Tuesday, March 03, 2009
The torture of the Special Relationship
The half-hour meeting between Brown and Obama (which will demonstrate to the world how special is Our UK Relationship with the USA) is billed to be on world economic affairs.
Given President Obama’s praise of The Blair Poodle Project it is perhaps too much to hope that Obama will actually use some of the time to discuss at least one torturous special relationship – namely the shaming mess on torture of terror suspects in which the UK has some urgent questions to answer. .
It is just possible to believe that Obama has so far refrained from letting in the light on his predecessors actions because key US Allies such as the UK are so deeply implicated that the truth would cause huge political upheavals in those countries. The diplomatic repercussions of the truth could be profound.
One way to prepare for an outbreak of open revelations by the USA would be to have face-to face meeting with the person most at risk to prepare him for the inevitable. This current meeting is Obama’s chance to do that. If he does not, we can begin to wonder whether the cover-up on the Bush torture agenda is actually current US administration policy.
For a really excellent summary of the Special Relationship and the European dimension see the ever-thoughtful Cicero.
Given President Obama’s praise of The Blair Poodle Project it is perhaps too much to hope that Obama will actually use some of the time to discuss at least one torturous special relationship – namely the shaming mess on torture of terror suspects in which the UK has some urgent questions to answer. .
It is just possible to believe that Obama has so far refrained from letting in the light on his predecessors actions because key US Allies such as the UK are so deeply implicated that the truth would cause huge political upheavals in those countries. The diplomatic repercussions of the truth could be profound.
One way to prepare for an outbreak of open revelations by the USA would be to have face-to face meeting with the person most at risk to prepare him for the inevitable. This current meeting is Obama’s chance to do that. If he does not, we can begin to wonder whether the cover-up on the Bush torture agenda is actually current US administration policy.
For a really excellent summary of the Special Relationship and the European dimension see the ever-thoughtful Cicero.
Labels: Obama, special relationship, Torture, UK, USA
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