Responding to reports from Sky News, the Guardian newspaper and the BBC of a developing humanitarian crisis in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, a mixture of Labour, Liberal Democrat and independent members of parliament have supported an Early Day Motion that accuses US forces of involvement in a human rights atrocity.

Last week’s report from the BBC’s World Affairs Editor John Simpson was picked up by news outlets worldwide. While the report did not make a causal link between the use of uranium weapons and the subsequent rise in birth defects, it made clear that Iraqi medical staff suspect that the US’s use of toxic materials in its weapons is a possible cause of the health problems.

The story triggered a swift response from the US military, whose spokesperson claimed that they took claims about health problems “very seriously” but added: “No studies to date have indicated environmental issues resulting in specific health issues.” At no point did they deny using uranium weapons there. However, and in spite of several Freedom of Information requests, the US military is still refusng to disclose how much DU was fired in Fallujah, just as it is refusing to disclose how much was fired elsewhere in the country and where it was used. Unsurprisingly this makes it almost impossible to study whether these health problems are linked to uranium weapon exposure.

I saw John Simpson’s report on a BBC World programme hosted by Nik Gowing a few weeks ago. It was quite bizarre: Gowing spent the entire 5-7 minute slot trying to get Simpson to agree that the US wasn’t to blame. Simpson refused to get involved and simply discussed what he had seen and reported.

This post: "MPs put through Early Day Motion on Amer…" was originally posted at Talk Islam - a crescent waxing eloquent. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Talk Islam at http://talkislam.info/feed/

Self-proclaimed waterboarding fan Dick Cheney called it a no-brainer in a 2006 radio interview: Terror suspects should get a “a dunk in the water.” But recently released internal documents reveal the controversial “enhanced interrogation” practice was far more brutal on detainees than Cheney’s description sounds, and was administered with meticulous cruelty.

Interrogators pumped detainees full of so much water that the CIA turned to a special saline solution to minimize the risk of death, the documents show. The agency used a gurney “specially designed” to tilt backwards at a perfect angle to maximize the water entering the prisoner’s nose and mouth, intensifying the sense of choking – and to be lifted upright quickly in the event that a prisoner stopped breathing.

The documents also lay out, in chilling detail, exactly what should occur in each two-hour waterboarding “session.” Interrogators were instructed to start pouring water right after a detainee exhaled, to ensure he inhaled water, not air, in his next breath. They could use their hands to “dam the runoff” and prevent water from spilling out of a detainee’s mouth. They were allowed six separate 40-second “applications” of liquid in each two-hour session – and could dump water over a detainee’s nose and mouth for a total of 12 minutes a day. Finally, to keep detainees alive even if they inhaled their own vomit during a session – a not-uncommon side effect of waterboarding – the prisoners were kept on a liquid diet. The agency recommended Ensure Plus.

“This is revolting and it is deeply disturbing,” said Dr. Scott Allen, co-director of the Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights at Brown University who has reviewed all of the documents for Physicians for Human Rights. “The so-called science here is a total departure from any ethics or any legitimate purpose. They are saying, ‘This is how risky and harmful the procedure is, but we are still going to do it.’ It just sounds like lunacy,” he said. “This fine-tuning of torture is unethical, incompetent and a disgrace to medicine.”

It is doubtful anyone will ever be held accountable for these, or other, crimes (no ‘change’ there then).

Meanwhile, we will continue to cover up crimes committed by the US, and to try and deflect attention from the acts of torture in which we wilfully participated. Jack Straw denies all knowledge despite evidence showing otherwise. David Miliband had to be humiliated by the courts while trying to cover up torture. And now Eliza Manningham-Bullshitter, former head of MI5, denies all knowledge saying the Americans hid the evidence from the UK — which shows he was either unfit for the job (CIA planes passed through the UK and used British facilities) or too stupid to use a search engine (in which case she would also have been unfit for her former job).

This post: "Waterboarding for dummies: Self-proclaim…" was originally posted at Talk Islam - a crescent waxing eloquent. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Talk Islam at http://talkislam.info/feed/

This post: "If there’s a man writing for a British …" was originally posted at Talk Islam - a crescent waxing eloquent. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Talk Islam at http://talkislam.info/feed/

Dispatches does the Israel Lobby. Hurray!

Dispatches does a Muslim organisation. Booo.

This post: "Dispatches does mosques. Boooo. Dispatch…" was originally posted at Talk Islam - a crescent waxing eloquent. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Talk Islam at http://talkislam.info/feed/

This post: "MCB brings experts and parliamentarians …" was originally posted at Talk Islam - a crescent waxing eloquent. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Talk Islam at http://talkislam.info/feed/

The Archbishop of Canterbury has condemned evangelist “bulies” who attempt to convert people of other faiths to Christianity.

Dr Rowan Williams said it was right to be suspicious of proselytism that involves “bullying, insensitive approaches” to other faiths.

This post: "Rowan Williams has an argument which at …" was originally posted at Talk Islam - a crescent waxing eloquent. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Talk Islam at http://talkislam.info/feed/

Remember the “ricin plot” where there was no ricin, where the recipe which Kamel Bourgass had could not have produced ricin and where his plan, to smear it on doorknobs and car door handles wouldn’t have killed anyone as the poison needs to be either injected, ingested or inhaled to work? It was the first real “terror plot” post-9/11 in this country, came two months before the invasion of Iraq (in the context of which it was used by Colin Powell during his now notorious presentation to the UN), and the press coverage was massive in both response and in its hyperbole, the government doing its best to help it along by not bothering to inform anyone until Bourgass’ trial was over that there had been no ricin after all.

You would then expect a case where ricin actually was found to provoke a similar media response. After all, while ricin is not the most deadly of potential “biological/chemical” warfare poisons, it is still usually deadly when used “properly”, as in the assassination of Georgi Markov, a cold war precursor to the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.

It’s strange then that almost no coverage whatsoever has been given to the case of Ian Davison, although perhaps that name itself somewhat gives the game away.

I noticed that the Jihad Jane story was on the front of major British news outlets. Yet the arrest of Crusader Christopher wasn’t on the front page (and still isn’t) despite: a. the regional nature of the threat compared to someone tapping from their computer in the US; and b. the fact that ricin and handbooks on making bombs (i.e. ‘terrorist materials’) were actually found in his possession (unlike in the case of a number of high-profile, non-white, terrorists).

If this doesn’t highlight the racism of the British press, nothing short of headlines screaming “Kill All Pakis” ever will.

This post: "British newspapers ‘racially profile’ …" was originally posted at Talk Islam - a crescent waxing eloquent. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Talk Islam at http://talkislam.info/feed/

This post: "Some Tories seem keen to adopt the tacti…" was originally posted at Talk Islam - a crescent waxing eloquent. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Talk Islam at http://talkislam.info/feed/

“God bless the Muslims… they’ll need it when they burn in fucking hell.”

Bolton Council has also asked the Home Secretary to ban the planned EDL rally in the city.

This post: "The words of one Guramit Singh of Nottin…" was originally posted at Talk Islam - a crescent waxing eloquent. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Talk Islam at http://talkislam.info/feed/

This post: "Interesting piece from Paul Sagar (a blo…" was originally posted at Talk Islam - a crescent waxing eloquent. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Talk Islam at http://talkislam.info/feed/