Losing our values in the war on terror

“I never imagined I would live to see the day… One cannot find strong enough words to condemn what Britain and the United States have accepted… habeas corpus is part of our freedom…”

How humbling that it takes an African churchman from one of our former colonies, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to warn that Britain is tearing up centuries of civil liberties and squandering its moral authority by the way it conducts the war on terror at home and abroad.

Consider the events of a truly depressing week. Having failed so far in his attempt to tear up habeas corpus and jail suspects for 90 days without charge, Mr Blair is openly playing politics with terrorism.

While the Tories and Lib Dems press for a cross-party consensus on how to deal with the threat, the Prime Minister isn’t interested. Instead he insists on ill-judged shows of “toughness” designed to portray the Opposition as soft.

Why, for example, did he push through this week’s vote against the “glorification” of terror?Itwasn’t because thelaw needed to be changed. After all, Abu Hamza was jailed under existing legislation.

No, a Government that disgracefully ignored his sermons of hate for years just wanted to be seen doing something - the same motive that prompted its plans for ID cards, which probably won’t work.

The sadness is that Gordon Brown - who is untainted by the mendacity associated with Tony Blair - is lending his huge authority to this partisan charade. He talks of reviving 90 days’ detention, which reminds Archbishop Tutu of the apartheid regime.

These are grim developments at home. But what is happening abroad is infinitely more damaging. Remember how Mr Blair went to war in Iraq under the banner of justice, democracy and human rights? Now those values are flung back in our faces across the Islamic world, after those pictures of British troops abusing rioters and the even more sickening scenes of U.S. guards degrading prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

But these excesses pale to relative insignificance when compared with the contempt for morality and the basic principles of law shown by our American allies at Guantanamo Bay, where hundreds of suspects have been kept in ghastly conditions for four years without charge, trial or independent lawyers.

Britain’s response to this monumental aberration has been pitifully ambivalent. And the Bush administration? It just doesn’t get it. The cloth-eared Republicans in the White House don’t grasp the consequences. They refuse to listen when they are condemned by the UN. They don’t understand how they are shaming America. And they don’t care about the damage to Britain.

No, they continue to stir up Muslim hatred of the West, make a mockery of democratic values and encourage young hot-heads to flock to the terrorist cause. Osama bin Laden couldn’t have been handed a greater propaganda gift.

At least some British politicians see the dangers. In Washington, Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague warned America of the “critical erosion” of its moral authority.

But Mr Blair? The man who misled Britain into a disastrous war might go some way towards redeeming himself if he exerted his influence with the President to insist that America ends the disgrace of Guantanamo Bay.

Yet if influence exists, he doesn’t use it. Instead, he feebly suggests something should be done “sooner or later”.

So the abuse goes on. Britain is seen to share the shame. Enemies multiply. And the loudest defence of our most fundamental values comes not from politicians, but an African archbishop.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk