Tuesday, December 16, 2014

A SUSPICION OF RENDITION (our weekly poetry contribution)

A SUSPICION OF RENDITION

Details of Britain’s role in rendition and torture has been ‘redacted’
from the US Senate intelligence committee’s report--at the British
Government’s request on the convenient grounds of ‘national security’

Good British folk, with what one hears
It seems we’ve been deceived for years;
Our Government’s been in cahoots,
With CIA men in dark suits.  
In Freedom’s name they’d often spout,
Whilst others had their nails pulled out;
And then were left to unknown fates,
In foreign parts outside the States. 
Rendition’s what the US spins,
To hide a multitude of sins;
Whilst Britain (in one more cliché)
Attempts, ‘to look the other way’. 

Our betters on Westminster’s scene,
Have acted in ways quite obscene;
And smeared the word democracy,
With odious hypocrisy. 
And all the while that slimy clique,
Have acted squeaky-clean and meek;
Believing that by acting dumb,
We wouldn’t suss them out as scum. 
Our Government’s tried to suppress,
The whole rendition dirty mess;
And like dictators, act with ease,
At adding torture to their sleaze.

At centre stage, one Tony Blair,
Who flew upon a wing and prayer;
When sending troops into Iraq,
And now in turn could face the flak. (1)
And back stage, David Miliband,
Who claims he never had a hand;
In the rendition of a soul,
But followed normal protocol. 
And in the wings, a man of Straw,
Who swears he kept within the law;
The Labour Party’s ‘Jack the Lad’,
Who bleats that he did nothing bad.

Let’s hope their weasel words return,
To haunt their consciences and burn;
With thoughts of those they helped enslave,
Until they also reach their grave.

(1) Pressure is mounting for a full
enquiry into Labour’s role in rendition.

© Richard Layton


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