It seems that the British legal system and more recently the Ministry of Defence (MoD) seem to have forgotten the prognosis of unethical bias that exists in carrying out investigations into your own institution.
The MoD is conducting an investigation to cast light on the authenticity of the Daily Mirror’s photographs which allegedly are of British soldiers abusing Iraq prisoners.
Today however, Lord Hutton announced that he “rejects” the claims that his report was a whitewash favouring the Government, he claimed he had "reflected" on claims it was a "whitewash" but "was still of the view that I was right".
The governments internal “Butler inquiry”, intended to quell the criticism of Hutton’s report into the government is yet another example of internal bias that every institution investigating its own faults will meet.
Surely if you intend to examine evidence within the confines of your own resources, whether they are MoD laboratories or a legal system governed by close friends to the government, the results of your investigation are going to be affected by your own association, let alone your own personal bias towards that institution.
Yet, not in defence of the Daily Mirrors photographs, the evidence does largely suggest that they are fake, yet that’s not the issue; the issue is whether and why institutions in the UK can get away with conducting investigations into allegations aimed at themselves and provide evidence to the contrary. Then this evidence provided is accepted as read by fifty percent of the public or hailed as a ‘whitewash’; only, its got a legal stamp and been proved in a court of law so cannot be disapproved.
The other explanation is that the MoD and the government have something to hide. If this weren’t true there would be nothing to stop other institutions being allowed access to the investigation techniques that MoD will employ this Thursday.
The Butler Inquiry is due to be completed and its results not even available for public inspection, indicating that the government can escape from criticism untarnished, yet again.
This proves, that the UK lacks an independent inquiry bureau, an establishment that should exist, to provide balanced reports into the affairs of government and other major institutions. This is must be brought about as it appears, such institutions can no longer be trusted to administer themselves and provide objective criticism of its own handling of events.
The MoD is conducting an investigation to cast light on the authenticity of the Daily Mirror’s photographs which allegedly are of British soldiers abusing Iraq prisoners.
Today however, Lord Hutton announced that he “rejects” the claims that his report was a whitewash favouring the Government, he claimed he had "reflected" on claims it was a "whitewash" but "was still of the view that I was right".
The governments internal “Butler inquiry”, intended to quell the criticism of Hutton’s report into the government is yet another example of internal bias that every institution investigating its own faults will meet.
Surely if you intend to examine evidence within the confines of your own resources, whether they are MoD laboratories or a legal system governed by close friends to the government, the results of your investigation are going to be affected by your own association, let alone your own personal bias towards that institution.
Yet, not in defence of the Daily Mirrors photographs, the evidence does largely suggest that they are fake, yet that’s not the issue; the issue is whether and why institutions in the UK can get away with conducting investigations into allegations aimed at themselves and provide evidence to the contrary. Then this evidence provided is accepted as read by fifty percent of the public or hailed as a ‘whitewash’; only, its got a legal stamp and been proved in a court of law so cannot be disapproved.
The other explanation is that the MoD and the government have something to hide. If this weren’t true there would be nothing to stop other institutions being allowed access to the investigation techniques that MoD will employ this Thursday.
The Butler Inquiry is due to be completed and its results not even available for public inspection, indicating that the government can escape from criticism untarnished, yet again.
This proves, that the UK lacks an independent inquiry bureau, an establishment that should exist, to provide balanced reports into the affairs of government and other major institutions. This is must be brought about as it appears, such institutions can no longer be trusted to administer themselves and provide objective criticism of its own handling of events.
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Culture of Secrecy
13.05.2004 12:26
With this secrecy of course comes a feeling of superiority, a born-to-rule mentality that, with all the best will in the world, has clung on tenaciously in these Isles. When will we have a proper representative democracy that involves more of the people instead of a cosseted and precious few? And why do those who are often mere pawns in the game in British society look up to those who could care less about them?
We need a democratic revolution, a genuine revolution involving ordinary people. A revolution involving, quite simply, a more fair and equitable redistribution of resources, not in some hippy-dippy or airy-fairy way, but in a way that makes us more, not less, equal. This revolution would be about a fairer taxation system, a higher minimum wage, a sense of genuine egalitarianism and building a better Britain, a fairer national state pension, a crackdown on business corruption of every kind, a culture of low prices and high standards of living for all, to mention a few things. This is the country, this is the world I want to live in.
When ordinary people, in the best sense of the word, start to challenge injustice, even in their own very personal lives, we make a step nearer to that society. The bell tolls for you too.
Timbo
Operation Broken Mirror.
14.05.2004 01:25
The issue is in fact less that Ministry of Defence investigates allegations aimed at themselves and provides evidence to the contrary, than that the MoD aims the allegations and provides the false evidence for themselves to disprove.
What follows could have been predicted from the first stories questioning the authenticity of the photographs. Adam Ingram tells Commons that 'the very high name of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment has been dragged through the mud by the Mirror.' It's reiterated that Blair and Hoon called upon editor Piers Morgan to resign as soon as the MoD revealed the photographs to have been falsified by the British Army.
And, as seen above, even critically-minded journalists read directly from the script of another British counterintelligence press manipulation, continuing to entitle the Army's theatrical production as 'the Daily Mirror's photographs.'
Martin