Rumsfeld Investigates Self, Finds No Wrong-doing.

Unsurprisingly, the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defence (Donald Rumsfeld) has found that no evidence remained on the Australian Guantanamo Bay detainees that could be not denied as torture or abuse after allegations by Hick’s lawyer, parents and British detainees.

Unsurprisingly, the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defence (Donald Rumsfeld) has found that no evidence remained on the Australian Guantanamo Bay detainees that could be not denied as torture or abuse after allegations by Hick’s lawyer, parents and British detainees. Also unsurprisingly, the Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, having been happy to be the U.S. regional “sheriff” (if Australia is the sheriff, does that make the U.S. a feudal king in Bush’s eyes?) accepted the assurances of the secretary of defence investigating his own department and finding no wrongs. This is in the context that the Australian government knew that prisoners were being abused in Iraq and Afghanistan in June 2003.

To be clear, it could well be that indeed the allegations of abuse are baseless, however for the Australian government to accept the word of an official who has been criticised and alleged to be complicit in abuse of prisoners smacks of incredulity. It places into sharp relief the secrecy and lack of transparency that the Bush administration has engaged in, with the intention to elevate the workings of government into an unreachable, unassailable position of privilege and power. The Howard government feebly attempts to follow suit in a display of brown-nosing colonialist deference.