Yesterday's terrorist, today's hero

[David Johnson]

There is increasing evidence emerging of MI6 involvement in rendition and torture of Libyan dissidents.

One Libyan who was a leading member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting group, alledgedly, with connections to al Qaeda, was captured in Bangkok in 2004, handed over to the CIA and flown back to Tripoli for interrogation. The Libyan, in question, said that British spies interrogated him during a period when he was tortured and imprisoned until earlier this year.

THe Libyan concerned, is Abdul Hakim Belhaj, the current rebel Security Commander in Tripoli, feted by Cameron in his speech in Paris last week, as a hero with the rest of the rebel forces.

I think we have been here before. Training and arming the Taliban to fight the Russkis and then finding out the Taliban were not necessarily our greatest allies.

But that's the world of terrorism for you. Terrorist one week, noble hero the next. It's so much more straightforward in those John Wayne films.

Cheers
D

[spider]

I like the way language is corrupted to meet the particular policy the Politician is pushing at the time.

For instance, Iraqis and Afghanis? fighting against the occupying forces (Americans and British) are ?insurgents?.

Frenchmen and Norwegians fighting against the occupying forces (Germans in WW2) are ?resistance fighters?.

[max_tranmere]

Hi David,

There have been a number of cases of 'yesterdays terrorist, todays hero'. For example: Nelson Mandela, several Nationalist politicans in Northern Ireland, the Eureka Stockade guy in Australia, and many others. If something has a political dimension then the person involved will always be despised by some for what they do and worshipped by others for doing it.

[David Johnson]

"If something has a political dimension then the person involved will always be despised by some for what they do and worshipped by others for doing it."

True. But in the case I write about those that despise and those that support are the same people just at different times.

CHeers
D

[Jonone]

Postmodernism for you - ambivalence !

[Gusset Sniffer]

The current rebel leader, Abdulhakim Belhaj (aka Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi) is in fact an LIFG founding member, with combat experience in Afghanistan against the Russians, he was also involved in fighting US troops there in 2001, he was held by the CIA, then the Libyan government before taking command of NATO-backed rebels in Libya.

What a bunch of fuckin hypocrites we Brits are !innocent!

[bamboo]

It's the same in 'proper' wars as well.

Good old courageous Stalin, standing up to the evil Hun, as one of the allies. Russian convoys etc..
The enemy of my enemy and all that.

War's over, then two minutes later, he's the evil sonofabitch, who killed millions of his own people.

[Arginald Valleywater]

I love politics!!

[one eyed jack]

I was watching a recent documentary about 9/11 where the former chief of MI5 denied they ever used torture in their interrogation of terrorist suspects and that terrorists if spoken to politely were very willing to discuss things in a civil manner

Yeah right

I find that very hard to believe as my first question in an interrogation would've been the most obvious

Wheres Osama?

Funny when she said that she hardly batted an eyelid

[frankthring]

Rendition is a dirty business as, I guess, are most things connected with
spying and undercover ops. I am unhappy about Britain doing any of
America`s dirty work for it. But it is the job of our intelligence services to
think of this country`s interests first. At the time you refer, David, it seems
likely that our Brit spymasters had good reasons for wanting to quiz this
guy with terrorist leanings.....As you say, the trouble is that in the world
of espionage and realpolitik one day`s enemy is tomorrow`s friend - and
vice versa. Biggest problem is the Middle East generally where the long-
term outcome of any of these recent "revolutions" is so uncertain. At the
start of the Egyptian one I warned it was "goodbye" cheap hols and
"hello" fundamentalists. It has edged that way but gradually as the army
re-asserts control, but could still go arse-up. None of us can really predict
how the region will pan in five years or less.