Tuesday, October 20, 2009

"We are not pleased"

The Obama administration reacts with royal displeasure over a British court rejecting claims that the Americans will withdraw intelligence cooperation if its revealed that, among other things, interrogators took scalpels to a detainee's genitals in Guantanamo.
Today's Guardian calls the Court's ruling "a devastating judgment," reporting that the "judges roundly dismissed the foreign secretary's claims that disclosing the evidence would harm national security and threaten the UK's vital intelligence-sharing arrangements with the US." The article also notes that the Court simply did not believe that the Obama administration would follow through on these threats, but instead issued them only at the behest of British officials, who needed a pretext for ongoing concealment.

The Obama administration, The Most Transparent Ever, condemns the British court decision to reveal what was done to Mohamed:

Meanwhile, US State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said: "We are not pleased", adding that Washington kept such information confidential "to protect our own citizens".

Canadians will be familiar with the 'you're risking our intelligence gathering!' argument from security über alles apologists in the Canadian media bemoaning that our government can't even imprison and torment people with vaguely justified security certificates because if we reveal the abusive methods used to get information used to target these individuals then the cool kids will take their toys and go home and the Americans will never play with us again.

It's crap and Canadians should have nothing but contempt for the argument.

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