Thursday, February 11, 2010

Sometimes Bad Things Just Happen To Bad People.

Given the recent trouble Amnesty have found themselves in over their championing of Guantanamo inmate Moazzam Begg, you'd think anyone with an iota of common sense would pause a moment before making Binyam Mohammed the next poster child for American brutality.

If he was treated in a manner that is illegal then it is wrong, but to make out that he was "in the wrong place at the wrong time", is absurd. There might be a plausible explanation for why an Ethiopian national was in Pakistan mingling with known jihadists but none seems to have been forthcoming.

It should be possible to argue that Guantanamo inmates have been treated unfairly without jumping to the conclusion that everyone who has spent time there is a cross between Nelson Mandela and Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

7 comments:

JuliaM said...

At least he didn't claim he went there to sample the delights of their famous naan breads...

Plato said...

And if you heard him on R5 yesterday - you'd be hard pressed to find him innocent.

James Higham said...

The accessible politics of the extreme.

wonderfulforhisage said...

It all boils down to, do means justify ends? If they do, then we and the Americans done good.

If they don't, then we and the Americans done bad.

When all is said and done; 'At the still point of the turning world, there, is the dance. And there is only the dance.'

HT: TSE

Anonymous said...

torture is torture is torture.
the kgb and the gestapo had their apologists as well

Ross said...

Julia- Or because of his love of cricket.

Plato- Didn't hear him.

wonderfulforhisage- That us the key.

Anon- You can object to the treatment of Binyan Mohammed without canonising him.

Dangerouslysubversivedad said...

Ross mate, Nelson Mandela *bad* example there. Convicted terrorist and all that.