Double standards - and an interesting coincidental revelation

The British soldiers returned by the Iranians are now relating their experiences. They were not very nice to put it at its mildest. Disgraceful in fact. Shock and horror by the Brits and others how their nationals were treated. But, wait a minute, rendition and all the other physical and mental abuse to which Iraqis and others are subjected, daily, is part of the US and British "way of doing things" for those captured and alleged to be terrorists. We have all the hallmarks of double standards at play here. But then, those Arabs are barbaric and we Westerners are civilised.

As coincidence will have it AlterNet has a piece about a former American military man and private contractor captured in Iraq by the US on the alleged grounds of "aiding terrorists" - and subjected to all the sort of "punishment" we know all too well the US and Brits undertake.

"A year ago, Donald Vance learned what its like to be falsely accused by the U.S. military of aiding terrorists. He was held without charge for more than three months in a high-security prison in Iraq, and interrogated daily after sleepless nights without legal counsel or even a phone call to his family.

On Wednesday, the former private security contractor was honored for his ordeal in Washington and for speaking out against the incident. At a luncheon at the National Press Club, Vance received the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling, an award named in memory of Army helicopter gunner Ron Ridenhour who struggled to bring the horrific mass murders at My Lai to the attention of Congress and the Pentagon during the Vietnam War.

Vance was joined by former president Jimmy Carter, who won a lifetime achievement award, and journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran of The Washington Post who was recognised for his recent book, "Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone".

As hundreds at the luncheon finished their lobster salad, Vance, a two-time George W. Bush voter and Navy veteran, recounted the events of his imprisonment and the grief of his fiancé and family. They did not know if he was alive or dead, he said. They were already making inquiries to the U.S. State Department on how to ship his body home.

He then drew a wider circle around his ordeal to include the countless others who have been held falsely without charge and denied normal legal constitutional protections under law. "My name used to be 200343," Vance said recalling his prisoner ID. "If they can do this to a former Navy man and an American, what is happening to people in facilities all over the world run by the American government?"

Vance's nightmare began last year on Apr. 15 when he and co-worker Nathan Ertel barricaded themselves in a Baghdad office after their employer, an Iraqi private security firm, took away their ID tags. They feared for their lives because they suspected the company was involved in selling unauthorised guns on the black market and other nefarious activity. A U.S. military squad freed them from the red zone in Baghdad after a friend at the U.S. embassy advised him to call for help."

Read on here to complete the narrative - and then reflect, again, on how the Iranians treated those 15 British soldiers......