After the Secretaries of State for Home and Away, Mr Johnson and Johnson and Mr Millipede, assumed what can only be described as the "Ms Mandy Rice-Davies position", it fell to the Head of MI6 and former Chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Sir John "Captain" Scarlet, to DENY EVERYTHING.
Agent Scarlet: We always stick to our principles.
Sinister BBC Questioner: Meaning we don't torture?
Agent Scarlet: We do not torture!
Sinister BBC Questioner: and we're not complicit in torture?
Agent Scarlet: Um, er, um, well, er, no, no we're not, as it we're, um complicit, um no. Sorry.
He's hardly likely to win a round of "Call My Bluff" let alone defend the Secrets of the Nation from a determined interrogator from Pakistan, Morocco or, um, Americaland, is he?
Seriously, is there ANYONE who DOESN'T at least vaguely SUSPECT that we are up to our fluffy NECKS in complicity with the torture of British and former Gitmo resident Mr Binyam Mohammed?
Oh it could all be an enormous COINCIDENCE, couldn't it? By an incredible MISCHANCE, British MI5 agents JUST HAPPENED to be in the cell in Pakistan asking him questions BETWEEN some rather unpleasant bouts of what they no doubt innocently assumed to be physical exercise.
And then by a truly ASTOUNDING stroke of misfortune, one of the same agents was merely passing by in Morocco during what can only have been some dreadful misunderstanding with the electrical contractors. Three times.
Other
"We are resolutely opposed to it, and that remains the case," said Mr Benny firmly, before completely undermining that with his Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Card (not applicable in Pakistan, Morrocco, etc): "Other countries, they're responsible for what they do, but the position of the British government is absolutely clear."
Translation: it's not OUR fault.
And Mr Dr Kim was even less SUBTLE:
"We can't give a guarantee, and no government on earth can give a guarantee that somebody who's picked up and held in another country hasn't had their... human rights abused in some way."
No, you can't guarantee that no one will be tortured. More is the pity. But if you had an OUNCE of HONOUR what you COULD guarantee is that you would NAME and SHAME any Government up to and including our own, that uses even by extension torture; you could guarantee to refuse sharing of intelligence with such regimes, because exchanging OUR intelligence for the PROBABLY-WORSE-THAN-USELESS products of forcing someone to say what they think you want to hear is just pouring resources down the very-unsanitary TOILET.
You could even, my goodness, INTERVENE to try and put a STOP to it! If you know someone is in a cell with the man in the rubber apron, send in the ambassador; if you realise that the unscheduled aeroplane en route from Talibaptistland to Talibanland via a British airstrip is probably extraordinarily rendering someone, stop it taking off again.
Freedom, prosperity, human rights, not being EXPLODED, not being TORTURED. These are the things that we are SUPPOSED to have on offer, instead of the certainties of a theocratic tyranny.
Can we PLEASE try and remember that.
Remember: Captain Scarlet's feeble excuses are indestructible; yours are not. Do not try to imitate him.
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