Irony: Dead Again

Tom Lehrer said that irony was dead when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

But it seems there's always time for irony to die another small death. Like today. Here's the BBC headline: US demands full Syrian withdrawal.

Yes, George's strange sense of geography has given him a different idea of where the moral low ground is to the rest of us.

US President George W Bush has demanded Syria's complete withdrawal of troops from neighbouring Lebanon by May.

There's more:

He said: "The subject that is most on my mind right now is getting Syria out of Lebanon, and I don't mean just the troops out of Lebanon, I mean all of them out of Lebanon, particularly the secret service out of Lebanon - the intelligence services.

"This is non-negotiable. It is time to get out... I think we've got a good chance to achieve that objective and to make sure that the May elections [in Lebanon] are fair. I don't think you can have fair elections with Syrian troops there."

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Does this remind anyone of anything?

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Clue:

try swapping "US" for "Syria" and inserting "Iraq" where it says "Lebanon". Oh and change "the May elections" to "the 30 January elections".

Oh yes. We have heard it before. Just not from George Bush. The man is breathtaking.

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Asked if there was a threat of military action if Syria did not comply, Mr Bush said: "My last choice is military."

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Hmm. Hasn't taken him too long to get round to his "last choice" lately.

Now I'm no fan of the Syrian regime, but two things spring to mind. One is that Bush sounds like he's spoiling for war again - so NO to that.

The other is that Bush is unlikely to give a toss about the crimes of the Syrian regime against the Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinians or anyone else: his dad certainly didn't and happily signed Syria up as an ally in the 1991 Gulf War.

Oh, and there's this.

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A former CIA official has confirmed suspicions that dozens of terror suspects have been flown to jails in Middle Eastern countries where torture is routinely practised, and without reference to courts of law.

Michael Scheuer, who once headed the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and left the CIA last November after a 22-year career, said the practice, known as "extraordinary rendition", was seen by the US as a key tactic in its war on terror.

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Want to guess the name of one of the friendly countries the US has sent people off to for torture?

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Mr Scheuer was among other ex-CIA officers who told File On 4 that as well as sending people to Guantanamo Bay, both the CIA and the US military were sending dozens of others to prisons in countries such as Jordan, Syria and Egypt.

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You guessed, then.

By Run over by the Truth