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Foreign Affairs and Defence

I do, indeed, have in mind those reports, which have been in the public domain for some time. I also wish to say a word about our relationship with the United States. The Gracious Speech talks of strengthening and deepening relations between the US and the European Union, and I am all for that. However, we should not appease the US when it does things of which we do not approve. Occasionally, we have to stand up to the US and, I am glad to say, we do from time to time. I remember not long ago that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary stood very firm when the US tried to kibosh the International Criminal Court. It backed down; that is the point. The other members of the international community stood up to the US and my right hon. Friend played a leading part in that. The US backed down when confronted. We should do that a bit more. Also, we should not turn a blind eye to the indiscriminate killing of civilians that, in my experience, has been a feature of all American military activity, and is a feature of such action in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I noticed the other day that even President Karzai of Afghanistan—there is no more loyal ally of the US—spoke out about the indiscriminate nature of American military activity. I am glad that we worked hard to rescue the half-dozen or so British citizens who were interned at Guantanamo Bay. However, some people who have been resident in Britain for a very long time—not citizens—are also there. We have no legal obligation to help retrieve them, but we have a moral obligation to do what we can, not least because I think that our security services may have had something to do with getting them into Guantanamo Bay in the first place. I hope that we will continue to pursue those cases. I am also concerned at increasing reports about a secret gulag into which terrorist suspects disappear. They are being ghosted round the world and, in some cases, torture is contracted out to third countries. Egypt and Syria have been mentioned. Some of these people are completely innocent and appear again looking dazed and confused nine months later without any question of due process having taken place. We should not turn a blind eye to that, and I believe that the Americans have a word for it.