"ordinary decent Arabs have no time for them."
The Arab spring still hangs in the balance.
There has been open fighting between Christians and Muslims in Egypt, Yemen is heavily influenced by Muslim extremism, Syria and Bahrain is resisting any reforms with extreme violence (the latter with British trained special forces), Gadaffi is still hanging on by his fingernails in Libya, not one country so far is in a position to plan a future and the religious militants are waiting in the wings for a chance to jump into the gap.
Nothing has been "achieved" yet.
"There has been no outcry over his killing"
Nor has there been any support for it - which is probably much more significant.
Everything hangs in the balance and to claim it doesn't is sheer, arrogantly stupid complacency - our behaviour, past and present, has meant that we really don't have many friends, "ordinary decent" or otherwise" in the Arab world, (except a handful of feudal despots, ex-rulers or deposed) and the training of the special forces of feudal regimes or the killing and maiming of civilians isn't going to win us too many.
"A lesson for Ireland's dissidents"
And for those who have attempted to suppress any calls for change militarily and with extreme force, such as the shooting down unarmed demonstrators, the Diplock Courts, and the jailing of innocents who would undoubtedly have been executed had we still retained the quaint old custom of capital punishment.
"You have a great gift for twisting anything"
And you have a great gift for avoiding the real issues by putting up straw men and arguing against something that has not been suggested; this is the nearest you have come to admitting that torture has even happened, and you have yet to recognise that Guantanamo even exists, let alone condemning it.
I caught the end of a feature film called 'Special Rendition' last night which depicted a British Asian being picked up on the streets somewhere in Southern England by American and British agents, flown to an unnamed country and tortured until he signed a confession for something he knew nothing about - a work of fiction, but claimed to have been based on an actual event. The message flashed up on the screen at the end was that there have been over 1,100 such cases of 'suspects' having been taken by CIA and British agents and sent abroad since 2002 - this is the reputation that goes before you and which you need to openly discuss.
Jim Carroll