairly miffed over the programme) are, however, usually pretty Pyrrhic.

Feeling the draft

The Equality Bill currently trundling through the House of Lords is very specific. After Clause 45(1) has defined harassment on religious grounds as person A either violating person B's dignity or "creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for B", the next bit then states:

(3) Action by A shall be regarded as having the effect described in subsection (1)(a) or (b) only if it should reasonably be regarded as having that effect having regard to—

(a) B's perception, and
(b) all the other circumstances.

Excellent. I only like two kinds of cheese:

(a) Gouda, and
(b) all the other kinds of cheese.

Dance with me, Henry

One morning we went to one of the great institutions of the Bohemian Grove, the breakfast lecture given by Henry Kissinger. He was flanked by former President Bush and Jim Baker, Bush's secretary of state. (...) In 2002 Henry Kissinger's theme was Iraq. He agreed that after 9/11, pre-emptive action against threats to the nation's security could be justified. It was the beginning, he said, of a new era in international relations. It marked the end of a period inaugurated by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, one of the treaty's principles was the sanctity of national sovereignty: on this basis the modern nation-state had come into being.

Now, in certain circumstances, continued Kissinger, action violating a national frontier could be justified. (The historical reference, so typical of Kissinger, was appropriated by Tony Blair in a 2004 speech, when to the surprise of many to whom Blair the historian was a revelation, the prime minister referred to the Treaty of Westphalia.) This was prologue to Kissinger's saying that a war in Iraq could be justified.

But he set out three conditions: military action must be brought to a rapid and successful conclusion - a prolonged war would be very dangerous for America; the US had to get the diplomacy right; and it had to arrive in Baghdad with a clear plan for the succession to Saddam. It would be disastrous to begin debating a successor regime after deposing him.

Kissinger's standing was such that he continued to be consulted by the White House. When I told some of my closest contacts in Washington what he had said at the Grove, they took careful note. In the event, none of Kissinger's conditions was met.

DC Confidential, Christopher Meyer

I cut out a couple of lines up there that give a more rounded picture of the kind of atmosphere in which the leaders of the free world discuss our collective fates:

Part of the tradition is that Henry should be interrupted at the start of his talk by a mariachi band. This is apparently in homage to his weakness for Mexican music. As usual, after playing a tune, the band withdrew and Henry continued his talk.