10 October 2006

Call me suspicious

Or possibly just cynical or paranoid.

In a pre-trial hearing for two men accused of leaking a memo of meeting in which George Bush is alleged to suggest that al-Jazeera should be bombed a judge has ruled that the trials is to be held in camera. In his ruling the judge stated that he accepted the government's argument that to disclose the contents of the memo would have a "detrimental impact" on trans-Atlantic "diplomatic and political relations".

Of course it would. I the memo is accurate it probably contains an admission of war crimes by Bush. Al-Jazeera offices were subsequently struck by American ordinance and destroyed.

Of course if George Bush is a war criminal who can charge him and hold him accountable? He's already designed internal US legislation to ensure that he and his cronies are exempted from prosecution for torture. The US has also exempted itself from the International Criminal Court.

So what is it they wish to hide?

Note: I was just looking at a list of the countries that are party to the ICC or perhaps more accurately looking at the countries that are not party to it. The US is surrounded by illustrious company; a veritable who's who of free and open societies including:

Algeria
Angola
Azerbaijan
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Belarus
Brunei
Cameroon
Chad
China
Côte d'Ivoire
Cuba (one of our favourites!)
Egypt
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Grenada (didn't the US invade them once?)
Haiti (didn't the US invade them more than once?)
India
Indonesia
Iran (another favourite!)
Iraq (didn't the US invade them twice?)
Israel
Japan
Kazakhstan
Korea, North (have they been in the news lately?)
Kuwait (didn't the US invade because of them once?)
Kyrgyzstan
Laos
Lebanon
Libya
Madagascar
Malaysia
Moldova
Morocco
Mozambique
Myanmar
Nepal
Pakistan
Philippines
Qatar (they want to buy my water!)
Russia
Rwanda
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
Somalia
Sri Lanka
Sudan
Syria
Taiwan
Thailand
Tunisia
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Ukraine
United States
Uzbekistan
Vietnam (didn't the US invade them once?)
Western Sahara
Yemen
Zimbabwe

Welcome to the axis of freedom!

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