UK a Police State, ….what does that make us?

From TimesOnline

“Since I have retired I feel more at liberty to be against certain decisions of the Government, especially the attempt to pass laws which interfere with people’s privacy…” “….It would be better that the Government recognised that there are risks, rather than frightening people in order to be able to pass laws which restrict civil liberties, which is precisely one of the objects of terrorism: that we live in fear and under a police state.”

Dame Stella Rimington, the former head of MI5

Dame Stella said that America was even more to blame and had acted as a recruiting sergeant for extremists, through harsh anti-terror measures that have been accused of breaching human rights law.

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) found that “many states have fallen into a trap set by terrorists”, by introducing anti-terrorism measures which undermined the very values they sought to protect. Many such measures were imposed on a temporary basis but ended up becoming permanent features of law and practice, it said. It condemned the use of torture, disappearances, and arbitrary and secret detention.

More from the ICJ

“The United States, one of the world’s leading democracies, has adopted measures to counter terrorism that are inconsistent with established principles of international humanitarian law and human rights law,” said the panel in its 199-page report.

….

The report said the U.S. government applies rules of war to situations without armed conflict and that in cases of real combat it “distorts, selectively applies and ignores otherwise binding rules” of international humanitarian law, which includes the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of warfare.

“The panel has no doubt that there is a real and substantial threat from terrorism in different parts of the world and that governments are under a duty to take effective measures to counter that threat,” the report said. “That does not mean that well-established principles of international law can or should be ignored.”

“It was particularly disturbing to learn in many hearings that governments in other parts of the world are relativizing or justifying their own wrongdoing by comparisons with the U.S.”

Yoo and Bybee are …finally…under fire. More people are speaking out as the fear of Bushco ends. The story of Gitmo guard Brandon Neely. still has the power to shock, even with all we know. And the American People are calling for investigations.

As the tyrants power fades, a great unraveling has begun. Perhaps, just perhaps, the great unraveling will lead to a full disclosure of all of the excesses of the Global War on Terra, and maybe even accountability. The first step in creating a sane world….especially as it would curtail…or perhaps even end, the power of the Right Wing to impose it’s own fantasy world over the grim realities we face. If they are revealed as the criminals that all of the evidence shows them to be….Maybe then we can finally make some Progress in addressing the challenges that face the human race in a non-insane fashion.

Cross yer fingers ….and Yell Louder!