Are We Paranoid Enough?

I got my monthly copy of Amnesty International (AI) today. I'm a subscriber and Urgent Action team member, which means basically I get a lot of personal anger-management therapy out of writing exquisitely polite letters to, for instance, the Minister For Prisons in Beijing. I read the mag, I get incensed - in fact, I fulminate - then I spend an hour writing earnest letters/emails/faxes to people who I know damn well will ingore me. But I feel I've done my bit, and I think overall there's a net anger-loss at the end of it. Everyone's a winner.

So there I was today, getting angrier and angrier as usual, when I stumbled on an article entitled "The global detention network". There's been quite a lot of this on the news recently in the UK; tales of the CIA spiriting "prisoners" through participating countries without any such minor inconveniences as warrants, extradition papers, or trials. I didn't find that too hard to believe. The BBC is hardly a hysterical left-wing mouthpiece after all (although I believe Mr. Rumsfeldt disagrees), and the CIA aren't exactly famed for their transparency and adherence to international law (ahem! poisoned bidets). I wasn't really prepared for the extent of it all, though. I didn't realise that, effectively, America rules the world - I used to think America just owned it.

The visual impact of the map is chastening, certainly for the average American. Countries marked in red are countries which "host 'war on terror' detention centres", and this roll of honour comprises Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and - the USA. It must be galling for Americans to find themselves in such company; Europeans, both Old and New, don't want to dirty their hands with it, at least not in public, and recently the UK ruled that evidence obtained by torture, even in another country, was inadmissable as evidence in a British Court. I don't often find myself agreeing with Law Lords (in the dictionary under "grotesque old anachronisms"), but I'm 100% behind this decision.

It was an interesting article and I urge anyone who wants to know more to go to www.amnesty.org.uk and read it. For me, the "War on Terror" as waged by Bush, Blair and Co. has been disappointing to the point of making me weep. Yes, it must be hard to strike a balance between the human rights we (as democratic countries) claim we're fighting for, and the need to prevent another 7/7 or 9/11, but to have so quickly sank to the level of the "enemy" and so flagrantly broken our own laws is a tragedy. I believe the first half of the 21st century will be defined by the failure of "The West" to respond in a civilised manner to acts of terror. Then we can all get down to eco-doom and water-wars as climatologists and the Seventh Day Adventists keep warning us.

But it certainly gives you food for thought; the CIA, it appears, can scoop a person up and deposit them, via a torturer's cell in Afghanistan, in Gunatanamo Bay. And by the way, if you hear of my sudden disappearance then please write C/O Mr. Rumsfeldt...... But enough of this sedition; what worries me is, if the CIA can, then who else can? Certainly the CIA is very powerful and has a lot of money, but they're hardly known for - well - efficiency, are they? What about Mossad, for example; they're supposed to be pretty skilful, aren't they? And no-one's going to tell me the KGB have all retired to daschas on the Black Sea and taken up philateley..... well, you could try, but I wouldn't believe it.

Also, when you look into some of the actual cases of people "abducted" by the CIA; it seems to be enough to have an Arabic name and be a bit critical of the US. Or just being in the wrong place at the right time can do it. As I mentioned in earlier posts, 9/11 is my birthday, so I always feel a bit snooped-upon; Urban Legend has it that 9/11 is one of those CIA internet "trips" which trigger a listener (hi Cecil!). According to AI, seven people were "tortured to death" in US custody. They cite their sources as AI itself, Human Rights First (formerly the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights) and Human Rights Watch. I'd be intersted to know (and next time I visit "Alternet" I'll ask, because they seem to have a well-informed readership) what US Law has to say about evidence obtained under torture; they (the government, I mean) must surely be relying heavily on it if they ever intend to bring the Guantamo Bay detainees to trial.

Just an afterthought. Given the choice, I'd far rather be abducted by aliens than by the CIA. I believe that I could start some kind of dialogue with any life-form which could undertsand Pythagoras' Theorem, and I can draw that with a stick and some sand. I don't think I'd have that much in common with a CIA operative.

"I'm going to rip your head off and drink your fluids!"

So said my four-year-old daughter the other day, much to my horror and dismay. Like any good (or at any rate peer-pressured) parent, I obsessed about where she could possibly have picked up such a repulsive and scary concept. Could it be the girl next door? Have I been talking in my sleep again? Maybe I'd misheard. "What sort of fluids?" I asked. "Blood! Brain juice!" She returned, with such obvious glee I felt like sending her to the nearest Catholic priest and asking for an exorcism. It turned out to be a line from "Shrek", of all things - apparently the single line in the whole first film she liked enough to memorise.

Since she learned to use the DVD player I've had to be very careful indeed. My collection of 80's hack-and-slay movies are hidden in the bedroom, but she still ocasionally gets one over on me. A month or so ago I got up at about 8.00 a.m. to find her lying on the couch with a bowl of mini-sausages and relish watching "Interview With The Vampire". The final credits were rolling, complete with "Sympathy for the Devil" - she pointed casually at the screen with a relishy sausage and commented "That man's a vampire, he's going to bite that other man. We've got this song on the computer, haven't we?"

Her latest exploit was with "Shaun and the Dead" - this is a very funny British zombie flick; if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it (but possibly not for the under-5s). Anyhow, I thought I was pretty safe with this one; for starters it was on a white read/write DVD with no markings whatever, for seconds it was about the fifth item on the index, and for thirds the DVD player belongs to my partner and all the onscreen instructions are in French. So it was a great surprise to me when, stumbling through the lounge en route to a cup of tea yesterday morning, I heard my little angel say (with fairly mild curiosity now I come to think of it) "Mama, why is that man eating that other man's stomach?". "Entrails!" I corrected her sternly, before realising what was going on and lunging for the remote control.

It doesn't help that my particular area of interest fiction-wise is horror, SF and fantasy. I have a lot of books, and a lot of them have very odd covers indeed. Occasionally my girl will come wandering in with a book and ask "Who's that, Mama?", I'll throw a casual glance and a sentence like "It's the Demon Asmodeus and it's mine, now put it back" will escape me before I realise what I'm saying, let alone who I'm saying it to. My partner tells me that she'll need years of therapy to get over a childhood like this, although I personally think that's a bit rich coming from a man who spent considerable time and effort convincing her he's a vampire. Although I must admit she's liked him a lot better since, though what that says about her (and him) is perhaps a bit worrying.

So I'm slowly coming round to the opinion that any fairly bright child will unerringly pick out the most embarrassing and/or inexplicable part of any material available to them and repeat it at the most embarrassing possible moment. If we had any maiden aunts, she'd talk about monkeys having sex on the Discovery Channel; if the Vicar ever came round for tea, it'd be Modern Satanism. There was a "Show and Tell" at her school last week, and I let her take in one of my many statuettes of Buddha. "And is your Mummy a Buddhist?" inquired her First Grade teacher innocently. "Oh no, my mum's a witch," replied my lovely little girl. There goes my nomination for School Governor then.