"Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. . . . America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world." ~ George W. Bush, address to the nation, September 11, 2001

"They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other." ~ George W. Bush, address to Congress, September 20, 2001.

Of all the lies of the Bush administration used to justify the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this one has proven to be the most enduring - and the most wrong.

According to a 2004 report on strategic communication prepared by the Defense Science Board Task Force, "a federal advisory committee established to provide independent advice to the secretary of defense":

American direct intervention in the Muslim World has paradoxically elevated the stature of and support for radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single-digits in some Arab societies.

Muslims do not "hate our freedom," but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf states.

Furthermore, in the eyes of Muslims, American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering. U.S. actions appear in contrast to be motivated by ulterior motives, and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim self-determination.

Therefore, the dramatic narrative since 9/11 has essentially borne out the entire radical Islamist bill of particulars. American actions and the flow of events have elevated the authority of the Jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims. Fighting groups portray themselves as the true defenders of an Ummah (the entire Muslim community) invaded and under attack - to broad public support.

A 2006 National Intelligence Estimate concluded that the war in Iraq increased the threat of terrorism rather than reduced it. "Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States" points out the "centrality" of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in fomenting terrorist cells and attacks and describes how the American presence in Iraq has helped spread radical Islam by providing a focal point for anti-Americanism.

According to Michael Scheuer, who headed the CIA's bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999: "In the long run, we're not safer because we're still operating on the assumption that we're hated because of our freedoms, when in fact we're hated because of our actions in the Islamic world. There's our military presence in Islamic countries, the perception that we control the Muslim world's oil production, our support for Israel and for countries that oppress Muslims such as China, Russia, and India, and our own support for Arab tyrannies."

Why They Hate Us

Cabinet Office minister Oliver Letwin has admitted dumping government documents in park bins near No 10.

He was photographed by the Daily Mirror disposing of private letters and government papers over five days.

The paper claims more than 100 were thrown away including correspondence on terrorism, national security and other government business.

Mr Letwin acknowledged he sometimes disposed of copies of letters in the park but denied they were "sensitive".

The minister, who is in charge of developing government policies, was seen in several separate images throwing paperwork in waste bins near Downing Street.

On one occasion the West Dorset MP was captured handing documents to a cleaner holding a bag.

'Personal and confidential'

The Mirror claimed one document described how Parliament's intelligence and security committee (ISC) - which examines the work of MI5 and MI6 and GCHQ - "failed to get the truth" on Britain's involvement in extraordinary rendition.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15301859

Scotland Yard has opened a criminal investigation into secret MI6 rendition operations that resulted in leading Libyan dissidents being abducted and flown to Tripoli where they were subsequently tortured in Muammar Gaddafi's prisons.

The announcement came as police and the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, said there was insufficient evidence to prosecute any individual MI5 or MI6 officers following lengthy investigations into allegations of British complicity in the torture of terrorism suspects in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The new investigation is to focus on Abdul Hakim Belhaj and Sami al-Saadi, who lodged complaints with the police last November after the chance discovery of a cache of classified documents in an abandoned Libyan government office laid bare the role that MI6 played in their rendition.

Saadi was detained in Hong Kong in 2004 and then forced on to a plane to Tripoli with his wife and four children in an operation that MI6 mounted in co-operation with Gaddafi's intelligence chief, Moussa Koussa. Saadi says he suffered years of torture.

Belhaj was detained in Bangkok along with his pregnant wife after an MI6 tip-off, and allegedly tortured by American agents for several days before being flown to Tripoli where he says he was tortured and detained for several years. His wife, who was detained for several months, has not spoken publicly about the manner in which she was treated.

British officials have not sought to deny the involvement of MI6 in either rendition. Instead, they have stressed that each resulted from what they describe as "ministerially authorised government policy", raising the possibility that the new Yard inquiry will require the questioning of ministers of the last Labour government.

In addition, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service announced that they were establishing a joint panel that would examine other allegations of UK complicity in torture and rendition levelled by a number of former Guantánamo inmates and others detained in the so-called war on terror. These complainants include Shaker Aamer, the last British resident still held at Guantánamo.

The panel will decide whether the allegations should be examined first by the official inquiry that was established by David Cameron 18 months ago, and which is waiting to start hearing evidence, or whether police should investigate immediately.

A statement issued on Thursday by Starmer and Lynne Owens, an assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police, said the panel would consider "whether there is any significant risk that any available evidence would not be available or would be weakened" if an investigation did not take place immediately, or whether "the allegation in question is so serious that it is in the public interest to investigate it now".

This panel advised on the Libyan cases, and the police decided that "the allegations raised in the two specific cases concerning the alleged rendition of named individuals to Libya and the alleged ill-treatment of them in Libya are so serious that it is in the public interest for them to be investigated now rather than at the conclusion of the detainee inquiry".

Scotland Yard detectives have spent 30 months investigating allegations that the UK's intelligence agencies had become so close to the torture inflicted by overseas governments that their officers had committed serious criminal offences.

One inquiry, codenamed Operation Hinton, focused on the events surrounding MI5's interrogation of Binyam Mohamed in May 2002, several weeks after he had been detained in Pakistan, and later events in Morocco.

Proceedings brought on Mohamed's behalf showed that MI5 knew he was being mistreated before an officer was sent to Karachi to question him.

The CPS decided more than a year ago that that officer - identified only as Witness B - should not face charges, but Operation Hinton continued while detectives pursued what Starmer described as a "wider investigation into other potential criminal conduct". This involved attempting to trace responsibility for Witness B's actions up MI5's chain of command and beyond.

The investigation showed that "members of the Security Service provided information to the US authorities about Mr Mohamed and supplied questions for the US authorities to put to Mr Mohamed while he was being detained between 2002 and 2004", the statement said. However, the CPS has also concluded that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute any individual on the basis that they "knew or ought to have known that there was a real or serious risk that Mr Mohamed would be exposed to ill treatment amounting to torture".

The statement added: "Nothing in this decision should be read as concluding that the ill-treatment alleged by Mr Mohamed did not take place or that it was lawful."

A second investigation, codenamed Operation Iden, concentrated on events in 2002 at Bagram airfield north of Kabul, where the US military had established a prison, and where both MI5 and MI6 officers interrogated a number of suspects after being given written instruction from London that "the law does not require you to intervene to prevent" the mistreatment they were witnessing.

That investigation was triggered after MI6 referred one of its own officers to the attorney general in September 2009.

"The offences considered were aiding and abetting torture, aiding and abetting war crimes, false imprisonment, aiding and abetting assault, and misconduct in public office," the statement said.

That investigation foundered on unsuccessful attempts to take a statement from a particular individual who was said to have been mistreated in the presence of an MI6 interrogator. It is thought that this was because it was not possible to be certain about the identity of the individual.

In addition, US officials who were thought to have been present refused to be interviewed by police.

"On the account that has been given by the member of the Secret Intelligence Services and taking into account all other available evidence, there is insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of convicting him of any criminal offence," the statement concluded.

It is unclear when the official inquiry, chaired by Sir Peter Gibson, a former appeal court judge, will begin hearing evidence. In a statement on Thursday, the inquiry panel said: "The detainee inquiry panel will now carefully consider its next steps and Sir Peter Gibson will make an announcement in due course."

Most major human rights groups are boycotting the inquiry, claiming that it will be too secretive and is insufficiently independent of government, but the Foreign Office is mounting a renewed effort to persuade them back on board.

The head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, said he welcomed the decision not to charge any of his officers at the conclusion of the twin investigations and said that the "courageous individual" at the centre of Operation Iden would now be able to continue his work in support of national security.

He added that MI6 would co-operate with the Libyan investigations. "It is in the service's interest to deal with the allegations being made as swiftly as possible so we can draw a line under them and focus on the crucial work we now face in the future."

Detectives are thought to have already begun examining the documentation that was uncovered in Tripoli last month by an investigator with Human Rights Watch, the New York-based NGO.

The documents will also form the basis of civil claims that Saadi and Belhaj and their families are bringing against the British government.

It is not yet clear which ministers may have authorised the secret Libyan rendition operations in the way that well-placed Whitehall sources have asserted.

After the documents were discovered, Tony Blair, who was prime minister at the time, insisted he knew nothing about them. Similarly, Jack Straw, who was then foreign secretary, said in a radio interview: "The position of successive foreign secretaries, including me, is that we were opposed to unlawful rendition, opposed to torture or similar methods and not only did we not agree with it, we were not complicit in it, nor did we turn a blind eye to it." He added: "No foreign secretary can know all the details of what ... intelligence services are doing at any one time."

Shortly after Blair and Straw issued their denials, Sir Richard Dearlove, who was head of MI6 at the time, said: "It was a political decision, having very significantly disarmed Libya, for the government to co-operate with Libya on Islamist terrorism. The whole relationship was one of serious calculation about where the overall balance of our national interests stood."

The year after the joint UK-Libyan operations were mounted, Straw told MPs they must disbelieve allegations of UK involvement in rendition "unless we all start to believe in conspiracy theories and that the officials are lying, that I am lying, that behind this there is some kind of secret state which is in league with some dark forces in the United States".

Asked following Dearlove's statement whether he still maintained that he was unaware of the Libyan rendition operations, and whether he knew which ministers Dearlove could be referring to, Straw said he had no further comment to make.

Blair also declined to make any further comment.

Police To Investigate MI6 Over Rendition And Torture Of Libyans

nearby ....

Cynics might suggest that there was no way that a member of the British security services was ever going to be brought to trial over allegations that the UK colluded in the mistreatment of terrorism suspects in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya. But there is more to it than simply a security establishment anxious to avoid lengthy and embarrassing court proceedings prying into institutions which prefer to operate in secrecy.

British officials were never accused directly of torture, but rather of turning a blind eye to the practices of the US and its Arab allies, and also of providing the intelligence upon which some maltreated individuals were quizzed. With such vague and unprovable connections, it was never likely there would be enough evidence to prosecute individual British agents. And so a three-year police investigation concluded yesterday. The outcome does not exonerate the British security services, but neither should all the charges made by terrorism suspects be accepted at face value.

More important even than the individual cases - appalling though they may be - is the unresolved suspicion that, despite an official position which repudiates torture, the secret services have been authorised to pursue dubious, complicit practices by those at the highest levels. That the orders might even have come from government ministers only adds to the pressure for answers.

There is an inquiry into the treatment of detainees that is due to begin under the chairmanship of a retired judge, Sir Peter Gibson, as soon as any potential court cases are held or dismissed. But several human rights groups - including Liberty and Amnesty International - are to boycott the proceedings, both because there will be no evidence from any alleged victims and because the Government will decide which parts of the inquiry should be held in secret. To restore the credibility of this all-important inquiry, the Prime Minister should look again at its terms of reference and make it more open.

Meanwhile, yesterday's decision from the police and Crown Prosecution Service to investigate allegations of the "rendition" of Libyan asylum-seekers back to Tripoli is to be applauded. There is certainly evidence that needs explanation. One of the dissidents handed over to Colonel Gaddafi's torturers was Abdel Hakim Belhaj, who later became one of the leaders of the independence movement which seized power in Libya last year. And when Gaddafi fell, documents discovered in Tripoli suggested his rendition may have been authorised by Sir Mark Allen, then MI6's head of counter-terrorism. That both Sir Mark and his boss, the then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, will be questioned by police, is only right.

That said, with the intelligence and political communities both gearing up to point the finger at each other, the Libyan rendition investigations may also struggle to reach a final conclusion. Equally, it may founder on legal distinctions between "extraordinary rendition" and "judicial rendition". Even more reason for the Gibson inquiry to be beefed up.

It is difficult to overstate the scale of what is at stake. As the Foreign Secretary has rightly observed, the allegations by themselves gravely undermine Britain's reputation as a country that upholds international law. The Deputy Prime Minister was yesterday insistent that the Government "completely condemns torture and inhumane treatment". But what is needed now is more than words. Disturbing questions have been raised about where Britain draws the line between decency and realpolitik. There may not be the evidence to prosecute British individuals, but Britain itself still stands accused. Between them, the courts and the Gibson inquiry must uncover the truth.

Britain's Reputation Is In The Dock Over Rendition

The European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday that Abu Qatada, a radical Islamic preacher regarded as one of Al Qaeda's spiritual leaders in Europe, cannot be deported from Britain to his native Jordan because his trial there would be tainted by evidence obtained by torture. 

The preacher, whose real name is Omar Mahmoud Mohammed Othman, is in custody in Britain and has been convicted in his absence in Jordan of two major terrorist conspiracies. The British government had insisted that he be returned as part of a wider strategy of dealing with international terrorism suspects by deportation.

Although it accepted Jordan's assurances that Mr. Othman would be treated humanely, the European court in Strasbourg, France, said in its ruling that "evidence of his involvement had been obtained by torturing one of his co-defendants." Deporting him would "legitimize the torture of witnesses and suspects," it said, and "result in a flagrant denial of justice." 

Britain's home secretary, Theresa May, said she was "disappointed" by the ruling, and that she would "consider all the legal options available." The government must appeal within three months or release Mr. Othman from custody. "It is important to note," Ms. May said, "that this ruling does not prevent us seeking to deport other foreign nationals."

Mr. Othman, 51, a father of five, has been sought by the authorities in nine countries, including the United States. Tapes of his sermons were found in the Hamburg apartment used by Mohammed Atta, one of the hijackers involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States, and a 2006 report by the Rand Corporation described him as "Al Qaeda's spiritual leader in Europe."

He initially sought asylum in Britain in 1993, saying that he had been tortured in Jordan, and was allowed to remain. 

The European court, and the legally binding European Convention on Human Rights, has been controversial in Britain and has often frustrated lawmakers here as a court of final appeal, superseding Britain's own Supreme Court. There have been frequent calls, particularly among conservatives, for Britain to decline to be bound by the convention. 

Britain Overruled on Abu Qatada, a Terrorism Suspect