mostly nuggets

blessed britons

The UK government agreed diplomatic assurances [that torture would not be applied] contained in “memoranda of understanding” with Jordan, Libya and Lebanon - all countries with a known pattern of torture... Britain is eager to agree assurances with Algeria, and remains in discussion with Egypt and other countries...
The countries with which the UK is discussing or has agreed diplomatic assurances have already signed up to the Convention against Torture - which they flout. In effect, they are being asked to say: “On this occasion, with this detainee, we will refrain from committing crimes which we secretly commit, despite legally binding commitments, on a regular basis.”

— Human Rights Watch

mad world

The free trade agreements, in effect, make unlawful all statutes and regulations that restrict private capital in any way. Carried to full realization, this means the end of whatever imperfect democratic protections the populace has been able to muster after generations of struggle in the realm of public policy. Under the free trade agreements any and all public services can be ruled out of existence because they cause “lost market opportunities” for private capital. So too public hospitals can be charged with taking away markets from private hospitals; and public water supply systems, public schools, public libraries, public housing and public transportation are guilty of depriving their private counterparts of market opportunities...

— Michael Parenti

Globalisation and Democracy

totally implausible

Submitted by antarchi on February 23, 2008 - 10:37.

Carne Ross, a key Foreign Office diplomat responsible for monitoring UN arms inspections in Iraq, said in 2005 that British government claims about Iraq's weapons programme had been "totally implausible". Ross told the Guardian:
"I'd read the intelligence on WMD for four and a half years, and there's no way that it could sustain the case that the government was presenting. All of my colleagues knew that, too." (Richard Norton-Taylor, 'WMD claims were "totally implausible",' The Guardian, June 20, 2005)